To use a phrase synonymous with Formula One’s most successful driver, still he rises.
It has been 945 days since Lewis Hamilton’s last victory, in Saudi Arabia, a week before the 2021 season-finale which played havoc with the British superstar’s mindset. There is no doubt, in a painful off-season, that retirement entered his thoughts. But it was dreaming of days like this, amid the near-misses in the 30 months since, that kept him going. And at his final home race with Mercedes, in a 52-lap thriller of wet-dry conditions he so craves, Hamilton secured the sweetest of Formula One victories.
There were tears. Plenty of tears. This victory – Hamilton’s 104th – was perhaps his most emotional, such has been the agonising wait for the rich taste of success once more. As he held off his great rival of that infamous 2021 season Max Verstappen for a famous ninth win at Silverstone after a stunningly mature and expert drive, he burst into tears, with just the mere protection of his helmet to cover his emotions.
The 39-year-old embraced his father, Anthony, after the victory lap with the emotion and attachment of an infant. In typical fashion, he ran out onto the grass banks at the final corner waving the British flag, in front of an adoring crowd. Still, helmet off now, the sheer sensation of the triumph was somewhat overwhelming for a man who perhaps thought he’d never feel such a thrill again.
“Since 2021, it’s been every day getting up trying to fight and train and put my mind to the task,” he said, with third-placed Lando Norris looking on, incandescent, in the distance.
“This is my last race here with the team, I wanted to win this so much for them. The important thing is how you continue to get up, keep digging deep when you’re at the bottom of the barrel. There were days since 2021 when I thought I wouldn’t be back here.”
With rain a present factor throughout, you fancied Hamilton to prevail on this Sunday in July. Yet a race of such weather-impacting, lead-changing drama actually started without relative incident. Pole-sitter George Russell, who would be the victim of such unfortunate mechanical misfortune late on, kept the lead smoothly from Hamilton and, contrary to many years gone by at the home of British motor racing, all the cars lining up made it smoothly through lap one.
Norris did drop a spot to fourth as Verstappen pounced on an error from the McLaren driver at Village turn. Unfortunately for the Bristolian, it wouldn’t be his last.
Yet by lap 20, as drops started to fall from the inconsistent Northamptonshire sky, the superior McLaren pace came to fruition. Within the space of minutes, Norris had surged up from fourth to first, overtaking new race leader Hamilton on the start-finish straight named after Britain’s greatest racing driver. Dare say, the seven-time world champion did not forget it.
Yet in this grand prix which had five different leaders, Oscar Piastri then grasped his moment out front, before McLaren took it away from him. While all the frontrunners pitted on the same lap as the precipitation intensified – Verstappen, at this point, was not really in the leading equation – Piastri stayed out a lap too long and dropped to sixth, with Norris taking the lead.
As the rain steadied, so seemed the course of this race until Russell, out of nothing, was forced to retire due to a water system issue. Despondent, he swore over team radio, and stormed out of the garage. For the pole-sitter, it was the most bitter of pills to swallow.
Yet for Mercedes, there was still a race to win. Verstappen gambled first as the rain eased, switching to the more durable hard compound tyres, while Hamilton went the other way, switching to soft tyres. Norris also switched to softs a lap later but a slow 4.5 second pit stop as Norris misjudged his pit-box distance meant that by the time the McLaren rejoined the track, he was two seconds behind Hamilton, the new race leader.
Hamilton’s long-term Mercedes engineer, Peter Bonnington, informed his driver that Norris was on the same tyre. And so came the classic Hamilton response: “Leave me to it mate.”
As it turned out, the threat would not be from Norris. With five laps left, Verstappen stormed past a stodgy Norris and the chase was on. It was 2021 again, two of F1’s greats going hammer and tong to the chequered flag. But Hamilton, 30 months since that day in Jeddah, his last victory in the sport he loves and refuses to leave, was zoned in and with a two-second advantage, the crowd at Silverstone rose for their favourite son.
It wasn’t Norris’ day. It wasn’t another win for Verstappen. But a record ninth at Silverstone for the indomitable Hamilton, the most wins at any circuit in the history of Formula One. There were tears, there were hugs, there was the podium. On a tremendous weekend for British sport, it was the most ideal of finales.