Lando Norris enjoys 'beautiful' British GP win as Oscar Piastri pays penalty in wet and wild race
As last week's heatwave gave way to a more typical UK summer's day - spells of blue sky mixed with torrential showers - drivers had to keep their wits about them with puddles forming on the track.
And Norris emerged from the chaos victorious as he added to his wins already this season in Austria, Monaco and Australia.
Piastri was handed a penalty - after being deemed to have driven erratically during a restart after one of two safety-car periods - that ultimately cost him the win and allowed Norris to slash the Australian's advantage to eight points at the midpoint of the season.
"It's beautiful, everything I ever dreamed of, this is everything I wanted to achieve, aside from winning the championship this is as good as it gets in terms of feelings and in terms of achievement, being proud, all of it," said Norris after clinching the win.
Nico Hulkenberg took an astonishing third place for Sauber, the German veteran making up 16 places to shed his unwanted record of the most starts without a podium in Formula One history - Sunday's race was his 239th.
Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton came in fourth ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen - who had started in pole position - span from second and crossed the line in fifth following a late pass on Lance Stroll.
George Russell started fourth but two premature changes to slick tyres destroyed his afternoon. He took the chequered flag in 10th.
"Your mind just goes pretty blank," added Norrish when asked what he thinking about in the last few laps with victory in sight.
"Everything you might think before the race, you forget. The main thing is just don't mess it up, that's rule number one.
"The last few laps I was just looking into the crowd," added Norris. I was just trying to take it all in, enjoy the moment, because it might never happen again. I hope it does. But these are memories that I'll bring with me forever. An incredible achievement."
Piastri fell foul of the stewards when braking heavily before the safety car peeled off, a decision that left the Australian feeling robbed.
"I'm not going to say much, I don't want to get myself in trouble," he said in the post-race interview. "Apparently, you can't brake behind the safety car anymore. I did it for five laps before that.
"I'm not going to say much. Well done to Nico, I think that's the highlight of the day. I'll leave it there."
An all-time F1 record crowd - 168,000 on the day and 500,000 over the weekend - were treated to a sensational race that will be remembered for heavy rain, safety cars as drivers' regularly lost control in treacherous conditions.
"In terms of being a stressful race, this is as stressful as you can get," added Norris. "It was a good race for Oscar as well.
"I've got to give credit to Oscar, he was fast the whole way. So a round of applause Oscar, because he put up a good fight. I enjoy those moments together when we're on track, not as much when he's ahead of me as when he's behind, but that's life."
The final word, though, goes to Hulkenberg after his long-awaited and hugely popular achievement. "It has been a long time coming, hasn't it? I always knew we have it in us, I have it in me somewhere," said the 37-year-old.
"What a race, coming from virtually last, doing it all over again from last weekend, it's pretty surreal to be honest.
"Not sure how it all happened but obviously crazy conditions, mixed conditions. It was a survival fight for a lot of the race. I think we were just on it, the right calls, the right tyres, the right moment, made no mistakes and yeah, quite incredible.
"I was in denial until like probably the last pit stop, then we gapped Lewis quite a bit with the extra lap, I was like 'OK, this is good, gives some breathing space' but you know he was catching quite quickly.
"The pressure was there, it was an intense race. We didn't crack. No mistakes and obviously really happy with that."
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