The Official 2016 British Grand Prix Thread **Spoilers**

[Dr Z]

Alright, it’s the British GP this weekend!

Date(s): Friday 08 July - Sunday 10 July 2016

UK Broadcast Timings (and local time)

All sessions are live on Channel 4 and Sky F1.

Session	Day	Sky F1	Channel 4	Session Start	Local Time
Practice 1	Fri	0945	0955	1000	1000
Practice 2	Fri	1345	1355	1400	1400
Practice 3	Sat	0945	0955	1000	1000
Qualifying	Sat	1200	1200	1300	1300
Race	Sun	1130	1200	1300	1300

Silverstone Circuit



Live timing for all sessions available here:

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/f1-...

Info such as lap times, PU use, technical reports, stewards decisions etc for the weekend will appear here:

http://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-one-world-ch...

Weather forecast:

https://weather.com/en-GB/weather/5day/l/UKXX1916:...

Day	Comment	High/Low (℃)	Chance of Rain
Fri	AM Showers	21/12	50%
Sat	AM Light Rain	23/15	40%
Sun	AM Showers	20/11	50%

The tyre choices requested by the teams:



Mandatory tyres for this race is a choice between Medium and Hard tyres.

2015 Qualifying

Pos.	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:33.796	1:33.068	1:32.248
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:33.475	1:32.737	1:32.361
3	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1:34.542	1:33.707	1:33.085
4	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:34.171	1:33.020	1:33.149
5	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:33.426	1:33.911	1:33.379
6	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:33.562	1:33.641	1:33.547
7	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:34.422	1:33.520	1:33.636
8	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso-Renault	1:34.641	1:34.071	1:33.649
9	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:34.594	1:33.693	1:33.673
10	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:34.272	1:33.749	1:33.943
11	Sergio Pérez	Force India-Mercedes	1:34.250	1:34.268	-
12	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Mercedes	1:34.646	1:34.430	-
13	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Renault	1:34.819	1:34.502	-
14	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Mercedes	1:34.877	1:34.511	-
15	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	1:34.643	1:34.868	-
16	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	1:34.888	-	-
17	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda	1:34.959	-	-
18	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda	1:35.207	-	-
19	Will Stevens	Marussia-Ferrari	1:37.364	-	-
20	Roberto Merhi	Marussia-Ferrari	1:39.377	-	-

2015 Race

Pos.	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	52	1:31:27.729	1
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	52	+10.956	2
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	52	+25.443	6
4	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	52	+36.839	3
5	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	52	+1:03.194	4
6	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing-Renault	52	+1:03.955	7
7	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	52	+1:18.744	9
8	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	51	+1 Lap	5
9	Sergio Pérez	Force India-Mercedes	51	+1 Lap	11
10	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda	51	+1 Lap	17
11	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	51	+1 Lap	15
12	Roberto Merhi	Marussia-Ferrari	49	+3 Laps	20
13	Will Stevens	Marussia-Ferrari	49	+3 Laps	19
Ret	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso-Renault	31	Electrical	8
Ret	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	21	Electrical	10
Ret	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Renault	3	Spun off	13
Ret	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Mercedes	0	Collision	12
Ret	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Mercedes	0	Collision damage	14
Ret	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda	0	Collision	18
DNS	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	0	Gearbox	16

---

First, if any of you are going, let us know and feel free to post pics. Last time a group of us tried to go was back in 2012 on the Saturday and the weather completely ruined our chances with the organisers telling us to not turn up. The forecast doesn’t look great for this weekend for those who are going, but the classic British weather will deliver a good weekend for us watching on TV, I’m sure!

A fast and flowing circuit again, which must be a pleasure to drive an F1 car in...or not if you’re on the Hard tyre which used to be slow and also degrade quickly when leant on from memory in Barcelona. It is no wonder that most teams (except FI) have decided to stock up on the Soft/Medium tyres. It will be interesting to see if any of the teams are evaluating the Hard tyre as a serious race tyre which might hold the key to some battles in the field.

Looking forward to the fights up and down the field, whilst I’m sure most of the media focus is on the Mercedes team. We might once again be very close to the lap record set in 2013 on the current circuit config and qualifying times may dip into the 1:29s if it was a dry session.

Edited by Dr Z on Thursday 7th July 16:00

[Dr Z]

rsbmw said:

Dr Z said:

Mandatory tyres for this race is a choice between Medium and Hard tyres.

Thanks for the post. Don't understood this bit though, since you have to use 2 compounds, and there are only 3, isn't giving a choice between 2 as mandatory a little redundant?

I don't see it that way, because you have some variation in strategy you can play with. Last year, Pirelli brought Medium and Hard tyres with the teams being forced to run the Pirelli nominated Hard tyre at least once in the race. This year, Pirelli have brought Soft, Medium and Hard, nominating the Medium and Hard as the mandatory tyres. The variation we have this year is that teams have the choice of running the Medium or Hard or Both during the race apart from the tyre they qualify with in Q2. So, the strategy permutations goes like this:

2015

Medium and Hard available for the weekend

Qualify on the Medium tyre as it's the quicker of the two.

Assuming a 2-stop race, the strategy can be:

Medium-Hard-Medium

Medium-Hard-Hard

Medium-Medium-Hard


2016

Soft, Medium and Hard available for the weekend

Qualify on Softs, and assuming a 2-stop race you can do:

Soft-Soft-Medium

Soft-Medium-Medium

Soft-Medium-Soft

Soft-Soft-Hard

Soft-Hard-Hard

Soft-Hard-Soft

Soft-Medium-Hard

Soft-Hard-Medium


You can immediately appreciate that this allows teams to have more freedom to react to situations in the race. It also allows teams to stay away from compounds that they don't like or that their car can't work well with, in the Pirelli range. Another plus is that with greater variation in tyre strategy, it gives you a higher chance of dialling in a setup sweet spot for at least two of the tyres in the ones available for the weekend, or one tyre type as in the case of Monaco this year where changing conditions in the race meant some cars were in the sweet spot and others weren't...gave us a better spectacle of driver skill than if all cars were falling off track. Better yet, wet-dry races naturally give that but this year's Austria and Canada GPs showed that this is happening in perfectly dry races too.

If a team wants to save a pit stop and go for a 1-stop as they think their car/driver combo is particularly good on tyres you only had one choice on the tyre strategy in 2015: Medium-Hard and it's no longer a game of poker anymore, as the other teams immediately know what tyre the 1-stopping team is going to be on in the second stint and can adjust their pace to cover off any threat. However this year, the 1-stopping team will only show their hand at the actual pit stop, so the other teams can only react in that moment or after...makes for an interesting battle in strategy, more uncertainty for the competitors and more intrigue for us fans throughout the race.

And finally, because the pace delta is greater between the two extremes in the tyres available for the weekend this year (Soft vs Hard this year; Medium vs Hard last year), it results in greater pace delta between cars on different strategies during different parts of the race, creating more on-track battles.

[Dr Z]

Jabbah said:

Dr Z said:

I don't see it that way, because you have some variation in strategy you can play with. Last year, Pirelli brought Medium and Hard tyres with the teams being forced to run the Pirelli nominated Hard tyre at least once in the race. This year, Pirelli have brought Soft, Medium and Hard, nominating the Medium and Hard as the mandatory tyres. The variation we have this year is that teams have the choice of running the Medium or Hard or Both during the race apart from the tyre they qualify with in Q2.

Nominating two compounds out of three as mandatory is redundant when you also have the rule that you have to use at least two compounds. There is no combination of two different compounds from the three that do not use one of the mandatory compounds.

Yes, it's not free choice, but if you give teams free choice you won't create variations in strategy among teams...you will end up encouraging convergence rather than divergence.

[Dr Z]

rsbmw said:

He's simply saying what I did, the rule "you have to use 2 compounds" is sufficient, there is nothing changed by then stipulating "one of these two is mandatory" as you have to use one of those two anyway.

To put it another way, if we ignore those two "mandatory" options and assume the rule is just "use two different compounds", what combination can you come up with that doesn't also fulfil the criteria for the rule we have ignored?

OK, the possible combinations will be the same but that rule is there to encourage strategy variation in the races I think, and to give teams a 'joker' tyre. Given the choice, most teams will end up picking two of their favourite compounds anyway. I would wager that all the teams that have only one set of the Hards for this race would likely not have ordered any if it was a rule that you suggest. But a few times this year, that single set of tyre they had ordered for the weekend ended up saving their bacon.

If the intention is to create more variation on pace between cars at different stages of the race, it will very likely fail because who would choose the slowest tyre of the lot? Reckon teams will end up choosing the fastest two tyres of the three and end up 1-stopping, driving to a delta to get the required stint lengths...they're doing this to a lesser extent now. At least, this is what I think that rule is for! I can't find an official statement as to that effect.

[Dr Z]

Mr_Thyroid said:

Dr Z said:

OK, the possible combinations will be the same but that rule is there to encourage strategy variation in the races I think, and to give teams a 'joker' tyre. Given the choice, most teams will end up picking two of their favourite compounds anyway. I would wager that all the teams that have only one set of the Hards for this race would likely not have ordered any if it was a rule that you suggest. But a few times this year, that single set of tyre they had ordered for the weekend ended up saving their bacon.

If the intention is to create more variation on pace between cars at different stages of the race, it will very likely fail because who would choose the slowest tyre of the lot? Reckon teams will end up choosing the fastest two tyres of the three and end up 1-stopping, driving to a delta to get the required stint lengths...they're doing this to a lesser extent now. At least, this is what I think that rule is for! I can't find an official statement as to that effect.

So the rule is to encourage variation at the tyre selection phase. As others have mentioned it is essentially irrelevant when it comes to race day - they just have to use two from three.

We can see from the selections for this race that most drivers have selected only one hard tyre - we can assume that if this were not a mandatory tyre some of these drivers would have chosen none.

Indeed, this happened in the Montreal GP when two teams didn't order any Super Softs...Pirelli only nominated one compound (Softs) as 'mandatory' for that race. The rationale for these rules are sadly lacking in the public domain. May be a question for #AskCrofty this weekend?

[Dr Z]

[redacted]

[Dr Z]

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mercedes-says-dr...

Mercedes allow their drivers to race freely after a meeting back at the factory. Phew!

[Dr Z]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Abridged drivers conference;
https://youtu.be/3KPjYI0Xjb8

You must admit, LH doesn't seem bothered by the talk with bosses.

I watched the full press conference, it sounds like the bosses didn't come down too hard on either drivers (unlike the aftermath of Spa '14), although Lewis seemed a little subdued in the conference...normally he is buzzing in a British GP weekend (it's not just me, the OH is a Lewis fan and she picked up on it). Loved his answer to a question on the Hungary '14 TO.

FP1 ends and it looks like fireworks between the Merc pilots. If any of you are interested in looking at the runs done on FP1, these were the tyre usage:



Pair it with the lap times published in the FIA link in the OP to read the long runs. McLaren looking better than expected, both drivers were only using the Medium tyres...Red Bull too are looking good. Look forward to seeing the long runs in FP2.

Edited by Dr Z on Friday 8th July 11:50

[Dr Z]

A question to those trackside...how are the cars sounding in comparison to 2014/2015? Louder?

[Dr Z]

hairyben said:

Are teams obliged to include all 3 compounds?

I cant see the point in having 1 tyre of a type - if you run it practice to get any meaningfull data you'd have no usably fresh ones for the race

Dr Z said:

Teams who have only one set of a tyre type will use it as a back up in the race in case something goes horribly wrong with their preferred strategy...but these 1 tyre sets is more to do with the curious rule of specifying two of the harder tyres as mandatory rather than of 'use two of the three available compounds' as discussed earlier in the thread.

Edited by Dr Z on Friday 8th July 14:56

[Dr Z]

Both Red Bulls putting in lap times as fast as Hamilton on the Soft tyres... encouraging pace from Red Bull.

[Dr Z]

Skodasupercar said:

Just watching the end of FP2, anyone know what has happened to Rosberg? Doesn't appear to have taken part in FP2.

Punishment for running the No. 1 off track/crashing last race.

[Dr Z]

Skodasupercar said:

Lol, I did wonder if he had been 'sin-binned' or been put in detention.

...He's had some PU problems/leak that put him out of the session.

[Dr Z]

FP2 Tyre usage:

[Dr Z]

hairyben said:

Actually, rosberg relies on hamiltons setup anyway so he gets to chillax while lewis puts the work in, this way he'll carry a couple of sets of optinum compound stickers into the race while lewis will have one new set at best and a load of used tyres

Why do you think rosberg looked so chilled out about the whole thing?

Whilst I think Rosberg is the world's greatest copy ninja, it goes both ways. Isn't it standard practice for one side of the garage to copy setup from another if there are problems? Especially if both drivers prefer similar car setups, which Hamilton and Rosberg have indicated they do. What do you think happened in Barcelona this year when Hamilton was struggling on Friday? Copied Rosberg's setup and got pole.

[Dr Z]

NJK44 said:

Dr Z said:

A question to those trackside...how are the cars sounding in comparison to 2014/2015? Louder?

Bloody brilliant! Much louder, much better!

Thanks, good to know.

---

OK, here are some averaged lap times from the FP2 long runs:

Driver	Medium	Driver	Soft	Driver	Hard
HAM	36.232	VET	36.514	RAI	38.536
RIC	36.629	RIC	37.402	HUL	38.689
VES	36.997	VES	37.498	GRO	38.738
ALO	37.945	HAM	37.539	PER	38.92
MAS	38.302	RAI	37.542	-	-
VET	38.366	SAI	38.185	-	-
KVY	38.628	MAS	38.974	-	-
HUL	38.691	BOT	39.012	-	-
BOT	38.736	NAS	39.129	-	-
PER	38.826	ALO	39.203	-	-
MAG	39.741	GRO	40.112	-	-
GUT	39.837	HAR	40.855	-	-
HAR	40.091	MAG	40.957	-	-
ERI	40.199	-	-	-	-
PAL	40.274	-	-	-	-

Please refer to the FP2 tyre usage pic I posted earlier to make sense of this as a few drivers completed shorter runs than others (Vettel on the Softs for example), so keep that in mind. The Hard tyre is working pretty well if the lap times vs Medium is to be believed. Only Force India and Ferrari seriously evaluated it, and the performance trade-off vs longevity seems good compared to Medium. For Ferrari, it could serve as a good tyre for a long middle stint, with a final sprint on the Softs/Medium.

Rosberg and Hamilton completed some runs on the Medium tyre in FP1 and Hamilton was around 0.3s/lap faster than Rosberg. Advantage Hamilton for now.

Edited by Dr Z on Friday 8th July 18:04

[Dr Z]

Crafty_ said:

Dr Z said:

Rosberg and Hamilton completed some runs on the Medium tyre in FP1 and Hamilton was around 0.3s/lap faster than Rosberg. Advantage Hamilton for now.

Sky were tracking the runs and reckoned that in FP2 Ricciardo's run on the Soft gave the same average lap time as Hamilton's with Vettel just a little slower. Interesting! however, I suspect that the Mercedes was turned down, they seem to dial them back a bit for practice and give it the full beans for qualifying/race so it could well be false.

I don't expect Rosberg's lack of running to diminish his pace, even if it stays dry.

Agreed, Hamilton, Ricciardo and Verstappen all averaged 1:37.4 on the Softs on similar stint lengths. But Hamilton put in a couple of 1:35s laps at the start of the stint, which suggests there was more performance in the Merc. I too, fully expect a Merc to get pole and probably win the race but it should be close. Can't quite get a read on where Ferrari are at the moment, but Raikkonen's run on the Softs averaged a tenth slower than RB/Hamilton with similar stint lengths, so they should be thereabouts I think.

Alonso looked like a man on a mission, on the pace straight away and his long runs were on Williams pace. Williams don't show big one lap pace on Friday and their long runs are a fair reflection of their actual race pace, but it will be interesting to see how things evolve tomorrow. I think Q3 positions for McLaren on merit. It also looked like McLaren were more comfortable on the Medium rather than the Soft tyre?

Speed Trap data from FP2:

[Dr Z]

Large gaps between teammates and very fast lap times. Liked the way Verstappen built up the times from Q1>Q2>Q3, always having a few tenths in spare. Hamilton was all shock and awe, nice. Kimi was impressive too in Q3, Seb having a poor Q3. JB also had a poor Q1 (unfortunate with the problems though). It will be interesting to see if Alonso can keep up with the Williams of Bottas in the race tomorrow. It will be a good sign of the efficiency improvement of the Honda PU.

Barring any rain, this has got to be Hamilton's race to lose surely? Here's hoping either one of the Red Bulls jump the Mercs at the start and keep 'em at bay. Will be cheering Verstappen tomorrow. The Softs didn't look like it's a great tyre for those high speed turns, it will have to be managed carefully in the 1st stint I think...15 laps max? Last year the cars did 20 laps on the Medium...so 2-stops the standard strategy? Any thoughts? Too much tyre management for a Soft-Medium 1-stop strategy I feel. Ferrari could do a 1-stop (Soft-Hard) with Raikkonen however. And of course, rain should mix things up too. Look forward to it.

Edited by Dr Z on Saturday 9th July 18:04

[Dr Z]

cgt2 said:

Max seems to be able to make his tyres go much further than others whilst maintaining decent pace. Could be interesting to see, especially if he maintains position or even jumps a Merc at the start. By no means is it over for Red Bull.

Will be a keen follower of his pace tomorrow (thanks to F1 Access). His tyre management skills will be legit if he can do it tomorrow, as Pirelli rate Silverstone's track abrasion as 4 in a scale of 1-5 (Austria was 1). It will be a big asset to him (and RB) in the race, if he can get the Softs to go that much further.

VolvoT5 said:

I'm interested to see if Ferrari can go forward tomorrow as the car seemed to just lack pace rather than any terrible mistakes from either driver. Having said that Raikkonen did lock up in Q2 and I'm wondering if they will apply for a new set of tyres rather than start the race on a flat spotted set, just at Lewis did in a previous race?

Good point, Ferrari should apply for a better set of tyres, although his lock ups were not that severe? He still managed to put in a decent lap on the same set, no? Raikkonen's pace on the Hard tyre was very good, very comparable to Vettel's run on the Mediums, although with the initial slow warm up for the Hard tyre perhaps negating any advantage. I seriously hope Ferrari have made plans for using the Hard tyre if others are 2-stopping...or do a maximum attack 2-stop going S/H/S to bring him in to play at the front. Go Kimi!

[Dr Z]

Crafty_ said:

Tyres available for the race:



Quite how Rosberg has used more than Lewis when he sat out FP2 completely I don't know.

Note that Pirelli have given the teams recommendations on the maximum number of laps to do on each tyre. The hard they believe will do less than the medium because it has experienced graining over the weekend. That said, they are still suggesting teams run the tyres according to their own strategy so quite what the point was I don't know.

Pirelli reckon two 12 laps stints on the soft and a 28 on the medium is the way to go.

Thanks for this, I'd missed the recommended laps. I don't understand the point of the Hard tyre with the characteristics Pirelli have designed it with, tbh. No doubt, its slow warm up a big factor in the graining and with the expected track temps tomorrow, I'm not surprised that the expected tyre life for the Hard tyre is also lower than the Mediums which fire up faster. For once, I thought the Hard tyres could spice up the race in terms of strategy. Oh well.