{"id":52165,"date":"2016-02-04T09:43:47","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T09:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/issue_content\/grand-prix-notebook-britain\/"},"modified":"2020-11-24T10:44:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-24T10:44:30","slug":"grand-prix-notebook-britain","status":"publish","type":"issue_content","link":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/archive\/article\/september-2015\/34\/grand-prix-notebook-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand Prix notebook: Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Great Britain
\nRd 9: Silverstone, July 5 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Lewis Hamilton<\/a><\/strong> Mercedes W06 1hr 31min 27.729sec
\n2. Nico Rosberg<\/strong> Mercedes W06 1hr 31min 38.685sec
\n3. Sebastian Vettel<\/strong> Ferrari SF15-T 1hr 31min 53.172sec<\/p>\n

Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton<\/strong> Mercedes W06 1min 37.093sec
\nRace distance: 52 laps, 190.749 miles
\nPole position: Lewis Hamilton<\/strong> Mercedes W06 1min 32.248sec<\/p>\n

Malaysia and the mirage of Ferrari\u2019s challenge to Mercedes seemed a long time ago as everyone arrived at Silverstone. Back in March, the SF15-T was powered by an engine at least as potent as Merc\u2019s and had good enough aero efficiency to make up down the straights most of what it lost to the Mercedes W06 in the high-speed aero sections. And on that equatorial Kuala Lumpur day it used its tyres gently enough to be able to make one fewer stop than the Merc. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not been like that since the fuel-flow technical directive was issued in Spain. Denied a clever interpretation, Ferrari has been pegged back. Even its combustion upgrade in Canada failed to get the motor back to where it had been pre-Spain \u2013 relative to Mercedes, at least. But at Silverstone, despite a significant aero update, it wasn\u2019t even the second-fastest car, leapfrogged as it was by Williams and even threatened by Red Bull. As team boss Maurizio Arrivabene summarised: \u201cOur downforce cost us too much speed on the straights,\u201d a very different performance pattern to that seen early in the year. <\/p>\n

The Mercedes advantage was always going to be evident here and it played out that way \u2013 but with a twist to enliven the race: Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas snaked their fast-starting Mercedes-powered Williamses past the Silver Arrows off the grid, setting Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg a tough challenge, lending the event some tension. A smattering of rain at two-thirds distance brought with it some jeopardy too \u2013 and gifted Ferrari\u2019s Sebastian Vettel the opportunity to steal the final podium place as Hamilton-Rosberg recorded another Merc 1-2. This overturned Williams having beaten a faster Ferrari in the previous two races, but it was damage limitation. The trend for Ferrari was worrying, though Arrivabene played it down afterwards: \u201cWe are going to have tracks in our favour and other tracks where we are struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Confirmation of that struggle first came in qualifying, where the red cars of Kimi R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen and Vettel were relegated to the third row, behind an all-Mercedes front row and two Williams FW37s. R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen\u2019s deficit to Hamilton\u2019s pole was 1.13sec, Ferrari\u2019s biggest since Melbourne. It was blustery, with a traditional Silverstone cross-wind into Copse, and the Ferrari seemed more affected by this than most. \u201cThese kind of conditions and this kind of circuit layout are not good for us,\u201d said R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen, who arrived here with rumours buzzing about his future. Ferrari has an option on his 2016 services but had yet to exercise it; Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo and Nico H\u00fclkenberg were all being touted as possible replacements. So it was a timely moment to outqualify Vettel on merit for the first time, not that he saw it that way: \u201cI don\u2019t care if he\u2019s in front of me when we\u2019re in these positions, fifth and sixth. It makes a difference if we\u2019re P1 and P2. Maybe people look differently, but it\u2019s just a number.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vettel was running with a little more downforce than R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen, helping him into and through the tight twists of \u2018The Loop\u2019 preceding Wellington Straight, the sort of slow, acrobatic turns where Seb habitually excels over Kimi. But through the fast sweeps of Copse and Maggotts-Becketts, the Finn was able to maintain comparable momentum despite the lower downforce \u2013 and then get the benefit of better straight-line speeds. As they exited Chapel onto Hangar Straight on their best laps they were each doing 158mph, but by the time they buzzed through the speed trap just before backing off for Stowe, R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen was at 201mph, Vettel 198. But giving perspective to these numbers, Hamilton was exiting Chapel at 160mph and going through the trap at 203. Through the high-speed aero demands of sector two \u2013 from Brooklands to the Chapel exit \u2013 the Merc was more than half a second faster than the Ferrari, with the Williams halfway between. The Ferrari can no longer claw back on the straights what it loses in the high-speed bends, unlike the pattern of the season\u2019s early races. <\/p>\n

Since then, a lot of downforce had been added. A massive upgrade from Spain onwards and further significant changes here \u2013 a new front wing, better directing the air vortices to spin advantageously ahead of the sidepods, a new floor, detail changes to the diffuser and refashioned rear brake ducts. But could it be that the updates were planned around more horsepower than they actually have at the moment? The point at which the lap time benefits of extra downforce get overtaken by the concomitant extra drag moves up and down with the engine\u2019s power. Essentially, the Ferrari appeared not to be able to carry the drag its downforce was producing at Silverstone. <\/p>\n

As the Mercs got trapped in the first stint, so the Ferraris were trapped in a group behind the quick-starting new Force India VJM08 of H\u00fclkenberg. R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen ran directly behind Hulk, Vettel a couple of places back from there. Even with the benefit of DRS, neither had the end-of-straight speed to deal with the Force India. Ferrari switched to a two-stop, rather than the standard one, in order to break the stalemate. These early stops got them ahead of H\u00fclkenberg after the latter stopped. Meantime Hamilton had undercut his way past both Williams drivers to lead the race, courtesy of an out-lap 1.3sec faster than anything they drivers could muster. Rosberg, however, was still stuck behind them, with a switch to a Ferrari-like two-stop planned to get him ahead. <\/p>\n

As it turned out, the rain ensured everyone had to two-stop. It arrived on lap 35 of 52 \u2013 but awkwardly at first, only at selected parts of the track, meaning intermediates couldn\u2019t be considered as they\u2019d have burned out on the dry sections. This is where Vettel\u2019s race began to come alive. That extra downforce kept temperature in his tyres better and his amazing reflexes through the wet sections of Luffield and Woodcote allowed him to close on R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen and slice his way past.<\/p>\n

Rosberg\u2019s race lit up similarly to Vettel\u2019s at this point and for much the same reasons of tyre temperature. Hamilton had used up much more of his rubber, while Rosberg had been contained to the speed of Bottas. With more rubber, the German was able to maintain tyre temperature after going through the wet sections in a way that was impossible for Hamilton. Once the rain had begun, Rosberg made short work of the Williams pair \u2013 and closed on Hamilton by two seconds per lap. Still the rain refused to fall over the full circuit, delaying the tyre stops \u2013 and Hamilton was faced with the prospect of losing this race. Had he stayed out one more lap, he\u2019d have been devoured by Rosberg. The situation forced him to make a decision \u2013 and at the end of lap 43 he headed pitwards. Magically, just as his intermediates were fitted, the heavens opened. He\u2019d now won the race, barring mishaps.<\/p>\n

Vettel made the same call about 20sec later, the Williams pair having missed the chance. It allowed him to give Ferrari a result it didn\u2019t really merit on the day. Was it just a circuit-specific blip? Or a more worrying slip from the sort of form that gave Vettel his early-season victory? \u201cHere, I think Williams was just a bit too quick for us,\u201d Seb said.<\/p>\n

As for R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen, the rain\u2019s timing could hardly have been worse \u2013 maybe even in career terms. Having led Vettel all weekend, it ruined his race. First, Vettel\u2019s higher downforce came into its own. Second, it led Kimi to gamble on an early switch to inters. Had the full rain arrived just as he pulled in \u2013 the slice of luck Hamilton later had \u2013 he could conceivably have won the race. As it was, the dry track sections quickly reduced his inters to gripless, cold slicks, so he had to stop again when the heavier rain finally came. Like Ferrari, he could stand at the halfway point of the season wondering where it might all be heading. <\/p>\n

Trackside view
\nVillage, Silverstone<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just a bit of sunshine and Silverstone is in its full garden party splendour. The Village people \u2013 i\u2009e the spectators in the stand outside Village turn, the slow right-hander into the tight loop \u2013 whoop and cheer as Lewis Hamilton the showman exits the pitlane for his weekend track debut, giving a wave of acknowledgement before getting on with the programme. <\/p>\n

Felipe Nasr\u2019s Sauber is struggling with this turn, the aero forces haemorrhaging off as the speed comes down under braking. After turn-in he\u2019s having to wait, wait, wait, speed decreasing in order to make that apex, the turn just not joined up like it is with, say, the Ferrari, which is its usual fluid self. Felipe pushes on, getting more adventurous with the braking each lap \u2013 until the Sauber cries enough, snaps wildly out of line and goes sliding to a halt at 90-degrees to the direction of travel. <\/p>\n

Over at the faster expanses of Becketts\/Chapel, fifth gear into sixth, it\u2019s the two Toro Rosso guys who are providing the thrills, getting very familiar with the zone beyond the grip limits \u2013 but in quite different ways. Carlos Sainz has an understeer balance and, as he stubbornly refuses to surrender, it pulls him out to a part of the exit kerbing that makes it very awkward for him to get across to the right-hand side of the track for the left of Chapel \u2013 where again he gets pulled out wide as a result. <\/p>\n

By contrast Max Verstappen releases some steering after initial turn-in to the first curve, at the place where Sainz\u2019s understeer begins \u2013 instead letting the car breathe for a moment and then putting a bigger, later turn-in on it, triggering a high-speed oversteer that he catches \u2013 twice \u2013 as the car gets on that exit kerb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":752,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[],"tags":[167,198],"issue_decade":[121600],"issue_year":[121672],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/52165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/issue_content"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/752"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52165"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/52165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":711392,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/52165\/revisions\/711392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52165"},{"taxonomy":"issue_decade","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_decade?post=52165"},{"taxonomy":"issue_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_year?post=52165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}