Silverstone, England - Lewis Hamilton threw the grand old cup high into the air and crowd-surfed on the hands of patriotic fans in the old world war aerodrome called Silverstone.
But as the world champion multi-celebrated his victory at the British Grand Prix, he still had time to scratch his head about the question that was vexing us all - the one that went to the heart of motor racing. Why on earth did the race start under a safety car?
Hamilton was of the view that the greatest 22 drivers on the planet, mostly handsomely rewarded, should be able to handle a rain shower without the nanny-ish intervention of officialdom.
He called on Charlie Whiting, the race director, to get the action under way during the five-lap spell when safety car driver Bernd Maylander was setting what could only loosely be described as the pace. “We can go, Charlie,” cried Hamilton pleadingly over the radio.
What a damp squib that start was, after rain fell as the cars took to the grid. Bernie Ecclestone grabbed an umbrella. And, granted, it was slippery out there, with rivulets on parts of the track. But a sanitised non-race was not what a crowd of 139 000 paying up to £375 (R7000) for a grandstand ticket had come to watch.
That’s what racing is about
They had paid for the vicarious thrill of seeing men more daring than they are doing something they couldn’t. That is what makes motor racing special. Danger and even death lurk with macabre attraction around every turn. Acknowledging that risk is the pact that every competitor at any level of motor racing makes with himself.
Yes, there are some risks too great to make sense. But three world champions inside Silverstone thought starting freely without a safety car yesterday did not fall into that category. As Hamilton said: “There were some patches. It was tricky, but that’s what motor racing is about. There was just as much, if not more, water in 2008 when we started on the grid.”
Not that Nico Rosberg, who finished second but was demoted to third after receiving illegal radio help from his Mercedes team, agreed. The German said it was “important to have a look first”.
Come on, Nico, would it not have been entertaining to see who could best discern a safe, yet bold, passage from the off? The difference in outlooks was indicative and Hamilton’s natural racing instinct is one of the reasons why he opened up a commanding advantage the moment the safety car was withdrawn. He has both the delicate skills and the big heart for such moments.
Rosberg, as in the wet in Monaco in May, struggled on the dicey surface that separates the best - such as Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher - from the rest.
Hamilton, perhaps most notably here in the shipwreck weather eight years ago, when he won by a minute, has proven himself repeatedly in such conditions and it is a measure of his stature as a champion of the first rank that he has.
With the safety car start, we missed out on the most tantalising prospect of the afternoon: seeing whether Hamilton and Rosberg would close dance at the start. Would one turn in on the other, as they had in Austria seven days earlier?
Max, the star performer
Max Verstappen, another of the golden handful who reveal their class in the rain, was a star performer for Red Bull. He passed Rosberg, in his tentative mode as the track began to dry. It was a bravura move at Chapel.
Rosberg managed to overtake Verstappen later, when the track was dry and the pace of his Mercedes was offering him the speed advantage. By then it was too late to challenge Hamilton. The soggy nettle needed grabbing earlier. Verstappen, just 18, took second nonetheless when Rosberg’s 10-second punishment was applied.
There is no praise too high for Hamilton this weekend. He took pole with a nerveless late lap. And apart from slipping off once at Abbey, the corner that ensnared car after car, he was faultless. Team principal Toto Wolff purred that he ‘walked on the water’.
With victory secured, the flag-waving crowd streamed down the start straight. It had echoes of Mansell Mania. ‘I could see the fans out of the corner of my eye right there with me,’ said Hamilton.
His lap of honour included a tour of the grandstands to wave his thanks to the people. He jumped barriers to be carried by them. He even bowed theatrically. It was a wonderful British vignette on a great weekend for our sport.
Speaking of Mansell, Hamilton’s victory was his fourth at his home race, equalling the 1992 world champion’s record for a British driver. In each of the years Hamilton has won at Silverstone, he has gone on to win the title, in 2008, 2014 and 2015. A more instructive statistic is that Rosberg’s lead after 10 rounds is now just one point, down from 43 five races ago.
Back at a relieved Mercedes motorhome, Wolff was saluting the perceived wisdom of starting under the safety car. “Do you want to see a lot of cars spinning off the track?” he asked rhetorically.
Well, as Hamilton would tell him, it would at least be nice to see them grappling with the problem.
Daily Mail