Lewis Hamilton overcame a poor start to the race and rain interruptions to win a thrilling British Grand Prix, to the delight of 140,000 fans at Silverstone. This is Hamilton's fifth Grand Prix win of the season; he has now extended his lead at the top of the driver's championship to 17 points, ahead of his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, who came second in the race. Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel completed the podium in third place, which was a pleasant surprise.
The 2014 World champion had a poor start, as he lost his pole position to both Williams' cars with Felipe Massa and Valterri Bottas; the Brazilian driver, who was third on the grid, kept into the lead from the start, which he maintained well into the race.
The turning point came when the Brit decided to pull off for a quick pit - stop to change for wet tyres, just ahead of a downpour, and ahead of pitting by Massa and Rosberg, who stopped on the next lap. Hamilton made an aggressive move when he returned to the circuit, which paid off, as he regained the lead before Massa and Rosberg were back from their pit-stops.
The German then tussled with Bottas and stayed stuck in fourth place until lap 36, when light rain began to fall and he reclaimed third place, and then a couple of laps later, he moved past Massa to second.
When the rain stopped and then resumed even stronger, both the Williams were passed by Vettel, who left Massa in fourth, ahead of his team-mate Bottas.
Red Bull was sixth with Daniil Kvyat and Force India of Nico Hulkenburg came seventh, followed by the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.
The race had an additional drama, when both Lotuses and both McLarens were involved in a pile-up on turn one; three cars affected were all taken out of the race, with Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado of Lotus, and Jason Button of McLaren-Honda retiring.
The second McLarens-Honda with Fernando Alonso half spun-out in the pile-up, but was able to continue; the Spaniard finished the race in 10th and scored the first points of the year, which has not been good for the unreliable McLaren-Honda.
