Silverstone is the highlight of the Formula One calendar for a lot of people. The high speeds, large crowds and historic nature of the event all comes together to form an irreplaceable event.
However it means a little bit more for some of the grid. Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Will Stevens all have a special reason to look forward to this weekend. Home support makes any race special and it's widely acknowledged that the us Brits do it better than most.
But did they perform, did they reward their legions of fans?
Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) - 10/10
He did what every fan wanted, and expected him to do. Win. However it wasn't as straight forward as everyone expected before the start of the weekend.
He had a poor build up to the race. He struggled in practice, but he delivered expertly in qualifying to secure pole. He started the race poorly however as he was overtaken by Felipe Massa almost instantly and Valterri Bottas was soon to follow.
The leading quartet of Massa, Bottas, Hamilton and Nico Rosberg stayed together sticking to the same order until the first series of pit stops. Hamilton pitted first as Mercedes tried the undercut on Williams. The decision from Williams to force Bottas to stay behind Massa proved a costly one as it prevented Williams form building a big enough lead over Mercedes. This meant Williams didn't have a big enough pit window which allowed Hamilton to retake the lead during the pit series.
He consolidated his lead brilliantly after he timed his pit stop in the rain to perfection. He pitted for intermediates on lap 43. Lap 43 turned out to be the magic number for pitstops and Hamilton came out in front and dominated the rest of the race.
His fans will have undoubtedly left the track extremely pleased and impressed with the masterclass of driving in rapidly changing conditions that was on display for them today.
Will Stevens (Manor Marussia) - 7.5/10
Relatively uneventful first half of the race for the rookie in the low-budget car. With cars falling like flies around him a record finish for Stevens became a very real possibility.
He gave an amazing display of tyre management. While the majority of the grid pitted around the 15-20 lap mark. Stevens managed to get to lap 38 before he needed to pit for intermediates. It turned out that lap 38 was at least 5 laps too early to pit for intermediates. At lap 38 the track wasn't entirely wet enough to warrant intermediate tyres. Therefore the tyres were overheating and caused them to wear out quicker than expected. This meant the tyres were not really in a good enough to condition to finish the race on.
However even after the mis-timed pit stop he still held twelfth place ahead of teammate Roberto Merhi. Disastrously Stevens' over-worn tyres simply couldn't give him the grip he needed to corner and he lost control. The Manor-Marussia car spun and headed into the barriers. Stevens lost his front wing in the collision and although the damage wasn't severe enough to force a retirement, he did however lose his position to Merhi.
Overall though Stevens gave a good showing for the Silverstone crowd as he took advantage of the struggling cars around him to record a career best finish of 13th in Formula One.
Jenson Button (McLaren-Honda) - 5/10
Another failure for Button in his home grand prix. Button has never quite managed to deliver on home soil in front of his fans, even when he was constantly winning races with Brawn GP, with him only managing 4th place at best in Britain.
This race was no exception. Before the race he said that making the end of the race "would be a help for me to wave to the crowd." Never mind finishing the race, Button couldn't even finish one lap.
It started with one inter-team collision. The two Lotus' of Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean collided after the first corner. Rightfully Fernando Alonso swerved to avoid the collision. This is where the problems started for Button and the McLaren-Honda team. Alonso swerved into Button who had nowhere to go to avoid a collision due to sheer volume of cars around him.
While it wasn't a heavy impact, Alonso hit a spot on Button's car that for some reason, shut the engine down and put the whole car in recovery mode. This combined meant that the collection of Button fans at Silverstone got to witness their favourite driver for just ONE corner before his race was over.
Although there wasn't much Button could have done to avoid the crash, it was still a poor showing from a man with the experience and talent of Jenson Button.