A red flag in the first lap, an hour's delay to fix damaged barriers, a bad day in the office for the championship leader but a phenomenal one for his teammate, challenger and local hero.
The 50th edition of the British Grand Prix lived up to its billing with Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton winning his home race in some style at the wowing Silverstone circuit on Sunday. In the process, the former world champion shaved teammate Nico Rosberg's lead in the drivers' championship lead to just four points after the German retired for the first time this season.
That said, the Mercedes team fuelled by Malaysian oil major Petronas continued to maintain a sizeable lead at the top of the constructors' table.
Hamilton, who cruised to his fifth win of the season and first at home since his breakthrough year in 2008, has 161 points to Rosberg's 165 with 10 races remaining.
An eternity after Hamilton finished the race and yelled "England!" on the team radio, in came Finland's Valtteri Bottas of Williams. Well, Hamilton's lead was a whopping 30.1 seconds. Australian Daniel Ricciardo finished third for Red Bull. He was a further 16.3 seconds behind.
The race had a horrible start after Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen crashed before limping to the infirmary with a sore ankle but no broken bones. It was the first time a race had been halted on the opening lap since Monaco 2000.
An hour later, when the race restarted, Hamilton just went from strength to strength even as Rosberg's car suffered a gearbox failure in the 20th lap. Nine laps later, he slowed and parked up on the grass bank only to watch Hamilton zoom past.
Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull finished a commendable fifth after a spectacular duel with another multiple world champion, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.
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