Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton hailed his home fans after celebrating a record sixth British Grand Prix win Sunday and stretching his lead over luckless Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas to 39 points.
Bottas, on pole position, finished a distant second after a safety car period turned the race decisively in Hamilton's favor by handing the home favorite a free pitstop in a thrilling race.
It was Hamilton's seventh win in 10 races this season and 80th of his career.
The five-time world champion, now on 223 points to Bottas' 184, also banged in a late fastest lap, on a set of tyres that had already done 30 laps, to secure an extra point.
Ferrari's Monegasque Charles Leclerc was third after team mate Sebastian Vettel rammed into the back of Red Bull's young charger Max Verstappen.
2019 ✅
— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) July 14, 2019
2017 ✅
2016 ✅
2015 ✅
2014 ✅
2008 ✅
Lewis Hamilton wins the #BritishGP for a record SIXTH time! ?? pic.twitter.com/JWnfhzjEHd
Vettel, who had been third but finished 16th, had to pit for a new front wing and collected a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision.
Verstappen ended up fifth and behind his French team mate Pierre Gasly.
Victory lifted Hamilton clear of Frenchman Alain Prost and the late Jim Clark, who both won five times in Britain, and the champion pulled over to collect a Union Jack from a marshal on his cool-down lap.
Hamilton and Bottas battled for the first few laps, with the Finn losing and retaking the lead, but the decisive moment came when Italian Antonio Giovinazzi spun his Alfa Romeo into the gravel on lap 20.
Bottas had pitted three laps earlier but Hamilton had yet to come in for fresh tyres and was able to take advantage and pit without losing position for hard tyres that took him to the finish.
The great @LewisHamilton wins another British Grand Prix. What a day this could be for English sports stars. ??
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) July 14, 2019
Behind the Mercedes pair, 21-year-olds Leclerc and Verstappen kept the crowd enthralled with a wheel-to-wheel reprise of their duel in Austria two weeks earlier.
Time and again they battled for position, their positioning inch perfect and with Leclerc being every bit as tough on Verstappen as the Dutch driver had been to him at sunny Spielberg.
Vettel, who had pitted with Hamilton when the safety car was deployed, then rammed into the back of the Red Bull on lap 38 after Verstappen had gone past around the outside of Stowe corner.
Spaniard Carlos Sainz was sixth for McLaren, ahead of Renault's Australian Daniel Ricciardo and Alfa Romeo's Kimi Raikkonen.
Russian Daniil Kvyat was ninth for Toro Rosso and Nico Hulkenberg took the final point for Renault on a good day for the French manufacturer.
