Hamilton clung on to the victory on Sunday after driving with one tyre in shreds for most of the final lap, while his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas and Carlos Sainz Jr of McLaren also suffered punctures on a hot afternoon at Silverstone which saw the safety car come out twice.
Bottas was second when his tyre disintegrated and Sainz was up to fourth when he fell to bits. Both finished outside the points.
In a statement Pirelli, the exclusive tyre supplier for Formula One said that the “key reason” behind the tyre problems was “a set of individual race circumstances that led to 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 Italian manufacturer said.
“Combined with the notably increased pace of the 2020 Formula 1 car (pole position was 1.2 seconds faster compared to 2019) this made the final laps of the British Grand Prix especially tough, as a consequence of the biggest forces ever seen on tyres generated by the fastest Formula 1 car in history.
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