In 1955, Mercedes achieved a 1-2 finish at the British Grand Prix, with Briton Stirling Moss narrowly taking the win over Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio. Sixty years on, and after scoring consecutive 1-2 finishes in Canada and Austria, they were favourites to repeat this feat. A record crowd was expected to see if home favourite Lewis Hamilton could take back to back wins here. In 2014, the Brit had taken victory after his team-mate, Nico Rosberg, retired due to gearbox problems whilst leading the race.
2015 British Grand Prix Mercedes Review
The Mercedes pair came out on top in all the practise sessions, but that didn’t tell the full story. In FP1, even though Rosberg set the fastest time, he had to sit out the vast majority of it with a hydraulic issue. The German came out on top again in FP2, with Hamilton only able to muster fourth. The Brit was complaining about the balance and not able to get any more out of the car. In FP3, Hamilton was quickest, with Rosberg suffering further problems, spending most of the time in garage with gearbox issues. Regardless of these problems, Mercedes easily were setting the pace in practise, and a dominant result looked guaranteed.
In the first part of qualifying, Mercedes got out paced by the Ferraris. Rosberg took second-place, nearly four tenths of Kimi Räikkönen, with Sebastian Vettel piping Hamilton for third. In Q2, Rosberg gained the fastest time, with the Williams of Valtteri Bottas splitting the Mercs pair in second-place. An exciting and close final part of qualifying was anticipated. However, it appeared Mercedes had been holding back. The fastest times were set in the first stint in Q3, with Hamilton taking his eighth pole of the season. Rosberg was only 0.117 seconds behind. The nearest cars were the Williams of Felipe Massa and Bottas, who were nearly a second off the Silver Arrows pace
The race was attended by a record 140,000 crowd. At the start, both Mercedes, starting on medium tires, were overtaken by the Williams pair. Massa cut through both Mercs to take the lead, with Bottas sandwiched between Hamilton and Rosberg. An incident, involving the Lotus and McLaren drivers, took out the safety car on the first lap. At the restart, Lewis tried to overtake Massa at Vale, but ran wide and went off track, which resulted in Bottas getting by for second-place. For the next number of laps, the Mercs followed behind the Williams pair, who were having their own battle. On lap 19, Hamilton pitted first, for a set of the harder tires. With clear air, the Brit could put the hammer down. On Lap 21, Massa and Rosberg pitted at same time, and came out and went wheel to wheel down the pit straight, with the Brazilian gaining the advantage over the German, but finding himself behind Hamilton. A lap later, Bottas pitted, and came in between the Massa-Rosberg scrap, and ended ahead of Nico. This meant that now Hamilton was the new leader of the race, with Rosberg still stuck in fourth place. Dark clouds started to gather around the circuit, and the first spots of rain appeared on lap 33. Six laps later, with the Williams struggling on the slippery track, Rosberg finally got past Bottas down towards Becketts. A lap later, he got past Massa, on the inside, at turn 4. With Rosberg released into clear air, he was able to cut down the gap to Hamilton by two seconds. On lap 43, Lewis pitted for intermediates, and the moment he came out of the pits, the rain became heavier to strengthen his bold choice. Rosberg pitted a lap later, but for the German it was too late, as his British team-mate had pulled away significantly. Hamilton kept it on track to bring home his third British win, much to the delight of the home fans, and afterwards admitted having tears in his eyes on the final laps. Rosberg came home second, a good 14 seconds ahead of the Ferrari of Vettel.
Drivers’ Standings
1 Lewis Hamilton 194 points
2 Nico Rosberg 177
3 Sebastian Vettel 135
4 Valtteri Bottas 77
5 Kimi Räikkönen 76
Constructors’ Standings
1 Mercedes 371 points
2 Ferrari 211
3 Williams-Mercedes 151
4 Red Bull-Renault 63
5 Force India-Mercedes 39
Sixty years on, and history repeated itself. Even with all their problems in practise, the poor start to the race, and the changing weather conditions, Mercedes still were able to manage to bring home a dominant 1-2 finish. It wasn’t easy, far from it, but this race showed how dominant the Brackley outfit really is. If the likes of Ferrari and Williams are wanting to gain race wins, then they will have to hope for some misfortune to Mercedes, because at the moment, the Silver Arrows seems indestructible, and unbeatable.
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