Lewis Hamilton gave the slavering home crowd and media something to warm themselves with at a cold and wet
Silverstone by crushing the opposition in a weather-affected British Grand Prix.
Pilloried in the run-up to the event, the
McLaren driver showed where his talents really lie by vaulting from fourth to second on lap one at Copse, and waiting just a handful more laps to scythe past pole-winning team-mate
Heikki Kovalainen and claim a lead he would not lose over the remainder of the race, despite the best efforts of the weather gods.
While the Briton pulled further and further ahead of the field, his closest challengers - both in the race and the championship - self-destructed in the rapidly-changing conditions. Even when light rain gave way to a downpour, Hamilton maintained his composure, refused to go on to the extreme wet tyres and cruised to victory by more than a minute.
Nick Heidfeld proved to be Hamilton's closest rival, pulling off the moves of the race to climb up to second place, while
Honda used the extreme wets to elevate
Rubens Barrichello into a podium position, even though a refuelling problem threatened to cost the Brackley team an unlikely result.
Ferrari suffered something of a nightmare, with
Felipe Massa seemingly unable to apply the throttle without spinning and
Kimi Raikkonen undone by a strategic error that saw him remain on his original set of tyres after his first pit-stop just as he had closed on to the tail of the leading Mclaren. With conditions worsening, the Finn had to stop early second time around, at the cost of a decent result.
The world champion recovered to fourth by the chequered flag, having overcome a stubborn
Fernando Alonso, who eventually took sixth, as Kovalainen also squeezed by in the last couple of laps.
Jarno Trulli and
Kazuki Nakajima completed the scorers simply by dint of making fewer errors than their rivals, swapping positions on the final lap, alhtough neither was blemish-free on a tough day.
Full report and result to follow....
