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Mercedes on pole for the eighth time in 10 races. Seventh lockout of world champions on the front row this season. So, even old, same old at the British Grand Prix after the excitement of Austria? Not so fast.
Silverstone was full of surprises this weekend. Lewis Hamilton loses pole position here for the first time in five years; by the unexpected pace of the Ferrari – or any of them, anyway – and the Red Bulls; to the fact that this might – may well – be for once not a race in which pilots only make one pit stop.
In short, the chances that Formula 1 will distract attention from competing attractions from England to New Zealand during the Cricket World Cup final and Federer at Djokovic in Wimbledon are good.
After the coup de sending from Austria, where the combination of high temperatures and altitude took out Mercedes from the cooling window of his car, forced him to turn his engines away and left them in trouble, the silver cars had to regain their dominant form in a race that Hamilton has more or less made his in recent years.
But it has not worked that way yet.
Admittedly, Valtteri Bottas and Hamilton will line up together in first place, but Ferrari and Red Bull have been closer than expected and it is far from clear that the Mercedes will escape with the race.
Even if they do, the stakes are numerous.
After a good start to the season, Bottas had a slight dip in the last races. It was useful to recover some points in Hamilton after the errors of the British in Austria. But the Finn is still 31 points behind while the season reaches more or less its mid-point. So the pole at Silverstone – albeit just 0.006sec – is a decent step.
He knows that the next races are critical – not just for his need to recover ground in the title race, but also to convince Mercedes boss Toto Wolff that he deserves a new contract for 2020, with rumors around Max Verstappen. and Mercedes continues to swirl as the stupid season of the driver market accelerates.
"The fight for the championship continues," said Bottas. "I'm chasing, but there are so many races to go, it depends on me, my performances and all the opportunities I need to win them, if I do not do it, Lewis will be very far away.
"The race is very important, but the race after and the race after, I will do everything in my power to maintain this lead."
Hamilton, however, is running after a sixth British Grand Prix win, which would be a record. Sunday's victory is very important to him.
And although he was not happy about losing to Bottas, he said a slight dissatisfaction with his performance was partly due to a car setup he had chosen because it was better for the race.
"It's a long run," Hamilton said. "We have a big crowd here and hope to do something good for them."
An unexpected Ferrari
Ferrari arrived in the UK by minimizing his chances at Silverstone, pointing out that he did not expect to be as competitive as in Austria two weeks ago.
This despite the fact that they have an advantage in straight lines, and Silverstone is now even more responsive to the power than it was already because the first two corners of Abbey and Farm, and the super-fast Copse right now are all flat. in qualifying, making these sections actually straight.
In fact, Ferrari – or rather Charles Leclerc – seemed competitive on a ride throughout the weekend. Thus, after the 21-year-old finished the last qualifying session and the second qualifying, the third on the grid seemed slightly disappointing, even though he was only 0.079s from pole.
But Leclerc said he thought third place was the best he could hope for, pointing out that Ferrari was still struggling against grip at the back. In fact, the last sector was the one where lap time was running for them.
Friday, Ferrari tore his tires by Copse and Becketts and lost a lot of time in the final sector. Things have improved on Saturday, but they are worried about the pace of the race.
"If we watch the racing simulations on Friday," said Leclerc, "I think it will be very difficult to fight with the Mercedes.At least, Lewis's race was very, very strong. to work.
"But Red Bull seems to be very fast also in the races.
"It will be difficult, if we manage to win places at the start – it's a pretty difficult track to double – we have some chances to keep them, but otherwise I guess it will be very difficult." difficult to fight with them ".
This last comment seems to explain why Ferrari chose to start with the soft tire, a decision that Mercedes and Red Bull consider a mistake.
Leclerc had more than enough pace to pbad the second qualifying on the medium and use it as a racing tire. But it seems that they have realized, rightly, that they could not overqualify the Mercedes and that they could not beat them by doing like them. In this case, they might as well roll the dice on something different – and they opted for the same strategy as in Austria two weeks ago.
"We wanted to (start on the soft)," said Leclerc. "In Austria it was not a bad choice, that's not what made us finish second and we're very happy here too."
Leclerc's teammate, Sebastian Vettel, has been lagging all weekend and said he "was having trouble feeling the car".
Leclerc is the most convincing Ferrari driver since three races in a row. It seems more and more that the changes he has made to his way of qualifying after Canada are a breakthrough.
Leclerc went back to 6-4 in qualifying, which earned him a new boost after Saturday's mistakes – big and small – that affected him in early season races.
Red Bull looks dangerous
The fact that Max Verstappen is only 0.2 seconds off pole on such a track represents a truly impressive performance and highlights the progress made by the Red Bull car manufactured in Austria with some aerodynamic improvements.
Verstappen revealed that he had suffered turbo lag problems in qualifying and that without them, he "could have fought for pole".
Since the power disparity between the Red Bull Honda engine and that of Mercedes and Ferrari is reduced in race, and the current form of Verstappen superlative, it could constitute a real danger to victory.
His team-mate Pierre Gasly had his best weekend of the season, qualifying just behind Verstappen and just over 0.3 seconds behind. The Frenchman struggled to qualify for the main team, but at Silverstone, the intense work with the team paid off.
He hesitated when it was suggested to him that it could be a decisive step forward, saying that he wanted to wait to see how the race would unfold, but he admitted that it was "clearly a huge step".
Albon shines at home
At the Red Bull Junior Team, Alex Albon's impressive start to the season continued with an excellent performance in the home race.
Toro Rosso strives to repel Albon's Thai identity – after all, he runs under a Thai flag – and hopes to dissuade people from considering him a "British rookie" with Lando Norris and George Russell.
But Albon has a dual Anglo-Thai heritage – by his English father and his Thai mother – and as a person born in London and having lived most of his life in the UK, this is his native race.
And what a good job he did! Albon started ninth, while his team-mate Daniil Kvyat was 17th after being eliminated in the first qualifications, while the Russian was 0.239 s behind the sister car.
"It's good," says Albon. "I can not lie, I'm happy with the performance today."
He is, he says, becoming more comfortable with F1 and with what it takes to get the most out of these cars.
"Even Paul Ricard and Red Bull Ring were maybe a slower car, but I felt much better in terms of pace," said Albon. "It came from there." We have made another step by understanding the car and growing what I want in the car and I feel in a happy place where I know what I'm doing. need in the car is fast.
"These are just these cars, they have a lot of support.Stability is not really what I like in a car.I do not mind that it moves, but it doesn? is not always the fastest way to having a car.
"So, just understand that and know how much I can get out of it." I really like the front end of the car, understanding how much I can get is very important. "
As for his first season so far, Albon said, "I'm totally comfortable with that, it's getting more normal, just more relaxed.
"At first you're a little upset, of course you still care about some things, but there's a lot more calm about everything, just like little things, maybe the schedule and race plans. Even by qualifying, you're in the rhythm now.
"You feel less stressed about qualifying because you have a long weekend, but the atmosphere is a bit more relaxed because I install it."
Albon, who impresses all the right people at Red Bull, starts right behind McLaren's Lando Norris, who compares very well to his teammate Carlos Sainz in his rookie season. While George Russell continues to impress Williams, he has so far performed a full sweep of Robert Kubica's qualifications.
Hamilton still has some good years at home, but the future of British drivers in F1 (at least half) seems very positive.
Strategy and tires
Most Grand Prix tend to be a one-stop shop these days, despite the fragility of the tires, which can not be pushed so hard before they overheat.
But the demands of Silverstone's high-speed sweepers are pushing things two ways.
Hamilton overtook Copse at 184 mph in the final qualifying round. Verstappen said that in all five corners of Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel he was not holding back at all.
Really, I said?
"Yes," he replied with a small laugh. The first elevator is on the left at turn 12 – the third turn in the sequence – and another on the right, which also requires a downshift to seventh place. "The cars are really fast there," he said, his eyes bright and alive.
It's great – although too much, perhaps, because it reduces the challenge of the pilots. Copse should really be a real corner; Abbey too. But this imposes huge demands on the tires. And during Friday's race simulation races, many were tired of wearing front tires.
As a result, Pirelli said that the fastest strategy consisted of two stages, with two runs on the soft of about 13 laps each, followed by the last on the hard – hence the choice of Ferrari tire – or medium-hard-hard.
The teams will inevitably try a one-stop shop, as usual. But Gasly added: "It will not be a simple stop with one or two stops".
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