BY HIS own admission Lewis Hamilton has never experienced a race like it. His win at Silverstone last weekend, his third of the season, was a record breaking achievement but it could have all been so different if the wheels had come off on the last lap.

That last lap is definitely one to remember, I feel so grateful that I got it back and could secure the win

Lewis Hamilton

The race looked routine until team mate Valtteri Bottas suffered a puncture in the closing stages.

The Finnish racing driver and Hamilton were battling away at the front of the pack and looked set for another Mercedes one-two on the podium.

But then everything changed.

Hamilton said: “Up until that last lap everything was relatively smooth sailing. They tyres felt great. Valtteri was really pushing incredibly hard.

“I was doing some management of that tyre; he looked like he wasn’t doing any. When I heard that his tyre went I was just looking at mine and everything seemed fine and the car was turning no problem, so I was thinking “maybe it’s OK”.

“Anyways, those last few laps I started to back off and then just down the straight it just deflated. I just noticed the shape just shift a little bit.

“And that was definitely a heart-in-the-mouth kind of feeling because I wasn’t quite sure if it had gone down until I hit the brakes and you could see that the tyre was falling off the rim. And then just driving it, trying to keep the speed up, because sometimes it will come off and brake the wing and all these different things and oh, my God, I was just praying to try to get it round and not be too slow. I nearly didn’t get it round the last two corners. But thank God we did.”

Pointing out how lucky they were in the end team boss Toto Wolff said: “In the past, we have had some scrutiny for saying that having a fast car isn’t enough to cruise with a 1-2 finish into the sunset.

“And today showed how cruel motor racing can be.

“Valtteri lost a valuable second place for his Drivers’ Championship and the team lost valuable points in the Constructors’ Championship.”

Bottas, who is now 30 points behind Hamilton in the current the Drivers’ Championship, said: “It’s a really disappointing result for me. I got very unlucky with the puncture; everything was going OK until that point.

“I was trying to put the pressure on Lewis, but we knew it was going to be a long stint on the Hard tyre. Towards the end I was starting to get more and more vibrations on the front left.

“I didn’t see any debris or anything, so I reported the vibrations and started to manage the tyres, but then the tyre failed suddenly on the start/finish straight and I had to complete a full lap back to the pits which cost me a lot of time.

“I am sure there will be lots of learnings to take from this weekend, so we’ll take those and move onto the next weekend.”

Hamilton added: “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, I feel so grateful that I got it back and could secure the win.

“It was difficult standing up there on the podium without the crowd, but hopefully I did everyone proud who was supporting us from home.”