Max Verstappen and Red Bull will be the absolute top favorites going into the rest of the Silverstone weekend at the eleventh round of the Formula 1 season. Not only did the RB19 feel like it was on rails for a fast lap, but the competition also had a hard time with the long run pace.
“It was a good day for us,” says Verstappen. “The track was quite slippery at the beginning, but I think that was also due to the high tire pressure. It was the same for everyone, but it made it a little harder for us in the slow corners. Overall, the car ran really well.”
If you add up all the long run times and adjust them for the effect of the different tire compounds, Verstappen comes up with an average lap time of 1:34.484. They are followed by teammate Sergio Perez (+0.038) and Lando Norris in the McLaren (+0.039), who seems to have taken his strong form from Spielberg home with him.
However, one should not hope for a podium for the young Brit on Sunday, as McLaren always shows clearly more than the competition on Friday. Compared to Mercedes, you lose three tenths by race Sunday, compared to Ferrari four, if you look at the previous weekends of the 2023 season.
Mercedes probably second force, but drivers are dissatisfied
Speaking of Mercedes. The new front wing update on the W14 does not seem to have brought the big breakthrough, at least on Friday. George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were missing around half a second per lap on Verstappen in the long run, but you could already see in Barcelona that Mercedes can make more progress overnight.
“I couldn’t feel any improvement between the tires on a fast lap. That’s bad and not a good sign,” Hamilton analyzed. “But the long runs were better. They didn’t feel great either, but it must have been worse for others when I look at their lap times.”
From Russell’s point of view, it was “definitely not our best Friday for Mercedes. In the first practice session with the medium, we looked pretty good and thought that if we pulled the soft in the second practice session, we would be there. But we were nowhere. Was a difficult afternoon for us.”
Ferrari: Tire wear is back
Ferrari, on the other hand, consistently disappointed with a lot of fuel. While Carlos Sainz was just 0.022 seconds behind Verstappen in second place on a fast lap, he lost eight tenths per lap in the long run. And another piece of bad news: tire wear is back.
The tires on the Ferrari wore out by a full 0.149 seconds per lap, with Max Verstappen in the lead only by 0.037 seconds, even though both drivers were out at similar times on the same tire compounds. Aston Martin didn’t have major problems with tire management with Fernando Alonso, but the pace of the AMR23 matched that of Ferrari (+0.078).
Looking at the historical time improvements from Friday to Sunday, Red Bull should clearly be the first force in the race, followed by Mercedes. Behind it could be tight between Lando Norris, Ferrari and Aston Martin. Or does Alexander Albon even have a say in Williams?
Will Williams get involved with the chasing teams?
Not only was the Thai missing just 0.2 seconds on Verstappen on a fast lap, his long run was also faster, adjusted for tyres, (+0.073 on Verstappen) than that of Ferrari and Aston Martin, but beware: So far it has been shown that Williams on Friday always shows more than the competition, be it through the amount of fuel or the engine mode.
The team from Grove also knows this and therefore does not want to start daydreaming at the home game: “We have to look at the data and try to understand them,” says Williams performance boss Dave Robson. “Because it was a better day than we expected. We have to understand that first. I think it’s just the performance in the high-speed corners.”
Albon adds: “It was a bit surprising in some ways because it’s a normal day for us, we weren’t messing around in any way. We crossed the finish line and we’re in the top three. In a way it’s a bit confusing. “
“But at the same time the car feels good. We have upgraded the car [in Montreal] gotten that we’ve had for two races now. At least in the simulator it has been shown to be slightly more effective in the high-speed range than in slow corners.”
“And we haven’t really had a lot of high-speed tracks in the last two races and it’s the first time we’ve seen the package working on a fast track. It’s looking quite good but we have to keep our feet on the ground. It’s progressing. “
Haas is making progress but Pace is still missing
The Haas team also seems to have made progress in tire management. Nico Hülkenberg completed 17 laps in a row on the hard tire, with the tire only wearing down 0.064, which puts him in the upper middle field. However, the general race pace was disappointing once again. With an average of 1.23 seconds behind Red Bull per lap, they are in ninth place in the long run ranking, only Alfa Romeo was worse (+1.36).
The Emmericher also noticed that: “In the run on the hard tires in FT2 we were still last or something. On soft the car worked a little better and we were able to find a lot of lap times. And on one lap the pace seemed to be back to be okay.”
“The long runs actually felt okay today. At least that’s my feeling. But there are also some other fast cars out there. Unfortunately, Williams seems to have found a lot of pace.”
The race will probably amount to a two-stop strategy
So the only question left is which strategies we can expect for the race on Sunday. According to the extrapolation with the data tool of the technology company ‘PACETEQ’, the medium-medium-hard two-stop strategy should be the fastest, whereby only one medium and two hard would not be much slower either.
According to the data, a medium-hard stop strategy, which has often been practiced at Silverstone in the past, is around six seconds slower over the entire race distance and cannot yet be swept under the carpet. On Sunday it’s supposed to be a bit cooler than in the long runs, which should have a positive effect on tire degradation.
Three stops, on the other hand, should only be an issue if there is a late safety car towards the end – like last year, for example – or an early one and the scheduled pit stops are pushed forward as a result, but also the stint lengths, what about the distance would be bad for the tyres.
In any case, one thing is clear: Anything but a victory for Max Verstappen on Sunday would come as a surprise, but the field of pursuers is again tight, where McLaren and Williams in particular were able to set exclamation marks.
There is an even more extensive data analysis on the ‘Formel1.de’ YouTube channel, where data expert Kevin Hermann has evaluated the most important figures for Friday and gives his forecast for the British Grand Prix.