Lewis Hamilton did 143mph on three tyres at Silverstone

By now, you know Lewis Hamilton won the 2020 British Grand Prix. You know he did it with one dead tyre, his front left going bye-bye on the last lap. You know he crawled across the finish line with Max Verstappen closing in fast behind.

Phew. But did you know that in attempting to drag his beleaguered Mercedes across the finish line with just three functioning Pirellis and – again, for effect, ONE DEAD TYRE – he still racked up a speed of 143mph (230kmh) down Silverstone’s Hangar Straight? No, us neither. Until now.

Posting on Twitter, Mercedes-AMG F1 said it was “looking through the data” from Sunday’s race, and picked up the fact that with three inflated tyres and one having, let’s say a bit of a meltdown, Lewis still managed a speed that’d make your eyes water.

Pirelli analysed all three tyre whoopsies – Bottas suffered the same fate as Lewis a couple of laps before, as did McLaren’s Carlos Sainz – and concluded it was the result of “a set of individual race circumstances that led to an extremely long use of the second set of tyres”.

“The second safety car period prompted nearly all the teams to anticipate their planned pit stop and so carry out a particularly long final stint: around 40 laps, which is more than three-quarters the total race length on one of the most demanding tracks of the calendar,” the company confirmed in a statement.

It also noted “the biggest forces ever seen on tyres generated by the fastest Formula 1 cars in history”, pointing to the pace of this year’s 2020 field. The front-left, already the hardest working tyre at Silverstone, was therefore put under “challenging operating conditions”.

Ahead of this weekend’s 70th anniversary GP – back at Silverstone – the company will bring in C2, C3 and C4 compounds, and will increase the minimum tyre pressure to reduce stress.

Speaking of stress. “I have never experienced anything like that before,” Lewis said after the race. “That last lap was one of the most challenging laps I have ever had. Up until that point, everything was going relatively smoothly, the tyres felt great and I was doing some management. When I heard Valtteri’s tyre had gone, I looked at mine and everything seemed fine, but I started to back off.

“Then, it just suddenly deflated down the straight. It was a heart-in-your-mouth feeling and then I was just trying to keep the speed up without damaging the car. Bono was giving me the gaps; I think it was 30 seconds at one stage, but it was coming down quite quickly and I was thinking ‘How far is it to the end of the lap?’. But we managed to get the car across the line. That last lap is definitely one to remember.”

Image: LAT