Regardless of what happens in the remainder of the Formula 1 British Grand Prix, it can easily be argued that no other race this year is likely to show both the best and worst of the sport as it stands right now.
Pirelli and Mercedes were found in breach of F1's sporting regulations by holding a private tyre test at Catalunya prior to the Monaco Grand Prix.
Yet the two combined to produce the most dramatic race of the year by far at Silverstone as four major tyre failures to go with transmission failure for Sebastian Vettel led to Mercedes' Nico Rosberg scoring his third career victory.
Rosberg's Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton was the first to suffer a left-rear tyre failure before Felipe Massa, Jean-Eric Vergne and Sergio Perez suffered the exact same fate.
A fault in the joint of the tyres' sidewall and top surface was suspected to be the cause of the failure and drivers were warned by teams to avoid hitting the kerbs through turns four and five at the 5.901 km circuit.
Hamilton eventually recovered to finish fourth after dropping to the tail of the field in circumstances that almost beggared belief.
Vettel's gearbox failure on lap 41 of the 52 lap race brought out the safety car for the second time in the event, following its earlier deployment after Vergne's tyre failure.
Following which, the race resumed on lap 46 when Perez's McLaren suffered it's second blowout of the weekend. The Mexican driver suffered a similar failure during third practice on Saturday.
The race was allowed to continue, however, with Rosberg in the lead and managing to keep the charging Mark Webber at bay who finished just 0.7 seconds behind the winner.
Fernando Alonso and Hamilton managed to blast by the languishing Kimi Raikkonen to take third and fourth.
The Finn took the gamble of staying out on used tyres as opposed to new ones that all the other front running drivers had. He eventually took fifth.
The result sees Alonso move within a race win of Vettel with the gap between him and the German down to 21 points.
Raikkonen falls further behind in third with 98 points as Hamilton, Webber and Rosberg follow with 89, 87 and 82 points, respectively.
The championship continues at Rosberg and Mercedes' home venue of the Nurburgring during next week's German Grand Prix.
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