Why Silverstone will have terrified Ferrari

For nine minutes and 19 miles of the British Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton showed the crushing performance advantage that underpinned his victory and made liars of those who thought Mercedes was just a small margin ahead. Ferrari will have been terrified not only by its most comprehensive defeat of the season, but one totally out of phase with the relatively small margins that decided the previous nine races.

Hamilton's 0.547-second advantage in qualifying was one thing, Ferrari knows it's usually on the back foot on Saturdays. But when Hamilton put the hammer down for his only sustained attack of the race from lap 18 to 23, he extended his lead over Kimi Raikkonen from 4.3s to 10.6s - that's an advantage of a fraction over one second per lap. Ferrari's defeat was total, even before tyre problems turned a bad weekend even worse.

After finishing fifth in Azerbaijan and fourth in Austria, no matter that these were the consequence of a loose headrest and a struggle to bounce back from a gearbox penalty, it seemed Hamilton's championship challenge was unravelling through circumstances out of his control. If it was, Silverstone was the perfect place to put it back together.

Hamilton's head did appear to drop during that period, with Vettel building a handy points lead in the process. But with the Silverstone crowd behind him, invulnerable Hamilton seemed to find it impossible for a negative thought to enter his head.

"Imagine going to work and everyone loves you, there's this positive energy and you have a much better day," said Hamilton of the advantage of having a home crowd behind him.

"I'm an energy person, the fans create an energy that is unlike any other grand prix and I'm just very fortunate to be one of the focal points of that energy. It's like lightning striking, that's the strength that you feel.

"You carry that in the car, when I get in the car it's motivating. These guys are really with me and I've got to deliver for them. It's not nervous or worrying, it just wills you on."

Physics has plenty to say on this vague use of the word 'energy', not to mention the suggestions that a home crowd can be worth lap time in a literal sense (Hamilton claimed this was worth half a second a lap after qualifying - Nigel Mansell regularly claimed higher figures). But as a tool for an elite sportsperson to focus entirely on doing what they do best, it can be second to none.

This was a Hamilton, mind cleared, at his best, in a Mercedes that was the strongest it had been all season against a Ferrari that looks to be flagging slightly in the development race. The fast sweeps of Silverstone mean it is not a normal grand prix track, and this is not necessarily symptomatic of what will follow, but the momentum swung more decisively than it has at any other race in 2017 - and in favour of Mercedes.

Hamilton's race was relatively straightforward. He converted his pole position into the race lead, pulling well clear of Raikkonen before the intervention of the safety car to allow Carlos Sainz Jr's car to be cleared from Becketts. Raikkonen stuck with Hamilton briefly at the restart, but at the end of lap five the deficit was 1.4s.

When Raikkonen pitted at the end of lap 24 of 51 to switch from super-softs to softs, he was 11.3s behind. Hamilton followed suit a lap later, emerging with an advantage over the Ferrari that was increased by a few tenths. With Valtteri Bottas - who had lined up ninth in the second Mercedes and who was the only driver to start on the soft Pirellis, having used them in Q2 - in second and between the two, Hamilton soon built his advantage to just above 14s.

While Raikkonen was occasionally able to take time out of Hamilton, and moved back up to second place when Bottas made his only stop on lap 32, the gap was carefully managed by a driver and team knowing their superiority allowed them to win at the proverbial slowest pace possible. When the tread of Raikkonen's front-left separated from the rest of the tyre with two-and-a-half laps, the gap was 17 seconds. It might as well have been 17 laps.

As a delighted Hamilton explained after the race, neither Mercedes, in a bid to downplay its chances, nor Ferrari, in a bid to talk itself up, can simply shrug this one off entirely as a track-dependent swing in the direction of Mercedes. Even if it is exaggerated by high-speed Silverstone, the pendulum has swung away from the red corner and towards the silver one.

"This weekend we've been able to exploit the full performance of our car more so than any other race we've done this year," said Hamilton. "It gives us a strong platform to start from for the second half of the season.

"The car has been a little trickier to get used to and get the set-up right [than in previous years. We didn't get the car in the perfect window and didn't exploit its performance earlier in the year but Ferrari really hit the nail on the head from the beginning.

"But with a lot of work, a lot of analysis, we've started to move forwards, particularly in the last two races, and started off immediately on the right foot.

"Qualifying pace is looking strong, and today our race pace was a lot higher than Ferrari's, probably for the first time this season. That's very good to see."

Bottas's drive underlined this. From ninth, he recovered from a mediocre start to get ahead of Sergio Perez and Stoffel Vandoorne before the safety car appeared. He then quickly dispatched Esteban Ocon's Force India before passing Nico Hulkenberg's high-flying Renault into Stowe with the assistance of the DRS on the third lap after the restart.

He started to chip away at the frenetic battle for third place between Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel that raged from the start. Verstappen initially passed Vettel when the red lights went out and threatened Raikkonen's second place through Abbey. The Red Bull was forced to take a wide line through the Turn 2 kink, allowing Vettel back past.

But with Raikkonen boxing Vettel in through the Village right-hander that led into The Loop, which launches the cars through Aintree and onto the Wellington Straight, Verstappen was able to go around the outside and reclaim third place. This proved vexing for Vettel, who spent the whole first stint behind Verstappen before pitting at the end of lap 18.

But there were flashpoints. Vettel's attempt to pass Verstappen up the inside of Stowe led to the two emerging from the corner side-by-side. Verstappen, who had been crowded wide at the exit, was still on the inside of Vettel at the entry to the left/right Club Corner.

Verstappen got to the corner just ahead and on the inside line, but didn't hold the Red Bull as tight as Vettel would have liked him to, with the Ferrari forced to take to the asphalt runoff. A wave of the arm from Vettel and a query over the radio from Verstappen asking whether Vettel "wants to play bumper cars", followed.

There were also complaints from Vettel about Verstappen moving around in the braking zone, but the stewards showed what they thought and there was no investigation. After the race, Vettel was less feisty, suggesting that Verstappen was a little "jumpy" in battle and will calm down as experience builds.

The fact was that Verstappen knew exactly how much Vettel had to lose - the championship lead - and took advantage of the fact that he had nothing more at stake than the vague chance of a podium finish.

All the while, Bottas was closing in. Vettel undercut his way past Verstappen to take de facto third place with ease. Even without some wheelnut trouble at the rear-left of the Red Bull that cost Verstappen around a second, Vettel would likely have got ahead of the Red Bull, such was his advantage with fresh tyres and clear air at last.

But Verstappen was no longer Vettel's main threat. The battle for the final podium spot behind Hamilton and Raikkonen was now a potentially crucial one in the world championship.

Bottas ran 14 laps longer than Vettel before his own stop, emerging just under six seconds behind the Ferrari. It took only 10 laps for Bottas to close that gap and make his first attempt to pass around the outside at Stowe. That didn't work, with Vettel staying ahead and suffering a major lockup at Club, but a lap later Bottas was closer onto Hangar Straight and able to complete an effortless, DRS-assisted, pass.

"The lap when Sebastian and Verstappen pitted, my tyres were still feeling good," said Bottas. "When I was in clean air I could really focus on just making the most out of the situation. Once we stopped, I was on a much fresher tyre than them and I could really attack. That allowed me to get Sebastian, and put pressure on Kimi."

That was as much as Bottas could do, for he had eight seconds to make up with just over seven laps remaining. After a request for "minimal talking" to the pitwall, he was within three seconds when Raikkonen's front-left tyre tread fell apart on lap 49. By his own admission, he was desperately unlikely to be able to attempt a pass without the problem, but he was very grateful for second place.

Raikkonen was not the only Ferrari driver to hit trouble. While Raikkonen was on his out-lap, Vettel's front-left punctured and he ran off the track at Luffield. This allowed Raikkonen to retake third place from his team-mate, who made it back to the pits and eventually came home seventh.

Verstappen could have taken third place briefly had he not been called in for a precautionary stop in response to Raikkonen's problems. But there's little doubt Raikkonen, on fresh rubber, would have repassed the Red Bull with ease as the gap would have been small.

"From about lap 40, the front tyres were starting to go away," said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. "We didn't feel it was dangerous until the end of the race because he had not locked the front tyres at all and had done a good job in looking after them and we wanted to be within [range] of any action that may happen with Bottas.

"Then Sebastian started to look like he had got some issues, then Kimi had his delamination and if we would have been able to stay ahead we would have stayed out. At the safety car line, including the stop, we were three seconds behind including a standard pitstop, so we decided it was better to stay safe and pit. Then Sebastian's tyre let go and we benefited from that."

All of this must surely have made Hamilton, who was on his way to a record-equalling fifth British GP victory, feel like all his Christmases had come at once. Not only had he won, not only had Bottas come through to take second, not only had Ferrari not been at the races, but the tyre drama had relegated his title rival to seventh and allowed him to close to within one point of Vettel in the drivers' championship. Cue his now-trademark British GP crowd surfing.

To say he was entirely without worries in the race wouldn't be accurate.

He did have a blister on his front-right Pirelli in the second stint and, despite there being no other worrying signs, he took it easy on the final two laps, using what he described as 50-60% throttle and circulating six-to-seven seconds off the fastest lap he had banged in four laps from home - just to make sure that what might prove to be a turning point in the world championship battle was not threatened by misfortune.

"I wasn't looking for a relief, and I don't feel like it's a relief," said Hamilton.

"Points-wise, it's nice to be only one point behind, but when I came across the line, winning my home grand prix was the most important thing - and also the way we did the whole weekend. That's the thing I'm solely focusing on right now."

The way Mercedes did the whole weekend will be on Ferrari's mind too. The next race in Hungary is a very different circuit, one that should play to its strengths and, based on the pattern established early in the season, it should be favourite for.

But all the signs are that the Silver Arrows are getting ever sharper.