BRITISH GRAND PRIX 2014 PREVIEW

The British Grand Prix is a race in the calendar of the FIA Formula One World Championship. It is currently held at the Silverstone Circuit near the village of Silverstone in Northamptonshire in England. The British and Italian Grands Prix are the oldest continuously staged Formula One World Championship Grands Prix. It was designated the European Grand Prix five times between 1950 and 1977, when this title was an honorary designation given each year to one Grand Prix race in Europe. All British Grands Prix dating back to 1926 have been held in England; where the British motor racing industry is primarily located.

Silverstone this year will be interesting on a number of levels; with the teams using the hybrid turbo cars on the track for the first time, as it’s one of the lowest braking energy circuits on the calendar; only 9% of the lap is spent braking, so harvesting energy for the MGU-K unit will be an interesting challenge.

Silverstone has the fastest corner combinations on the F1 calendar and is loved by the drivers, but it can be a real headache for the engineers and strategists, as it shows up aerodynamic instabilities and it can be very difficult to get a good reading on the tyres, especially as there is usually some rain during the practice sessions.

Track Characteristics

Track length : 5.891km kilometres.
Race distance : 52 laps (306.198 kilometres).
Corners : 18 corners in total. A high speed circuit based on an old WWII airfield. Lots of high-speed corners, aerodynamically challenging, very easy on brakes.
Aerodynamic setup : Med/High downforce.
Top speed : 311km/h (with Drag Reduction System active on rear wing) – 301km/h without.
Full throttle : 66% of the lap (medium).
Fuel consumption : High.
Time spent braking : 9% of lap (very low). 9 braking zones.
Brake wear : Low.
Total time needed for pit stop : 25 seconds.
Updates : The FIA has revealed that artificial grass has been removed from the exits of Turns 5, 8 and 9. While the wall to the driver's left before Turn 6 has been extended, drainage has also been improved at a number of places around the circuit.

Weather Forecast

The weather in England, even in summer, is notoriously hard to predict. Last year saw rain affecting the practice days. It could be warm and sunny, or cold and wet. The long range forecast for this weekend is for temperatures around 19 to 20 degrees, with rain showers forecast for Saturday and Sunday.

Tyres

Pirelli tyre choice for Silverstone: Medium and Hard. This is a similar combination to what we saw at Malaysia and Spain. This year the teams have not spent much time on the hard compound Pirelli tyres. They have been used only in Malaysia and Spain, where they were around 4/10th slower per lap than the medium tyres.

Pirelli - "Silverstone is one of the fastest circuits of the season with high energy loads going through the tyres. Because of this, the two hardest tyres in the range are best-suited to the British track."

The wear rate of the tyres at Silverstone is high because of the lateral loads through the high speed corners, like Copse and Abbey. The surface of the track is not particularly grippy or aggressive, unlike Barcelona, so this will lead to less rampant tyre degradation, while the cooler temperatures will also help with degradation, even if they make tyre warm up something of a challenge.

DRS

There will be two DRS zones at Silverstone. The detection point of the first is 25m before Turn Three, with the activation point 30m after Turn Five. The second detection point is at Turn 11 with the activation point 55m after Turn 14.

Pit Stops

Because the new pit lane at Silverstone is quite long, a stop is relatively slow by F1 standards at 25 seconds total pit lane time. This encourages teams to do less, rather than more stops.

Safety Car

Silverstone is a fast, open circuit with lots of run off areas. So for marshals it’s relatively safe to recover a broken car. The chances of a safety car are therefore quite low – 57%, with 0.6 safety cars per race.

British GP Fast Facts

► The British Grand Prix is one of two ever-present races on the Formula One World Championship calendar. The other race featuring every year since 1950 is the Italian Grand Prix.
► Three venues have hosted the British Grand Prix during the World Championship era. Silverstone shared the early races with Aintree, which held races in 1955, ’57, ’59 and 1961-2. Aintree was replaced by Brands Hatch, which held the British Grand Prix in even years between 1964-1986. Silverstone has hosted all of the other races.
► 2014 marks the 48th running of the Formula One World Championship British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The circuit, however, is celebrating it’s 50th race, having hosted pre-World Championship grands prix in 1948 and 1949. Both of those races were won by Maserati, courtesy of drivers Luigi Villoresi and Baron Emmanuel ‘Toulo’ de Graffenried respectively. Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina won the inaugural world championship race in 1950. Before Silverstone, a British Grand Prix was held at the Brooklands circuit in 1926 and 1927.
► Silverstone is situated in an area known as ‘Motorsport Valley’. Eight of the 11 F1 teams are clustered within 125km of the track. In order of distance they are McLaren (125km), Williams (65km), Caterham (59km), Lotus (40km), Red Bull  (33km), Marussia (24km) and Mercedes (13km), with Force India based a few hundred metres from the front gates of the circuit. Additionally, Mercedes High Performance Powertrains’ manufacturing facility is based 33km from the circuit and Toro Rosso’s wind tunnel is located 23km away.
► Mercedes have dominated 2014 with seven victories and seven poles from the eight races so far. Neither driver, however, has shown dominant form at Silverstone in the past. In Nico Rosberg’s eight races he has been outqualified by his various team-mates five times. Lewis Hamilton has been outqualified by his team-mates three times in seven attempts. As team-mates in 2013 Mercedes locked out the front row with Hamilton on pole – but Rosberg won the race after Hamilton suffered a tyre failure.
► Jim Clark (1962, ’63, ’64, ’65, ’67) and Alain Prost (1983, ’85, ’89, ’90, ’93) share top billing at the British Grand Prix with five victories each. One behind them is this weekend’s driver steward Nigel Mansell who won in 1986, ’87, ’91 and ’92. Mansell did, however claim five victories on home soil, winning the 1985 European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch a year before winning the British Grand Prix at the same circuit. Mansell is one of only two drivers to have won differently titled grands prix at the same circuit (Nelson Piquet won the 1980 Italian and 1981 San Marino Grands Prix at Imola.)
► Austria marked Mercedes’ sixth one-two finish of the eight races so far this season. McLaren hold the record with 10, set in 1988 by Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna.

Conclusion

Silverstone this year will be interesting on a number of levels; with the teams using the hybrid turbo cars on the track for the first time, as it’s one of the lowest braking energy circuits on the calendar; only 9% of the lap is spent braking, so harvesting energy for the MGU-K unit will be an interesting challenge.

Traditionally Silverstone has been a circuit, which suits the Red Bull car, with its aerodynamic design very effective in high speed corners. Red Bull has won the race in three of the last five years. This year the Mercedes pair have won all but one of the eight races with Red Bull winning the other, due to reliability issues on the Mercedes cars.

It is looking like a Mercedes track so watch out for a resurgent Lewis Hamilton who really needs to cut down Nico Rosberg's advantage. And what a better place to do it then at your home race. This and the British weather. Should be a cracker of a race.

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