Rosberg retires, Hamilton British Grand Prix win

After his brain cramp during qualifying put him sixth on the starting grid, Lewis Hamilton stormed past the field and took advantage of the troubles suffered by his Mercedes teammate to win Sunday’s British Grand Prix. The win on his track of his native country gave his supports reason to cheer and sets up a close fight for the driver’s championship in Formula 1’s second half. Lewis Hamilton believed he won the pole position during qualifying and pulled is car off the track with time on the clock; the mistake cost him track position on the starting grid. Hamilton ended up started sixth. Heading into Sunday’s race, he had never won a race when he had started outside the top four on the grid. The race started with a heavy crash by Kimi Räikkönen who ran exiting the Wellington Straight into Aintree where he ran wide. Upon trying to return to the main course, he hit bottomed out the car and crack the rear suspension; when he caught some air on the track, his car spun out and into a guardrail. The angled rail pin-balled him back onto the track where Felipe Massa did all he could not to collide with him head on; Massa was able to turn and only clip him rear. The contact took Massa out of the race where he joined Räikkönen. Here is a video of the accident involving Kimi Räikkönen and Felipe Massa Your browser does not support iframes.  Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg was leading the race from the start, thanks in part to his fast car and from starting in the pole position. It would prove not to be the day for the holding of the top spot in the driver’s points standing. Rosberg fought a gearbox problem from lap 20 that grew worse as the race unfolded; the issue would eventually force him to retire from the race one lap shy of the halfway mark. It would have been an interesting battled if Rosberg had stayed in the race Sunday. Hamilton was closing the gap between the two drivers when both were on tires that were at or close to fresh. The duo were far enough ahead of the rest of the field that they only could have beaten each other since no one else had both the speed and control to make up ground against them. Thanks to the victory and the 25 points earned, Lewis Hamilton closed to within four points of his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg in the points standing, 165 to 161. Valtteri Bottas from Williams Racing finished second, a full half minute behind Hamilton with Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull Racing holding off another Brit, Jenson Button to finish third. Ricciardo’s teammate Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top five after he battled Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso most of the afternoon on the Silverstone track.