How Hamilton and Bonnington rolled back the clock for one last Silverstone success

When you’re so accustomed to victory, anything else feels like failure.

Lewis Hamilton arrived at Mercedes’ Brackley factory for the first time in January 2013 already a champion, already considered one of the field’s elite drivers. The perfect prospect to fill the seat of the sport’s most successful ever drivers – Michael Schumacher.

It was only natural for Mercedes to pair their newest driver with Schumacher’s race engineer – 37-year-old Peter Bonnington. Despite some near-misses, it only took 10 races for the partnership to produce a win in that year’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

“Get in there, Lewis,” Bonnington told his driver as Hamilton crossed the line for his first grand prix win as a Mercedes driver and, with it, providing Bonnington with his first grand prix triumph as a race engineer.

Over the next eight years and 168 grands prix, Hamilton and Bonnington became the most successful driver-engineer tandem the sport had ever seen. Six world championship titles, 77 pole positions and 82 grand prix victories – the last coming during an ill-tempered Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the apex of a bitter championship battle with Red Bull and Max Verstappen

When Hamilton was denied an unprecedented eighth title one week later, few could ever have predicted the barren spell that would befall Mercedes and Hamilton over the following two seasons. As Hamilton and Bonnington headed into Silverstone for their 12th and final British Grand Prix together, they did so having not taken a chequered flag first for almost 60 rounds. They were only able to watch on as Verstappen and his engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, rapidly built up a challenge to their own standing as the best partnership in the sport’s history.

However, both Hamilton and Bonnington arrived at the circuit on Sunday morning knowing this race would have a different dynamic to so many they had endured over more than two frustrating years before that day. For the first time since that last victory in Jeddah back in 2021, Mercedes team mate had locked out the front row in a qualifying session. The only difference being that, this time, Hamilton had been beaten to pole by his team mate, George Russell

Although Mercedes had secured a rare win just a week prior in Austria, thanks to Verstappen and Lando Norris taking each other out and handing the victory to Russell, the team were under no illusion of the threats they were likely to face on Sunday at Silverstone. Both from Norris, Verstappen and even Oscar Piastri behind them on the grid, but also from the skies above with rain near-certain to become a factor in the race.

Everyone in the paddock knew that it would get wet at some point. The only question was when. But with different weather radars offering slightly different projections for what was going to hit the circuit and when it would arrive, teams needed flexibility and the ability to run as far into the race as possible while keeping up as fast a pace as possible. So it was little surprise when the top 13 starters left the grid on the formation lap sporting medium compound tyres for the beginning of the race.

Two fictional ‘APXGP’ cars on the back of the grid provided the Hollywood filming crew a chance to grab some excellent shots, before they were pushed into the pit lane as the actual cars left the grid. There, they joined Sergio Perez, starting from the end of the pit lane, before Pierre Gasly’s Alpine also arrived in the pits at the end of the formation lap having developed a gearbox problem which ended his race before it had even started.

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With 18 cars lined up on the grid, the two Mercedes prepared to lead the field on the charge to Abbey, Hamilton to the inside of Russell on the racing line. When the lights went out, Russell got a great launch from pole position, leading Hamilton to tuck in behind his team mate long before the turn in point for Abbey. Behind, Verstappen continued to separate the two McLarens, but Norris’s speculative look to the outside of Hamilton into Village was rebuffed, allowing the world champion to sweep cleanly around the outside of Norris into The Loop and take third place.

Exiting Chapel onto the Hangar Straight for the first time, Hamilton was within half a second of Russell with Verstappen six tenths further back in third. With DRS set to be enabled at the end of the lap, Hamilton was wary of the Red Bull who would no doubt be eager to pass before their mediums were past their best. However, a poor exit from The Loop for Verstappen on lap two dropped him beyond a second of Hamilton ahead, meaning Mercedes now had a crucial opportunity to leave him behind before the rain arrived.

“Rain potentially in 25 minutes,” Bonnington informed his driver as he exited Luffield for the second time.

Hamilton dropped out of DRS range of his team mate on the next lap, but that was no concern for him. All teams were now expecting rain to hit before lap 20 and so ensuring they could keep their mediums in good enough condition until that point was vital. By the end of lap ten, the top six of Russell, Hamilton, Verstappen, Norris, Piastri and Carlos Sainz Jnr were all still covered by under ten seconds, reflecting how all were pacing themselves accordingly.

Two separate showers were approaching the circuit. A light sprinkling was set to hit first as only a teaser before a much heavier band of rain followed around ten or so minutes later. Bonnington warned Hamilton rain was “imminent” midway through the 13th lap, but there were no thoughts of preparing intermediates for this lighter cell.

Behind Hamilton, Verstappen was falling into the clutches of Norris behind. Despite a week of angst over their Austria clash and what it could mean for when the pair next met out on track, Norris instead found that the Red Bull driver offered no resistance as he was able to breeze by down the Hangar Straight with the help of DRS on lap 15.

As the Silverstone crowd stood to cheer Norris’ promotion back into the top three, many took the opportunity to don their coats and ponchos to protect from the drops of water now falling on their heads. The rain hit the south of the circuit first, which made Piastri’s pass of Verstappen for fourth slightly more difficult as they arrived to find the corner offering far less grip than it had the lap prior.

Soon the Mercedes out front were struggling. As lap times dropped by three seconds, then five, Hamilton began swarming over the rear of his race-leading team mate. With DRS still active as they entered the Hangar Straight, Hamilton got an excellent run on his fellow Mercedes.

“Just caution with the wet,” Bonnington warned, but Hamilton successfully made the corner to complete the pass for the lead into Stowe. But moments later at Abbey, both Mercedes slid off the circuit on the greasy track, allowing Norris to close right up to Russell and take second from him into The Loop. Over the rest of the lap, Norris gained on Hamilton ahead and when he challenged for the lead along the pit straight named in the Mercedes driver’s honour, Hamilton offered little resistance and the McLaren driver assumed the lead for the first time.

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McLaren’s superiority on the now-damp track with slick tyres was further proven when Piastri immediately charged up to the back of Hamilton. “Lewis, we think it’s time to jump to the inters,” Bonnington suggested.

“Nope,” came Hamilton’s unequivocal and clear response. “It’s dry in a lot of places.”

As Norris slid off briefly at Becketts ahead, Hamilton soon had Piastri in his mirrors before losing second to the McLaren down the Hangar Straight. But losing track position mattered less than being on the right kind of rubber for the conditions and while some including Perez and Charles Leclerc gambled for inters, the leaders all remained out for several more laps.

Red Bull were the first to blink at the end of lap 26, bringing Verstappen in for intermediates. When told, Hamilton agreed now was the time, telling Bonnington “in at the end of this lap”. He emerged behind a Red Bull, but fortunately the one that belonged to Perez, now a lapped 17th after switching to intermediates too early.

Norris also pitted on the same lap as Hamilton and had regained the lead, while Piastri’s extra lap out on slicks cost him an enormous amount of time, leaving him sixth. Hamilton sat just three seconds ahead of the leading McLaren, with Verstappen a further four back in third having gained a place over Russell through his earlier stop.

The track conditions were so marginal – too wet for slicks but still not wet enough to keep the intermediates happy – that drivers struggled with near-instant degradation from their new tyres. Hamilton began to inch slowly closer to the leading McLaren, the Mercedes the fastest car on track once more as it dried out.

But just as things turned their way, Mercedes suffered a blow. Russell was ordered into the pits to retire with a suspected water system problem. Bonnington relayed the discouraging news to his driver.

Although the rain continued to fall lightly, the sun emerged from behind the clouds to beat down over the southern side of the circuit. Saturday’s qualifying showed how quickly the track could dry and with no more rain expected until the end of the race, teams faced the prospect of having to make the crucial call of when to switch back to slicks sooner than they may have expected.

Hamilton got within two seconds of the leader with the aid of a slight slide for the McLaren at the exit of Club, but Mercedes were now thinking about how the slick tyres could give their driver a chance of taking the lead.

“Okay, Lewis, from your times, it looks like it’s getting close to the cross[over],” Bonnington said as Hamilton entered the Wellington straight with just 15 laps remaining. “Let us know what you think.”

“It’s very close, mate.” came the driver’s immediate reply. “It could be this lap.”

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So it proved, as Hamilton was called in entering Stowe, joining Daniel Ricciardo and Kevin Magnussen who had also been brought in moments earlier. While Verstappen joined him, Norris stayed out an extra lap. Unlike the two behind him Norris had the advantage of a fresh set of mediums, while Hamilton had been fitted with soft tyres and Verstappen with hards. Norris duly pitted at the end of the next lap, but he had agreed to be fitted with softs for the final 14 laps.

Norris pulled in slightly long into his pit box and a 4.5 second hold did him little favour either. But Hamilton’s middle sector on the slicks had also been more than a second faster than Norris’s on used intermediates, allowing the Mercedes to beat the McLaren as Norris exited the pit lane.

With 13 laps remaining and no likelihood of any further now, the British Grand Prix had now come down to a straight three-way fight between Hamilton and Norris on softs, separated by two-and-a-half seconds, with Verstappen four seconds further back on hard tyres. Bonnington attempted to outline the situation to his driver, but Hamilton was not interested.

“Yeah, leave me to it, mate,” he said.

Hamilton had never been in the situation of leading a race in the final phase of a grand prix on merit throughout the ground effect era. Nearly three years since the last time they had been in his position, Hamilton and Bonnington returned to their natural habitat. This was the exact scenario that had been their bread and butter for all those years and as the laps wound down, it was as if the clocks had been turned back.

Norris was quicker than Hamilton at first, but Hamilton picked up the pace to eke out his lead ever so slightly over the McLaren. However, Verstappen was faster than the pair of cars ahead. When DRS was re-enabled on lap 41, providing a major boost to Verstappen who was closing on Norris.

Verstappen broke under four seconds of Hamilton with just six laps remaining. The world champion and fierce rival of Hamilton was now clearly the biggest threat to what would be a stunning end to his long win drought. With five laps left, Verstappen was well within the slipstream of the McLaren ahead. Norris offered what defence he could as Verstappen stalked him down the Hangar Straight, protecting the inside line, but that was as good as him simply moving aside for the Red Bull, which flew by on the left into second place.

With four laps remaining, Verstappen now had just over three seconds to make up if he was to break Hamilton’s heart and that of around a hundred thousand spectators. The first lap, Verstappen gained only a tenth. Lapped traffic complicated the second lap for Hamilton, who pleaded for “blue flags” over the radio, but still Verstappen could only gain four tenths.

Entering the final lap, Hamilton remained comfortably out of DRS range. It was looking increasingly like Verstappen had run out of time. Nearly 1,000 days since his last victory, after confirming he would leave Mercedes for Ferrari at year’s end – and dealing with doubters questioning whether the Scuderia had downgraded by dropping Sainz for a driver in the midst of his longest losing streak of his career – Hamilton was proving what he was still capable of.

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Bonnington continued to update Hamilton on the gap to Verstappen, but with under six kilometres to go, Hamilton told his engineer and close friend to “leave me to it” one last time. Hamilton had taken the chequered flag first at his home grand prix on eight previous occasions, but after such a sustained period of losing, knowing that this would be the last home race he would share with Mercedes and with Bonnington, Hamilton could not hold back his emotions as he crossed the line. And neither could his race engineer.

“Get in there, Lewis!,” Bonnington roared, viscerally releasing over two years of pent-up frustration and disappointment. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for this… jeez.”

Hamilton’s 104th grand prix victory meant as much as any of the ones before it. “Thank you so much, guys…” he said, voice quivering with emotion as he saluted the Silverstone crowd. “It means a lot to get this one.”

Verstappen was just 1.4 seconds away from the winner in the end, receiving the commiserations of his own race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase.

“Oh, hard luck, Max,” offered Lambiase. “Not a bad chase, that. Well done.”

“Well, we weren’t the quickest, but we did everything right today,” Verstappen replied.

Norris was understandably less than thrilled not to have won after another race where he had been at the very front of the field. The joint decision not to fit his fresh mediums at the final stop was immediately identified as the cause of his latest defeat.

“We threw it away in the final stop,” Norris later admitted. “I think even if I boxed on the perfect lap, our decision to go on to the softs was the wrong one.”

But Norris was not the only McLaren driver to leave Silverstone disappointed. Piastri was left ruing his team’s call not to pit him along with his team mate onto intermediates, even if he had been forced to double-stack behind Norris. He lost around 18 seconds with his extra lap and finished within 13 seconds of Hamilton at the flag.

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Sainz finished fifth having taken the fastest lap with a late switch to softs, while Nico Hulkenberg validated Haas’s latest upgrades with a brilliant sixth, just ahead of Lance Stroll with the second Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso behind. Alexander Albon claimed two points for Williams in ninth, with Yuki Tsunoda taking the final point in tenth. Having gambled on inters too early, Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez finished well outside the points in 14th and 17th, respectively.

But the day was all about Hamilton. As he pulled into the pit lane to sit in front of the number one board once again, Russell walked over to congratulate his team mate. After he had won the previous weekend in Austria thanks to the misfortune of others, Hamilton’s win in a race without a single Safety Car intervention or retirement for a rival team was, as team principal Toto Wolff later put it, an ‘honest’ win for the team.

For the final time as a Mercedes driver, Hamilton climbed onto the Silverstone podium overlooking the crowd to drink the feeling of victory once more. He did so with Bonnington by his side, the most appropriate member of the team to join him for what was the 83rd win of their historic partnership. And perhaps, out of all of them, the one that will forever be the most emotional.

“That’s the longest stint that I’ve not had a win, 945 days,” said Hamilton. “And the emotion that’s accumulated over that time. So this one could be one of the most special ones for me, I think, if not the most special one.”