Home hero Hamilton claims brilliant British GP victory - MotorSportsTalk

SILVERSTONE, ENGLAND – Six years to the day after his first victory at Silverstone, Lewis Hamilton has won the British Grand Prix for the second time after teammate and championship rival Nico Rosberg retired from the race due to a gearbox problem.

In a race that was red flagged for almost an hour following a crash on the first lap, Hamilton fought his way up from sixth place on the grid to run second to Rosberg before the German driver retired with 22 laps remaining.

Valtteri Bottas backed up Williams’ great result in Austria with a mesmerising drive through the field, finishing second after starting way back down in 14th place. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo perfected a one-stop strategy to finish the race in third place ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button, who equalled his best ever result at Silverstone.

After the original start, everything quickly came to a halt when a huge accident involving Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa brought out a red flag. The Finn touched the grass when coming onto the Wellington Straight, causing him to crash into the wall on the right hand side of the track with some force.

The car then careered back across the circuit, leaving Massa with nowhere to go despite his best efforts to avoid the Finn. Raikkonen limped away from the wreckage, and was transferred to the medical centre for examination where he was found to have nothing more than some bruising to his knee and ankle.

The stewards deployed the safety car at first, but then chose to stop the race due to the damage caused to the guardrail on the Wellington Straight. Amid the chaos, Max Chilton had pitted for repairs, but earned himself with a drive-through penalty for doing so after the race had been suspended.

The repair work to the barrier took almost an hour, but the race was then able to restart under the safety car with the drivers in the positions that they were upon the red flag.

Rosberg made a perfect restart to open up a four second gap over Button after the first green flag lap, but the big mover was Hamilton. The Briton dived past both of the McLarens within two laps of racing, and quickly set his sights on the other Silver Arrow at the front of the field.

Valtteri Bottas quickly made up for his poor qualifying result, charging through the field to rise to third place. Fernando Alonso looked to follow suit, but the Spaniard was hit with a five second stop-go penalty for starting out of position on the grid.

Esteban Gutierrez’s race came to an early end following a run-in with Pastor Maldonado. The two drivers made contact heading through the final complex of corners, tipping Maldonado up into the air in a near-reverse of the incident that we saw in Bahrain. Maldonado was able to continue, although he did lose three places as a result of the tangle.

At the front, Hamilton began to apply pressure to Rosberg by reducing the gap with each passing lap, and took the lead when his teammate pitted. The Briton was told that it was “hammer time”, and duly posted personal best times before stopping.

Having reported a gearbox problem earlier in the race, Rosberg’s car soon cried enough and came to a halt at Chapel. His futile efforts to restart the car did not work, meaning that for the first time in 2014, the German driver did not score any points.

Now leading, Hamilton was told to look after his car given that his advantage was over 25 seconds and growing. Once second-placed Bottas stopped for fresh rubber, the lead stood at over 40 seconds. The Finn was continuing to push though, and ran in a strong second place behind the sole remaining Mercedes.

Vettel and Alonso entered battle after the Red Bull driver made his second and final stop of the race, with the Spaniard pulling off a fine overtake heading into Copse. Vettel tried to respond, but could not find a way past Alonso who was running in fifth despite complaining about his defence over the radio.

With ten laps to go, Hamilton pitted for a fresh set of tires to make sure of the result, and crossed the line almost 30 seconds ahead of the field to claim an emotional home victory and bring himself right back into the championship fight. He now trails Rosberg by just four points at the top of the standings.

Bottas produced another sterling performance to score his best-ever result in Formula 1, finishing second. In the final few laps of the race, Button reeled in Ricciardo for the final podium position, but just could not quite catch the Red Bull driver.

Alonso and Vettel continued to fight, with the German driver eventually finding a way past with four laps to go to finish fifth behind Button. Kevin Magnussen came home in seventh ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, and the Toro Rosso drivers rounded out the points in ninth and tenth.

Hamilton’s victory sent the home crowd into raptures, but no-one was happier than the Briton himself. With this result, he has put the pressure right back on Rosberg, and will now want to take the lead of the championship on his teammate’s home turf at Hockenheim in two weeks’ time.

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INDIANAPOLIS – Alex Palou had not turned a wheel wrong the entire Month of May at the Indy 500 until Rinus VeeKay turned a wheel into the Chip Ganassi Racing pole-sitter leaving pit road on Lap 94.

“There is nothing I could have done there,” Palou told NBC Sports. “It’s OK, when it is my fault or the team’s fault because everybody makes mistakes. But when there is nothing, you could have done differently there, it feels bad and feels bad for the team.”

Marcus Ericsson was a master at utilizing the “Tail of the Dragon” move that breaks the draft of the car behind him in the closing laps to win last year’s Indianapolis 500. On Sunday, however, the last of three red flags in the final 16 laps of the race had the popular driver from Sweden breathing fire after Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden beat him at his own game on the final lap to win the Indianapolis 500.

Despite the two disappointments, team owner Chip Ganassi was seen on pit road fist-bumping a member on his four-car team in this year’s Indianapolis 500 after his drivers finished second, fourth, sixth and seventh in the tightly contested race.

Those are pretty good results, but at the Indianapolis 500, there is just one winner and 32 losers.

“There is only one winner, but it was a hell of a show,” three-time Indianapolis 500 winner and Chip Ganassi Racing consultant Dario Franchitti told NBC Sports. “Alex was very fast, and he got absolutely caught out in somebody else’s wreck. There was nothing he could have done, but he and the 10 car, great recovery.

“Great recovery by all four cars because at half distance, we were not looking very good.”

After 92 laps, the first caution flew for Sting Ray Robb of Dale Coyne Racing hitting the Turn 1 wall.

During pit stops on Lap 94, Palou had left his stall when the second-place car driven by VeeKay ran into him, putting Palou’s Honda into the wall. The car sustained a damaged front wing, but the Chip Ganassi crew was able to get him back in the race on the lead lap but in 28^th position.

Palou ultimately would fight his way to a fourth-place finish in a race the popular Spaniard could have won. His displeasure with VeeKay, whom he sarcastically called “a legend” on his team radio after the incident, was evident.

“The benefit of being on pole is you can drive straight and avoid crashes, and he was able to crash us on the side on pit lane, which is pretty tough to do, but he managed it,” Palou told NBC Sports. “Hopefully next year we are not beside him. Hopefully, next year we have a little better luck.”

Palou started on the pole and led 36 laps, just three fewer than race leader Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren Racing.

“We started really well, was managing the fuel as we wanted, our car was pretty good,” Palou said. “Our car wasn’t great, we dropped to P4 or P5, but we still had some good stuff.

“On the pit stop, the 21 (VeeKay) managed to clip us. Nothing we could have done there. It was not my team’s fault or my fault.

“We had to drop to the end. I’m happy we made it back to P4. We needed 50 more laps to make it happen, but it could have been a lot worse after that contact.

“I learned a lot, running up front at the beginning and in mid-pack and then the back. I learned a lot.

“It feels amazing when you win it and not so good when things go wrong. We were a bit lucky with so many restarts at the end to make it back to P4 so I’m happy with that.”

Palou said the front wing had to be changed and the toe-in was a bit off, but he still had a fast car.

In fact, his Honda was the best car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway all month. His pole-winning four lap average speed of 234.217 miles per hour around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a record for this fabled race.

Palou looked good throughout the race, before he had to scratch and claw and race his way back to the top-five after he restarted 28^th.

In the Indianapolis 500, however, the best car doesn’t always win.

“It’s two years in a row that we were leading the race at the beginning and had to drop to last,” Palou said. “Maybe next year, we will start in the middle of the field and go on to win the race.

“I know he didn’t do it on purpose. It’s better to let that pass someday.”

Palou said the wild racing at the end was because the downforce package used in Sunday’s race means the drivers have to be aggressive. The front two cars can battle for the victory, but cars back in fourth or fifth place can’t help determine the outcome of the race.

That is when the “Tail of the Dragon” comes into the play.

Franchitti helped celebrate Ericsson’s win in 2022 with his “Tail of the Dragon” zigzag move – something he never had to do in any of his three Indianapolis 500 victories because they all finished under caution.

In 2023, however, IndyCar Race Control wants to make every attempt to finish the race under green, without going past the scheduled distance like NASCAR’s overtime rule.

Instead of extra laps, they stop the race with a red flag, to create a potential green-flag finish condition.

“You do what you have to do to win within the rules, and it’s within the rules, so you do it,” Franchitti said. “The race is 200 laps and there is a balance.

“Marcus did a great job on that restart and so did Josef. It was just the timing of who was where and that was it.

“If you knew it was going to go red, you would have hung back on the lap before.

“Brilliant job by the whole Ganassi organization because it wasn’t looking very good at half-distance.

“Full marks to Josef Newgarden and Team Penske.”

Franchitti is highly impressed by how well Ericsson works with CGR engineer Brad Goldberg and how close this combination came to winning the Indianapolis 500 two-years-in-a-row.

It would have been the first back-to-back Indy 500 winner since Helio Castroneves in 2001 and 2002.

“Oh, he’s a badass,” Franchitti said Ericsson. “He proved it last year. He is so calm all day. What more do you need? As a driver, he’s fast and so calm.”

Ericsson is typically in good spirits and jovial.

He was stern and direct on pit road after the race.

“I did everything right, I did an awesome restart, caught Josef off-guard and pulled away,” Ericsson said on pit lane. “It’s hard to pull away a full lap and he got me back.

“I’m mostly disappointed with the way he ended. I don’t think it was fair and safe to do that restart straight out of the pits on cold tires for everyone.

“To me, it was not a good way to end that race.

“Congrats to Josef. He didn’t do anything wrong. He is a worthy champion, but it shouldn’t have ended like that.”

Palou also didn’t understand the last restart, which was a one-start showdown.

“I know that we want to finish under green,” Palou said. “Maybe the last restart I did, I didn’t understand. It didn’t benefit the CGR team.

“I’m not very supportive of the last one, but anyway.”

Dixon called the red flags “a bit sketchy.”

“The Red Flags have become a theme to the end of the race, but sometimes they can catch you out,” Dixon said. “I know Marcus is frustrated with it.

“All we ask for is consistency. I think they will do better next time.

“It’s a tough race. People will do anything they can to win it and with how these reds fall, you have to be in the right place at the right time. The problem is when they throw a Red or don’t throw a Red dictates how the race will end.

“It’s a bloody hard race to win. Congrats to Josef Newgarden and to Team Penske.”

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500