Nico Rosberg was originally classified second but a post-race penalty for breaching radio regulations saw him fall to third, behind Max Verstappen. Here's what some of the F1 2016 grid had to say after the British Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton
"Best weekend of the whole year! I couldn't believe it started raining at the beginning of the race. I thought: "are you serious?" It makes it so much harder for everyone when that happens. I couldn't really see the safety car either. It was going really slowly and my rear brakes were getting way too cold, so I was trying to heat them up and before I knew it I'm heading straight for the back of the thing!
"Thank goodness I could turn! Luckily it was okay and from there I was feeling great in the wet conditions. A huge thank you first of all to the team for doing such an amazing job. Our performance this weekend has been outstanding. The engineers and mechanics did a great job, so big thanks to all of them once again. And then the crowd... I mean, where do they all come from? It's absolutely amazing!
"Nothing we see in any other country even comes close - and that for me just shows the passion us Brits have for sport, regardless of the weather. It's pouring down and these guys are just like "yeah, we love it!" This is beyond my wildest dreams, honestly. When I was younger I didn't see the other stuff that comes with being a Formula 1 driver.
"I was just in awe of the racing and it wasn't until I grew up that I started to understand. I'm just trying to bask in the glory and enjoy it because one day I'll be watching someone else, hopefully a young Brit, winning here and I want to make the most of these moments. For now though, it's my time - our time. Thank you so much to everyone out there today. It's just been unbelievable."
Sebastian Vettel
"Today it was a tough day, but we trust our team and trust our car, so there is no reason to panic and to turn the world upside down. The call to come into the pits was absolutely right, but then the spin didn’t help, and all my advantage was gone again. The penalty in the end didn’t make a difference, it was not on purpose that I was trying to squeeze Felipe. Actually I was going out myself, and I was surprised how little grip there was, going side by side with him.
"In the end it was a racing incident. Now we need to understand where we lost something. We have a lot of things to learn from a weekend like this. Clearly today we weren’t as competitive as in other races, but at least we recovered some points. And this was the only race of the year where we weren’t able to beat the Red Bulls in terms of race pace. Things may look different in two weeks’ time, but that shouldn’t be an excuse. We need to go forward and understand why we made a step back this time around."
"I felt like I had great pace today so once the track dried up I just tried to have a go. In the beginning I had a lot of spray so it was hard to see where I was going, especially in the first sector. Once I passed Nico I felt like I was closing on Lewis but then he pitted for slicks. We maybe stayed out one lap too long but in the end the race was great and the car was working really well.
"I had a great battle again with Nico afterwards but as it dried the Mercedes just had too much speed on the straights. I tried to keep up and there was no pressure from behind so I just concentrated on doing my own race. I had a few moments in Turn 1 which was a bit tricky so I had to be careful there but I hear a few others also struggled. The move on the outside at Becketts was fun, he was finding the inside so I thought let’s try the outside. It was a risky move for sure.
"The car had the grip and I had the feeling so it worked well. There’s a bit of run off there anyway so I had room if it went wrong. In the end we only finished roughly eight seconds behind so I think that is really positive going forwards and shows we are closing the gap. The fans here were great, I couldn’t believe how loud they were and they really supported me. Understandably they were behind Lewis but they got behind me loads also which was great to see."
Valtteri Bottas
"Today was a disappointing day. I spun in the wet and lost positon. The main problem going from the wet tyre to the dry tyre was not getting enough heat into them to make them work. In the slick stints the pace was poor. As a team, it’s important we analyse what happened today. For myself as a driver I need to learn from my mistakes too. I’ll be having a day in the simulator tomorrow running through the test programme for this week."
"It’s a very good result for the team, with two cars in the points, even if I feel I could have kept fifth place without that spin at turn one. When I had that moment I thought my race was over, but I managed to save it. However, I flat-spotted my tyres and that hurt me for the rest of the race in terms of degradation. I pushed hard to try and keep Raikkonen behind, and it was only when he passed me that I was able to take it easy and save the tyres.
"We had to do a very long stint on the mediums, which was a bit of a risk as degradation was quite high, but the team made the right calls at the right time and it paid off in the end. The conditions, especially in the first part of the race, were very tricky. You had a drying line, but as soon as you put a wheel on the damp parts, all the grip was gone. Just keeping the car facing in the right direction was an achievement. To come away with this many points after a weekend in which I hadn’t been very comfortable with the car is a big satisfaction and it makes up for the disappointment of last week."
Jolyon Palmer
"Today wasn’t the result I wanted for my home race. It was going reasonably well on the wet tyres at the beginning of the race and then we did a good stop for the intermediate tyres. Things were looking up: I got ahead of Kevin and I was catching Romain Grosjean. When I pitted for slick tyres, I had a green light to go but the rear right wasn’t finished and I’d already started to leave the box.
"From then on I lost about a minute and then received a 10 seconds penalty for unsafe release. What happened was unfortunate but it could happen to anyone up and down the pitlane. We retired the car as there was a strange feeling with the gearbox, more as a precaution as at that stage we were two laps down. We’ll now investigate the problem thoroughly. I’m looking forward to the test this week and focussing on the next race weekend."
"I’m pleased with my race today, it was a decent one. We had a very good first half of the race in the wet and mixed conditions – we were fast, the car felt amazing and at one point I was racing in P6. Unfortunately I made a mistake going into Turn 1 – I’m not very happy about that! From that moment onwards I had to calm myself down and reset my confidence a bit.
"I kept my head down and to cross the line in P8 is a result we can be happy with, even though it’s a shame that we were not able to beat the Force Indias. Having said that, this is the fifth time we score points in the last six races, so we are definitely going in the right direction and we just need to keep pushing. The next race in Hungary should suit our car well so I’m looking forward to another good fight for points."
Felipe Nasr
"It was a good race for me, bearing in mind that I started from the back of the field. Overall, we extracted the maximum out of the car as well as the strategy. I got a good understanding of the track conditions, so we pitted at the right time. Initially I had a decent pace on the medium tyres, but after the track completely dried out the lap times were determined by our car’s performance. We are still not there where we want to be. We will keep fighting for points."
Jenson Button
"It was definitely the right decision to start the race behind the Safety Car – it was super-wet and there was loads of standing water, but I think it should have been recalled two laps earlier. Then, when the Safety Car pitted, everyone boxed for Inters, so I decided to do the opposite, which was a good thing as I overtook a couple of cars. For the second stop, it was better to stop sooner rather than later, but I was stuck behind Valterri [Bottas], so I stayed out for another lap.
"My race wasn’t helped by starting 17th: to get into the points, we need to qualify inside the top 10, hold on in the race, not make mistakes and hope to stay there. I couldn’t really close on the cars in front of me because we don’t yet have quite enough pace in the car to make up sufficient places in the race. It wasn’t an easy afternoon, but it was great to see all the fans cheering at the end. They got a British victory as well, so I’m sure they’re very happy."
"At the start the track was really wet, but once the rain had stopped it started to dry a little more with each new lap. In the space of just 17 laps we’d gone from full wet tyres to slicks. But it was the right call at the right time, I just hit a bit of track that was still damp and there was nothing I could do.
"Although it’s the race result that counts at the end of the day, the journey through practice and qualifying is important. We’d had a good weekend and in particular a really positive Saturday, so we have to focus on what went right and how we can use that to keep pushing forward for the next race. Today’s result is something we can’t do anything about now."
Romain Grosjean
"Well, the weekend didn’t end positively as we had a technical issue in the race, forcing our retirement. We were very slow on intermediate tires. That’s something we need to work on and understand. On a positive note, the car felt good on the high-speed corners, and qualifying was very tight.
"We almost made it to Q3, so that was great. We’ve had a lot of learning opportunities again this weekend. We have to take that as a positive. I’m very much looking forward to going to Hungary now. Our biggest challenge will be to get our tires to work, but when they do, the car feels very good."
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