Lewis Hamilton wins record-equaling fifth British Grand Prix to cut Sebastian Vettel's championship lead to one point

The Brit led every lap guiding his Mercedes home first with teammate Valtteri Bottas second and title rival Vettel a lowly seventh after a late puncture

Lewis Hamilton led from lights to flag to throw the championship wide open (Getty)

Lewis Hamilton has won the British Grand Prix for a record-equaling fifth time.

Starting from pole position the Brit led every lap guiding his Mercedes home first with teammate Valtteri Bottas coming in second after late tyre drama for Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

The Finn finished third while teammate Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton's chief rival in the world championship standings, suffered a late puncture to slip from fourth to seventh cutting his lead to a solitary point ahead of the summer break.

Bottas started ninth but stormed back through the field, including a pass on Vettel with eight laps remaining to the delight of the partisan crowd.

Hamilton's win, a fourth in a row at Silverstone, sees him join two-time world champion Jim Clark and four-time champ Alain Prost with five victories.

The 32-year-old faced a backlash for missing a promotional event in London earlier this week, preferring to take a two-day break on the Greek island of Mykonos with his friends instead.

But after such a crushing display Hamilton will feel as though his decision has been vindicated, with his victory here helping to get his stuttering championship charge firmly back on track.

Hamilton blasted out of his marks to leave a stream of red in his Mercedes mirrors with Raikkonen, Vettel and the fast-starting Max Verstappen jostling for position. Verstappen managed to get the jump on Vettel to demote the championship leader to fourth.


 Hamilton led every lap of the race in front of his home crowd 
 (Getty)

Behind the front-runners Daniil Kvyat is a man under pressure at Toro Rosso and he will have done little to ease the uncertainty surrounding his future after he punted his team-mate Carlos Sainz out of the race.

Kvyat put two wheels on to the dirt through the super-fast Becketts section, and with his car unhinged, he thudded into Sainz's car. The damage sustained by Sainz was terminal, but Kvyat managed to get to the end of the race. He was given a drive-through penalty for his error however.


 Hamilton dominated the weekend 
 (Getty)

The collision on lap two led to the safety car being deployed to deal with the debris, and Sainz's abandoned Toro Rosso. At the end of lap five the safety car was in, and Hamilton led the field away.

Hamilton was in cruise control but Verstappen was left fending off the challenge of Vettel for third. On lap 13, the two came within inches of a collision as Vettel attempted to pass Verstappen through Stowe and then Club, but the Dutchman held firm.

"He wants to play bumper cars," Verstappen said over the team radio. Vettel wagged his hand at the teenager, but said nothing over the radio.


 Vettel was forced into a costle late stop 
 (Getty)

Seven laps later however Vettel got his man by virtue of pitting one lap later and leapfrogging the Red Bull.

Hamilton stopped for his one and only change of tyres at the end of lap 25 and left the pits in charge of the race. That looked to be that, before the race came to life in the closing moments.

First, Bottas stormed round the outside of Vettel on the Hangar Straight to move up to third. He quickly took second place as Raikkonen suffered a front-left puncture.


 Hamilton closed the gap on Vettel to just one point 
 (Getty)

Vettel, also struggling with his tyres, suffered the same fate as his Ferrari team-mate on the penultimate lap. The crowd cheered Vettel's demise as the German toured the 3.6-mile circuit with bits of rubber falling off his destroyed tyre.

Vettel made it to the pits for repairs but dropped to seventh to make Hamilton's emphatic afternoon all that much sweeter. Raikkonen completed the podium with Verstappen fourth and his Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo fifth.