The 2020 British Grand Prix saw the first person infected with the dreadful coronavirus, Sergio Perez, who had to be replaced and the chosen was fan favorite and lemans winner Nico Hulkenberg. But the fairytale was not to be as an issue with a bolt in the Racing Point's Mercedes power unit prevented it from firing up and thus handling a DNS to the Hulk.
As had happened in Austria and Hungary, Saturday's qualifying gave a glimpse of how far ahead the Mercedes cars are from the rest, with Lewis Hamilton claiming pole position, his 91st, with a blistering 1:24.303, a new track record at Silverstone. That lap was only 0.313 ahead of his own teammate Valtteri Bottas but more than a second from the rest.
The race went as expected, Hamilton made a good start and never lost the lead of the race, but drama stroke only a couple of laps from the end when the left front tire in Bottas' W11 disintegrated, forcing him to enter the pits, losing precious time he came out far behind, relinquishing his rather secured second place to Max Verstappen. Bottas finished a distant and point-less eleventh. Then it was Carlos Sainz's turn, when the front left let go, and as with Valtteri, he had the unscheduled pitstop. He finished P13. The Red Bull Team having seen what had happened and fearing it might happen to them also asked Max to change tires, losing time but not place on the race when Lewis' front left disintegrated as well, just half a lap from the end, but he had such a lead that he finished his home race on three wheels in first place.