Two years ago today, Lewis Hamilton achieved what he feared might never happen again.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The now-Ferrari driver, then still at Mercedes, stood on the top step of the Silverstone podium on 7 July 2024 with tears streaming down his face, having won the British Grand Prix for a record ninth time.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
It was his first victory in 945 days, stretching all the way back to the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in Jeddah.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“I didn’t think it would ever happen again,” Hamilton said afterwards. “But I just tried to continue to believe and just keep chasing.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
It was a race that had everything. Pole-sitter George Russell led the early running, pulling clear of his team-mate as the lights went out.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
But changeable British weather soon tore up the script, with rain arriving to turn a straightforward affair into a strategic thriller.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
As the field scrambled onto intermediate tyres, the lead swapped hands between the two Mercedes cars and the McLaren pair of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
When the skies cleared, Hamilton made the decisive move, pitting for slick tyres one lap before Norris, who also suffered a slow stop. It was enough to hand Hamilton a lead he would not relinquish.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Russell’s afternoon ended in retirement with a water system failure, while Max Verstappen charged through to snatch second from Norris in the closing stages.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
But none of that mattered to the capacity Silverstone crowd, who watched the seven-time F1 drivers’ champion cross the line first for the 104th time in his career.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRecords tumble at Silverstone<\/p>\n
The statistics only added to the emotion. Hamilton became the first driver in Formula 1 history to win a grand prix after his 300th race start; this was his 344th.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
His ninth British Grand Prix victory surpassed the previous benchmark of eight wins at a single event, a record he had previously shared with Michael Schumacher.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Ferrari driver won the French Grand Prix eight times; Hamilton has also won the Hungarian Grand Prix on eight occasions.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“There have been some days since 2021 and here where I didn’t feel like I was good enough, or whether I was going to get back where I am today,” Hamilton reflected.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
As it turned out, Silverstone 2024 would be one of his final acts in a Mercedes before his blockbuster move to Ferrari, save for his inherited win at Spa-Francorchamps a few weeks later.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
But on that sunlit, rain-soaked, unforgettable afternoon, none of that was on his mind. Only the overwhelming relief that, after 945 days, Lewis Hamilton was a winner once more.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two years ago today, Lewis Hamilton achieved what he feared might never happen again. The now-Ferrari driver, then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-785311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}