Hamilton takes pole position ahead of Rosberg at British GP

Rosberg finished as runner-up but, four hours after the race had ended, was handed a 10-second penalty and demoted to third place behind Red Bull’s Dutch teenager Max Verstappen for a breach of radio regulations.

The Mercedes driver also demonstrated his qualities in the wet once again after the race had started behind the safety auto due to a heavy downpour in Northamptonshire.

With the additional 10s time penalty, Rosberg is now classified third, and with it his championship lead over Hamilton has been cut to one point.

The win is Hamilton’s second in a row after he claimed the Austrian Grand Prix last Sunday.

Rosberg, who was booed on the podium a week after the Mercedes’ collision in Austria, suffered a gearbox glitch in the closing stages which prevented him from using seventh gear.

“There was a lot of pressure on that last lap but I knew I couldn’t let those guys down”, said Hamilton, who is bidding to secure a hat-trick of victories in front of his home crowd on Sunday. It is never plain sailing.

On lap five, he made it more obvious: “We can go, Charlie!” he said, a message directed at the race director Charlie Whiting. Congrats to Lewis. He did a great job this weekend.

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen completed the podium places following another impressive performance.

“That wasn’t planned”, said the Mercedes driver as images of him falling back into the sea of people, smiling serenely with his body supported by raised arms, travelled around the world.

And so racing began on lap six, Hamilton throwing up a high plume of spray ahead of Rosberg as most of the rest-bar the top four-rushed to the pits for intermediate tyres.

But the fired-up Briton returned to the Silverstone circuit to set an even quicker time to leave Rosberg trailing in his wake.

Engineer: “Avoid seventh gear, Nico, avoid seventh gear”.

Was it all clear now between him and Hamilton?

Sahara Force India relished a double points finish at the home British Grand Prix with Sergio Perez finishing a creditable sixth, just ahead of teammate Nico Hulkenberg.

Ecclestone expected Hamilton to win the title for a fourth time this year.

Stewards said in their ruling that while the team “gave some instructions to the driver that were specifically permitted…the team then went further and gave instructions to the driver that were not permitted”.