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The McLaren team had a below par British GP at Silverstone as they struggled with both their cars failing to finish among the top half of the pack. Lewis Hamilton huffed and puffed his way to bring home his MP4-27 in 8th place. Meanwhile a late charge from Jenson Button ensured the Briton finished in 10th place, but his fight for the drivers' championship appears to be crumbling with each passing race.

The Woking based McLaren team had a deeply disappointing qualifying session as Lewis Hamilton could not get his MP4-27 to work when he needed it the most. Hamilton was dazzling in the wet conditions during Q1 and Q2, but in Q3 he could not get his intermediate rubber upto temperature robbing him of bite whilst on his final hot lap. This meant Hamilton had to be satisfied with 8th place on the starting grid. Jenson Button meanwhile had yet another disastrous qualifying as he could not get the front tyre temperatures he badly needed, resulting in early elimination in Q1. The Briton faced an uphill task as he started from 16th place on the grid with a points scoring finish possible only with a resolute drive.

Hamilton had a poor start to proceedings as he lost a position to the Williams of Pastor Maldonado at the start. Button had a quick start as he made moves stick to climb up to 14th place by the end of lap 3. Hamilton was under pressure from Sergio Perez with the McLaren ace unable to make headway up the grid. Hamilton complained of a lack of pace on his MP4-27 but temporarily took the race lead albeit because of his delayed pit stop. Button encountered a lack of grip on his McLaren as he lost 3 positions in the space of a few corners as his tyres reached their shelf life. This forced the team's hand as they brought Button into the pits as he swapped to the soft tyres and immediately attacked Rosberg in the Mercedes.

Hamilton had the charging Ferrari of Alonso on a fresher set of tyres right on his tail, and a mesmerizing battle began albeit only for a few set of corners, as the duo exchanged the race lead. But Hamilton had to give up the race lead to the Ferrari driver who made a move stick for good as Hamilton ran wide at the end of the lap. By lap 21 the Briton pitted after a really long first stint to swap to the soft tyres to come out in 7th place. The McLaren team performed an ultra-quick pit stop for Hamilton to send the crowd favorite out on track right behind the Lotus of Raikkonen.

Hamilton unleashed the predator in him as he drove past the rapidly dropping Mercedes of Schumacher to climb into 6th place, as he set his sights to take on the Lotus of Raikkonen next. Button was a sitting duck on worn out tyres, as his teammate drove past him and Grosjean in his Lotus pounced past the Briton too.

Hamilton struggled with a lack of bite on his tyres as he limped his way to end his home race in a lowly 8th place, as a late charge from Button ensured he got amongst the point finishing in 10th place. This capped an unsatisfactory home race for both the drivers as they never hit the heights the crowd expected them to.

Hamilton shared after the race, â€œIt wasn't a great race for me – I just wish we could have done more for the fans today. We tried as hard as we could, but we simply didn't have the pace this afternoon. My tyres were still good at the end of my first stint, and I was able to hang on to Fernando [Alonso]. So it's hard to understand how we could be leading the race at one point and then fall back to eighth place, especially as our car doesn't feel bad overall.

“I raced my heart out and was flat-out right to the end. We're still in the hunt for the world championship – and, if we can find a bit of lap-time, we can stay in the hunt, too."

Button meanwhile expressed delight at having got something from the race, â€œIt was good to get a point in my Grand Prix, but of course that's not what we ought to be doing: we're a front-running team and we've got a bit of work to do to start running at the front again. I don't think we made any mistakes with our strategy today; we're just not quite quick enough at the moment, that's all.

“Most important of all, though, I'm a bit sorry for the Silverstone fans, because they've been truly amazing this weekend. Like them, we wanted a lot more from today's result. So we're sorry, guys; we weren't able to fight at the front today, but hopefully we'll be back there soon.”