Australia’s Mark Webber failed to capitalise on his blistering performance in qualifying yesterday, which saw him start on the front row of the grid. He was tenth at the chequered flag after a couple of spins in the slippery conditions, including one on the first lap which saw him fall back to fifth place.
 
Best race of Hamilton’s F1 career
Yesterday’s race truly belonged to Hamilton, who later described the event as the best race “by far” in his F1 career. The 23-year-old is now the first Briton to win at Silverstone since Johnny Herbert in 1995. The win also delivers Hamilton’s his first championship points since the win at Monaco back in May, following disastrous attempts in his previous two races in Canada and France.

Having started in fourth position, Hamilton dominated most of the race and finished a full 68 seconds ahead of BMW's Nick Heidfeld in second. Coming in third was the major surprise of the day - Honda's Rubens Barrichello who took advantage of his team’s astute decision to switch to the more forgiving wet tires early on in the race. He might even have finished second, if not for a faulty fuel rig.

Hamilton's teammate and pole sitter Heikki Kovalainen was less impressive in the wet, spinning twice and finishing a lap down and in fifth.

Reigning world champion Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest lap of the race and looked on course to challenge Hamilton, until the misguided decision was made to not change his tyres at the first pitstop. Massa's race was an unmitigated disaster - he spun at least five times and finished dead last, the only driver to be lapped twice.

Disaster for the rest of the field
The rain began to fall solidly just after the halfway point of the race and Hamilton, Raikkonen and Renault's Nelson Piquet each aquaplaned off the track. Following the spin, Piquet retired from the race and was later joined by Honda’s Jenson Button and BMW’s Robert Kubica. Despite the poor result, the BMW driver is still only two points off the pace for the championship title. 

Fernando Alonso finished sixth with poor pace late in the race, also lamenting the decision to keep the same tyres on his car at his first pitstop. Toyota’s Jarno Trulli finished seventh but regrets not joining Barrichello in switching to the extreme wet tyres amid the hardest rain. Team mate Timo Glock struggled on the standard wets in the rain, spinning twice and finishing second to last.

Nico Rosberg started from the pitlane and had an unscheduled visit to the pits to replace a damaged nose after he ran into the back of Glock, finishing ninth. Kazuki Nakajima did better to collect the final point, meaning he and teammate Rosberg have each scored eight points so far this year, but the Japanese was on course for seventh at Silverstone until he was passed by Trulli on the very last lap.

Force India’s Adrian Sutil aquaplaned on a puddle and spectacularly spun into retirement on lap 11, while Giancarlo Fisichella followed suit with a spin into the gravel on lap 27.

• Bahrain F1 qualifying team-by-team summary
• Dominant win for Lewis Hamilton in German GP at Hockenheim
• Eastern Creek proposed as track to 'hijack' Australian F1 race
• F1-derived hybrid system likely to appear in road cars
• Felipe Massa wins at French GP

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