01Britain Expects
Oh, to be in England in the summertime goes oft-quoted line, and while in terms of the general prevailing conditions of an English summer that it might seem like reaching, when it comes to Formula 1, nothing could be truer.
Come rain, hail or blazing sunshine, Silverstone is a mighty place to go racing. One of the sport’s last, great, old-school temples of speed, the old airfield features some of the most evocative corner and complex names in all of motorsport. Fearsome Copse, the epic, high-speed changes of direction through Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel, the flat out 335km/h blast of the Hangar Straight and the following 210km/h sweep through Stowe, Silverstone piles one iconic section after another until you end up with a monumental, majestic track that really shows what an F1 car can do.
However, the power-hungry nature of Silverstone – almost 80% of the lap is at full throttle – means it’s not an easy one to boss. And that’s borne out by our results here. For much of the early hybrid era we were down on power and thus out of contention for wins here. But when we’ve had the juice, in our first golden era and then latterly with Honda on board, the results have come. We had back-to-back 1-2 finishes in 2009 and 2010, another win in 2012 with Mark Webber, and most recently a pair of wins for Max – at the 2020 Anniversary Grand Prix, and a British Grand Prix victory in 2023. So, what can we expect this time round?
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03Oracle Strategy Guide: Silverstone
04From Max & Yuki
We will do everything we can to keep pushing forward as a team...
Max Verstappen"Austria was a weekend to forget; we were pretty unlucky and it was not the result that we wanted. However, we want to come back stronger and hopefully can analyse and find more pace in the car so we can be more competitive to head into another Team home race. We have been looking at what went wrong over the weekend and will do everything we can to keep pushing forward as a Team. Silverstone has lots of high-speed corners which are hard to overtake and it is a track with lots of history. It is always a busy one for us, with lots of events going on, but it is nice for the Team to be close to home this weekend. You never know what the weather might bring so we will see what happens."
I want to get this week right for everyone and show what i am capable of...Yuki Tsunoda "Austria was a tough weekend for us and I really had high hopes going into it. Unfortunately things didn’t turn out the way we wanted and we have to accept that and move on. I am feeling more and more confident in the car, which is why not being able to unlock the long run pace is frustrating for me. The Team and I are working together to find a way to do that and to gain consistency across a weekend. The positive is I have shown and have felt that we have the potential to qualify well, it’s now about making sure set up is right and I can lock a good lap in, like in Canada before the grid penalty. I want to get this week right for everyone and show what I am capable of."
05Challenges and Key Factors
Compound Switch – Silverstone is notoriously tough on tyres. The layout, with its long, high-speed sweeps and directional changes, puts a huge amount of lateral load through tyres (often in excess of 5Gs) and therefore rubber takes a battering. Given the layout, the front-left in particular comes in for particularly severe punishment, especially through Abbey, Woodcote, Copse, the Maggots-Becketts complex and Stowe. That normally pushes Pirelli to go hard and since the arrival of the current generation of F1 cars, we’ve had a C1-C3 compound range at Silverstone.
But no more. The Pirelli Motorsport Director last month revealed that the tyre manufacturer would go a step softer at Silverstone. “We need to be a bit more aggressive or find a way to encourage teams towards a two-stop strategy. We modified the selection for Silverstone — we’ll go one step softer with C2, C3, and C4.”
How teams approach tyre management and strategy could be one of this weekend’s key differentiators.
Strategy – So, what does strategy look like at Silverstone? Go back to the start of the current regulations and in 2022 Carlos Sainz won for Ferrari on a three-stop strategy, but with the race red-flagged on lap one and with almost everybody switching tyres for the restart, it was in reality a two-stop with the Spaniard using mediums until a lap-20 switch to Hard tyres and then final blast on Softs from lap 39 to the flag after a Safety Car prompted another round of stops. In 2023, Max won with a one-stop, starting on medium C2s before moving to used set of Softs on lap 33 and last year Lewis Hamilton won a rain-affected race on a two-stop plan, with the Briton starting on mediums before a lap 27 switch to intermediates and then used Softs on lap 38. It means that with the weather expected to be warm and mostly dry this weekend (except on Saturday when showers are expected) we’re looking at the possibility of a two-stop using a mix of mediums and softs or seeing whether a medium-hard one-stopper is in play. In 2023, Mercedes’ George Russell ran used C3 softs (this year’s medium) for 28 of the 52 laps, while the longest run on the C2 medium (this year’s hard tyre) was a 32-lap stint from Stake Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas.
Weather – It’s July in England, so it could either be 35˚C with blazing sunshine or 12˚C and lashing rain. So far, the forecast is for temperatures in the mid-20s and with broken sunshine for Friday and Sunday. There is a risk of showers on Saturday, however, and a wet qualifying could really shake up the grid.
Beyond that, around flat, open old Silverstone drivers really are at the mercy of the wind. The circuit can get pretty blustery and changes in wind direction occur frequently. That can have a significant effect on vehicle balance and change the car's behaviour.
06Watchlist
07Silverstone: Track Layout & Key Features
As we’ve already mentioned, Silverstone is a fantastic racetrack. With no real braking points until Turn 3, the lap opens with a long blast to Village, and that deceleration to 110km/h and the drop to third gear provides the first overtaking opportunity. The DRS detection zone is just before Village so it’s possible to close up here, follow through the Loop and if you get a good exit out of Aintree, out-drag a rival along the DRS zone on the Wellington Straight.
After that you’re into the more technical Brooklands and Luffield before dropping the throttle for the high-speed blast through Woodcote and spectacular Copse. Then it’s into the jaw-dropping changes of directions in Maggots-Becketts before you’re spat out onto the 330km/h Hangar Straight. That’s the second DRS zone and if you fancy being brave you can get a move done through high-speed, sixth gear Stowe. Following that you’re into the twists of Vale and Club and the run to the start-finish line.
