British GP Thread (Contains Quali/Race spoilers) - Sponsored by rain

[GSC]

First topic message reminder :

Track: Silverstone. Permanent circuit.

Race start time: 1pm UK time Sunday.

Laps: 52.

Track length: 5.891 km.

Tyre allocation: Hard (orange) and medium (white)

DRS Zones: Two - Wellington Straight and Hanger Straight, with separate detection points.

Driver steward: Nigel Mansell.

Lap record: Mark Webber - 1:33.401 (Red Bull; 2013).

2013 pole: Lewis Hamilton - 1:29.607 (Mercedes).

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Friday 4th July
9:45am - British GP Practice One
1:45pm - British GP Practice Two


Saturday 5th July
9:45am - British GP Practice Three
12pm - British GP Qualifying


Sunday 6th July
12pm - The 2014 British GP

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Silverstone's high average speed should favour the Mercedes-powered cars and Lewis Hamilton will be desperately keen to beat Nico Rosberg and close the gap on home soil.

Williams impressed in Austria and it will be interesting to see if they can carry that form over to the very different test that the Northamptonshire venue presents.

World Champions Red Bull may once again find their lack of straight-line speed an issue, however, their downforce levels through the high-speed turns should allow them to be more competitive than they were two weeks ago.

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Pirelli will bring the orange-marked hard and white-banded medium to Silverstone - the two hardest compounds in their range.

"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 Italian firm said.

[Scrumpy]

Dreadful trophy from the sponsors, so I was glad to see Hamilton with the real British GP trophy afterwards.

http://thisisf1.com/2014/07/06/hamilton-disappointed-with-10-trophy-for-british-gp-victory/

[CaledonianCraig]

That was a win desperately needed by Hamilton and he got the bonus of a DNF for Rosberg. The title race is now right back in the balance. A great drive from Bottas to get second in a Williams that had fabulous straight line speed. Ricciardo once more beat his team-mate Vettel to take the final podium spot. A very good race but not the best of the season so far - that one goes to Canada for me.

[dyrewolfe]

Personally wouldn't say its the best race of the season but I can understand why you would go with it being the best race though.

Well, "best" is debatable, but certainly one of the best.

What made it for me was having a number of cars out of position due to mistakes / misjudgements in quali.

Seeing better drivers in faster cars fighting their way up the field made for some great duels.

[Guest]

Don't really think the Chilton incident got much discussion on here or I might have missed it. Incredibly lucky boy, it had Henry Surtees written all over it, had that tyre hit further forward on the Marussia. The speed of Kimi's tyre lauching across the track was shocking really.

As for the best race, surely Canada. As soon as Rosberg DNF'd, the race was pretty much over, apart from the Vettel/Alonso duel, there wasn't that much other excitement.

[sikhlion]

Looks like the winner of this season is going to be the one who has less technical failures! I don't understand why people don't rate Rosberg I think he's going to be tough for anyone to beat in the same car. I think alonso Vettel and anyone else would have a tough fight against him in this car

[GSC]

Rosbergs a decent #1, high end #2. If Hamiltons reputation is to be believed he should beat him comfortably in the end.

[Guest]

It helps Rosberg that the car is so dominant, with no other rivals taking points off him. With 100% reliability (up to this weekend), at worst he has achieved second & 18 points each weekend. Put Vettel or Alonso in Hamilton's car & they would be up against it too & under pressure, like Hamilton has been. Hamilton can't dominate Rosberg because of a. reliability issues & b. no real competition. If you have competition, as RB did, then the weaker driver can fall back into the pack, like Webber endured & that allowed Vettel to stroll & dominate. Won't happen this year & it will go down to Abu Dhabi.

[GSC]

RB had competition now?

[dyrewolfe]

It helps Rosberg that the car is so dominant, with no other rivals taking points off him. With 100% reliability (up to this weekend), at worst he has achieved second & 18 points each weekend. Put Vettel or Alonso in Hamilton's car & they would be up against it too & under pressure, like Hamilton has been. Hamilton can't dominate Rosberg because of a. reliability issues & b. no real competition. If you have competition, as RB did, then the weaker driver can fall back into the pack, like Webber endured & that allowed Vettel to stroll & dominate. Won't happen this year & it will go down to Abu Dhabi.

Say what? have to take issue with you there.

The difference with RB is that there was a considerable gap in ability between Vettel and Webber...far greater than the gap between Hamilton and Rosberg.

You also need to take into account that Nico and Lewis have raced together / against each other since they were in karts, so they know each other inside-out (unlike Vettel and Webber).

Also, Webber suffered far more car issues than Vettel did, as well as having to deal with team orders (again, unlike Nico and Lewis). Just speculating here, but I think Mark was also often put on less-than-optimum strategies, even when he qualified well.


If you look at this season, you can see what happens when Vettel has serious competition within the team (although to be fair he now knows what Webber had to put up with, with regard to car problems).

[Guest]

no idea what your proving there. I was just stating why Hamilton wont thrash rosberg because at worst rosberg will finish second each race or rarely DNF. This Merc is way more dominant than the RB & Rosberg is way better & more consistant that Rosberg. when is say 'competition', i mean from other teams, not between the drivers.

[GSC]

But didn't Vettel cruise to 4 world titles in a car miles better than the nearest challengers?

[liverbnz]

Not in comparison to this Merc. 2.5secs per lap Rosberg was pulling out early doors on Sunday. That's ridiculous. Vettel was usually less than 10 secs away come the end of the race. This Merc is way and above that. The only way other teams win races now is due to a Merc mistake - at least there were some tracks where other teams were better than RB during the Vettel years - and once that Red Bull was back in the pack and not out in front, it was much less effective.
 
Plus, McLaren had the best car overall in 2012 yet made a complete mess of everything.

[GSC]

Thats not quite how I remember it on this forum

[liverbnz]

Haha! Sorry, bit slow at catching on me.

[GSC]

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ramirez-slams-perez-for-wrong-attitude/

Seems to make sense.

[Guest]

Niki Lauda stated something along the lines of, 'you have to be an a**hole to succeed in F1'. Sergio obviously has taken it to a new level.

[GSC]

Being an ***hole when you aren't obviously quicker is questionable though.

[Guest]

Yeah. If he'd beaten Hulkenberg this year, then you could argue he's got something, but a 63 to 28 points advantage to Nico, shows Sergio shouldn't be acting this way, especially as that was why McLaren removed him.

As for the Chilton discussion, a picture has emerged of how close Kimi's accelerating tyre was to potentially killing him. Lucky boy.

[GSC]

That'll be a new safety regulation relating to the tethers then.

[Fernando]

Always knew something was up with Claire Williams

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