Britain's Lewis Hamilton has won his home grand prix once again, with Mercedes dominating the race

Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix for a record sixth time.

The world champion took advantage of a safety car 20 laps into the race to emerge ahead of his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas and extend his world championship lead to 39 points.

The victory – Hamilton’s seventh in 10 races – was celebrated wildly by a partisan crowd of 141,000, a Silverstone high.

There was some thrilling racing, especially in the first half of the afternoon. Verstappen and Leclerc close danced again and again. Both raced beautifully.

Clearly Leclerc, who missed out on his maiden win in Austria a fortnight ago when passed by Verstappen, had learned his lesson and was determined to get his elbows out.

Hamilton tried to pass Bottas on track but could not pass the pole man, having started second himself. Both, again, played it hard but fair. They traded places on lap four. Hamilton ducked inside at Brooklands before taking the lead on the outside at Luffield. Bottas, however, had the tighter line and reclaimed the advantage on the drag into Copse.

The standard of fare was a tribute to Silverstone a few days after the deal to save the British Grand Prix until 2024 was struck between the circuit’s owners, the British Racing Drivers’ Club and Formula One’s owners, Liberty Media.

Lando Norris was 11th for McLaren, while his fellow British debutant George Russell was 14th for Williams, a career best.

It lifted Hamilton ahead of Jim Clark and Alain Prost, both of whom won the race on five occasions. He was presented with the old Royal Automobile Club cup on the grey afternoon at the Northamptonshire circuit.

Hamilton set a track record fastest lap on his final lap.

Bottas was second, 24.9 sec behind with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc third.

There was plenty of incident in the race. The biggest moment came on lap 38 after Max Verstappen passed Sebastian Vettel at Stowe. The move was clean. Inexplicably Vettel then drove into the back of the Dutchman coming into Vale.

‘What the f***,’ said Verstappen. ‘What was he doing.’

They both tumbled off track. Vettel was awarded a 10-second penalty for his indiscretion. It raises further doubts over his form and mindset. The mistakes are adding up and he now trails Hamilton by 101 points.

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