Hill: "I've never seen Hamilton do anything unsportsmanlike"

Surprise for Red Bull

Hamilton went into the race at Silverstone 33 points behind, and for Lewis and Mercedes, the stakes were clear. They had to win. That pressure was noticeable before the race and was reflected in Hamilton's on-track choices, according to those present on the F1 Nation Podcast.

"Silverstone was a crucial point for Lewis and Mercedes. They turned up with some good updates on the car. Just as we thought they had stopped developing, they just had some extra little tweaks that seem to have given them just enough downforce to the car, allowing them to be fastest in a straight line. That made Mercedes more competitive, and I think Red Bull were surprised by that," said Damon Hill at the F1 Nation Podcast.

Hamilton's performance

''It wasn't just Lewis aware of the stakes going into this race, but also the whole engineering team. I spoke to Andrew Shovlin and he said: "We came here to a track we've always gone very well at, with some upgrades we thought were going to work, we had Lewis and Valtteri on the simulator during the race weekend to hone the car. If that hadn't worked, we would have had to take a hard look at ourselves," said Tom Clarkson.

''In the end, they won it because of Lewis, he adopted the right approach. Hamilton is very good at finding that zone between driving aggressively and not going over the limit. He can judge that to perfection. I've never seen him do something unsportsmanlike during a race. This was the closest thing to 'over the top' you could get, but it wasn't. He had to do it. He had to be aggressive. There was always a chance of an accident, but then it would've been equally Max's fault as his. Lewis has been brilliant at judging these things," Hill concludes.