There was to be no fairy-tale ending, no cause for further fawning adulation. The wrong man won the British Grand Prix, sending tens of thousands of adoring
Lewis Hamilton fans home disappointed after what had been billed as the McLaren man's triumphant homecoming went awry.
Starting from the pole he earned in stunning circumstances on Saturday afternoon, Hamilton held the early advantage, cutting sharply in front of the equally fast-starting Raikkonen and then jinking back to the outside in order to take his line through Copse, coincidentally blocking the Finn for a second time after he had looked for an alternative route around the
McLaren.
Fernando Alonso duly slotted into third from the same position on the grid, but already the opposition to Hamilton had been reduced, after
Felipe Massa stalled on the grid, aborting the first start. The Brazilian was wheeled into pit-lane as the field made its way around a second warm-up lap, rejoining at the tail of the pack before making rapid progress towards the points.
Nick Heidfeld made one of the better starts, catapulting his
BMW Sauber from ninth to fifth, before being demoted one spot by
Giancarlo Fisichella at Club. Countryman
Ralf Schumacher, meanwhile, had gone in the opposite direction, dropping to eighth, while
Mark Webber got the better of Schumacher's
Toyota team-mate
Jarno Trulli to move into the top ten.
By the end of lap one, Massa had made up four spots to be running in 18th place, and his progress continued, with another two places on the next lap and one thereafter until he broke into the tail end of the points, underlining the pace of the
Ferrari that Raikkonen was unable to show as he chased in Hamilton's wake.
