After the variable weather in Canada and the sprint format in Austria, Formula 1 got itself settled into a standard workmanlike weekend in Britain.
Unsurprisingly Red Bull Racing ended Friday outright fastest after Max Verstappen topped both practice sessions.
But F1’s run of difficult-to-read practice results was untamed by the return to standard running at the sport’s oldest circuit.
Carlos Sainz was impressive for Ferrari to keep Verstappen in his sights just 0.022 seconds up the road.
Alex Albon was a wild inclusion into the top three, pipping Sergio Pérez in his Union Jack-festooned Williams to lap only 0.218 seconds slower than the leading Dutchman.
Logan Sargeant proved it was no fluke, putting the sister car fifth.
Yet Mercedes, on a track that ought to suit the W14, struggled for pace at the back of a midfield that was covered by just 0.376 seconds.
Are we really on for a dramatically close weekend of racing in Silverstone, or is there a reasonable explanation for the jumbled order?
TYRES CHANGES, BRITISH SUMMER AT PLAY
Tyres might not be an especially exciting talking point, but a key part of Friday practice was the introduction of Pirelli’s new tyre construction.
The new design is stronger to withstand the rapidly increasing downforce loads of the cars in the early days of these regulations.
This is one of the hardest tracks for tyres on the calendar. To underline the rate of development, this year’s FP2 lap times are almost a second quicker than they were last year.
Pirelli also set unusually high tyre pressures for the new construction. Combined with a high-ish track temperature just above 40°C, drivers were really struggling for grip for a lot of the day.
Verstappen described it like driving on ice despite his confident lap times.
The Mercedes drivers, already in a difficult-to-handle car, were visibly struggling to keep the W14 on track.
Those factors also explain what we saw in the race simulation runs.
Average lap times, mediums
Red Bull Racing: 1:33.017 (4 laps)
Ferrari: 1:33.976 (4 laps)
Aston Martin: 1:34.416 (9 laps)
Mercedes: 1:34.619 (3 laps)
Red Bull Racing’s short run on softs probably exaggerates the gap, but the RB19 is also the most downforce-ladened car. It wouldn’t be surprising to see it get the most out of the tyres when grip is at a premium relative to its rivals.
Consider the difference when they switched to softs.
Average lap times, softs
Red Bull Racing: 1:33.646 (7 laps)
Mercedes: 1:33.725 (4 laps)
Aston Martin: 1:33.983 (6 laps)
Ferrari: 1:34.506 (9 laps)
Pirelli figures the soft tyre is 1.2 seconds quicker than the medium. When everyone got a boost in grip by default, the order appeared to close up slightly.
It’ll be interesting to see what the teams find in their overnight analyses, which will of course change the order by Saturday.
Qualifying day is also expected to be cooler than Friday, with rain in the air too, which could take some of the sting out of the higher pressures.
FERRARI’S FEARS EXPOSED ON DIFFICULT DAY
One thing clear in the above soft-tyre data is that Ferrari appears to be struggling with race pace again.
Ferrari had been hopeful recent upgrades had dialled the tyre-chewing behaviour out of the car, and cooler Saturday conditions might yet bring it back into the fold, but the punishing track layout looks set to take the SF-23 to task.
“We need to keep working on tyre management and race pace,” Sainz said. “This should be our main point of focus going into tomorrow, as today we could see that over one lap we were not too bad.”
That could be difficult for the team, though, with only half the data it would’ve expected from FP2 thanks to an electrical problem in Charles Leclerc’s car.
Mechanics frantically attempted to fix it, but it became clear quickly the work wouldn’t get done before the end of the session, leaving him with no laps.
That meant Ferrari got little data on the medium tyre in particular, which is likely to be the main race tyre, putting it on the back foot before the weekend even really got going.
MERCEDES LOCKED IN A BATTLE WITH ASTON MARTIN
“Today it looked like we had a race car that could fight for a podium with a qualifying car that would struggle to threaten the top 10,” Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin summarised at the end of a confusing Friday for the team.
The story for Mercedes ahead of Silverstone was whether its next round of upgrades would bring it back into the podium battle, but the combination of conditions and tyres painted a very messy picture for the team that has dominated this circuit for the last decade.
Lewis Hamilton complained of dreaded bouncing in FP1, when George Russell also notified that his steering rack was vibrating. Both suffered badly from the low-grip conditions and struggled to string together clean laps.
That, combined with a lot of experimentation in both sessions, was responsible for their poor single-lap pace.
But the team is confident that the new parts are working and that its race pace is strong despite never embarking on a particularly long run on the medium tyre.
Mercedes is also hopeful that the trend of the W14 performing stronger in cooler conditions will come to the fore for the rest of the weekend.
Aston Martin spent a lot of the day experimenting with the car too, having brought a new front wing to Silverstone from its headquarters across the road from the track entrance.
It was a consistent performer in both sessions and would appear to be well placed for the podium — or at least a podium battle with Mercedes if the long-race predictions prove accurate.
WILLIAMS IN THE SWEET SPOT IN THE MIDFIELD BATTLE BUT McLAREN LOOMS
No-one expects Alex Albon to be fighting for the podium in his Williams, but the car’s one-lap pace looked genuinely worthy of a Q3 spot on Saturday, which could upset several midfield rivals.
Relative to Verstappen, Albon was consistently quicker on corner exit before ethe RB19’s super-effective DRS got it ahead on pure top speed.
The Williams car lacks downforce, but recent upgrades also appear to have dialled drag out of the aero, which is counting for much at this high-efficiency circuit.
Average lap times, mediums
Alpine: 1:34.556 (7 laps)
Williams: 1:34.597 (10 laps)
Haas: 1:35.049 (5 laps)
Alfa Romeo: 1:35.168 (7 laps)
There’s a more interesting battle brewing looking at the hard-tyre simulations. Other than Aston Martin, only the midfield teams sampled the hardest compound.
Lando Norris, equipped with the second phase of McLaren’s major upgrade package, suggested at this early stage of the weekend that the car might’ve taken a step towards the front of the midfield battle.
Average lap times, hards
McLaren: 1:33.992 (8 laps)
Williams: 1:34.459 (12 laps)
Alpine: 1:34.480 (11 laps)
Aston Martin: 1:34.501 (8 laps)
AlphaTauri: 1:34.616 (7 laps)
Haas: 1:35.014 (17 laps)
Oscar Piastri conducted his long run on the soft tyre, where he was on average about a second slower than Max Verstappen, but neither Alpine nor Williams executed representative runs for comparison.
WHAT’S NEXT?
The British Grand Prix is live an ad-break free during racing on Kayo and Fox Sports.
Final practice takes places at 8:30pm tonight, with qualifying at midnight Sunday morning.
Pre-race coverage starts at 10:30pm Sunday, with lights out for the British Grand Prix at midnight Monday morning.
