Lewis Hamilton won a dramatic British Grand Prix, overcoming a poor start, rain showers and an attack from his team-mate Nico Rosberg to secure victory on home soil.
Hamilton's margin of 10.9s over Rosberg betrays the tense battle that unfolded, first between the fast-starting Williams drivers for the lead and then between the two Mercedes cars when the first rain shower came. However, a perfectly-timed pit stop meant Hamilton was the first of the leaders to take on intermediate tyres when the heavy rain came, and with it he made his third British Grand Prix victory secure. Sebastian Vettel also pitted at the right time to take a podium position away from Williams, whose drivers led one-two until the first pit stop but faded in the worst of the weather to finish fourth and fifth.
Both Mercedes drivers made a slow start, allowing Felipe Massa to split the two and take the lead into the first corner. Valtteri Bottas briefly held second place on the exit of Village, but lost the position again to Hamilton as the cars took the left-hander at the Loop. Massa initially stretched his lead, but drama further down the road meant a safety car was deployed. Although the incident was not fully caught on the world feed, it looked as though the two Lotuses tangled, which in turn saw Fernando Alonso swerve into the path of his McLaren team-mate Jenson Button. Pastor Maldonado, Romain Grosjean and Button were out on the spot while Alonso pitted for a new front wing at the end of the first lap.
When the race restarted on lap four, Hamilton attacked Massa as soon as possible after the safety car line and ended up running wide into Vale, allowing Bottas to move up to second on the entry to Club. The Williamses then ran one-two with Bottas attacking Massa along the Hanger Straight, but unable to make a move stick into Stowe. Mercedes, meanwhile, bided its time ahead of the first round of pit stops.
Hamilton was the first of the leaders to change tyres on lap 18, which gave him fresher tyres than the other cars in the top four. Surprisingly Williams did not follow suit with either of its drivers and as a result Hamilton emerged in the lead with Massa demoted to second, Bottas third and Rosberg fourth. The race then settled into a steady rhythm, with Hamilton extending his lead as Rosberg struggling to find a way past the two Williamses.
On lap 35, shortly after a Virtual Safety Car period to recover Carlos Sainz stopped Toro Rosso, the race took another turn as the first rain shower hit at Brooklands and Luffield. The cars were struggling for grip heading onto the old pit straight, but with the rest of the track dry it was not an obvious call to go for wet tyres. After being overtaken by his team-mate Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen opted for intermediates, but in doing so dropped down the order and was not able to recover. Rosberg made the most of the wet conditions and Mercedes' extra downforce as he came out of Copse to pass Bottas for third as Williams' race started to unravel. He then passed Massa for second and on lap 42 took a chunk of time out of Hamilton's lead.
But Rosberg's attack coincided with a second, heavier rain shower and Hamilton immediately reacted by making the call to come in for intermediate tyres. It was a race-winning decision as Rosberg and the Williams pair stayed out for another lap and struggled for grip. Hamilton had his moments in the wet conditions, but kept his Mercedes pointing in the right direction for the remaining 10 laps of the race to win and extend his lead to 17 points in the championship standings.
Vettel made the same call to pit from fifth place as Hamilton had from the lead, allowing him to move ahead of the two Williamses, which both struggled in the wet conditions. Daniil Kvyat closed to within a car length of Bottas on the final lap, but ultimately had to settle for sixth while Nico Hulkenberg took a solid seventh after running as high as fifth at the start. Sergio Perez finished ninth ahead of Fernando Alonso, who took his first point since returning to McLaren at the start of the year.