Silverstone,
16
July
2021
|
21:45
Europe/Amsterdam

2021 British Grand Prix - Friday

TYRE GAP

FRIDAY TYRE SUMMARY

  • Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton made history by claiming pole position for the very first sprint qualifying to be held in Formula 1. The Englishman set a best time of 1m26.134s on the P Zero Red soft C3 tyre, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
  • As the fastest driver in qualifying, Hamilton also claimed the inaugural Pirelli Speed King Award, which replaces the Pirelli Pole Position Award on events with sprint qualifying. The driver starting Sunday’s grand prix from pole position will be the winner of the half-hour sprint qualifying race tomorrow.
  • Qualifying today took place much later than usual, at 18:00, with 25 degrees ambient and 38 degrees of track temperature – which gradually fell as the evening went on.
  • All the drivers used the P Zero Red soft tyres for today’s qualifying session from start to finish in accordance with the revised tyre rules for races with sprint qualifying. However, the drivers can start tomorrow’s sprint qualifying and Sunday’s grand prix on whichever compound they like from the three nominated this weekend.
  • The single hour-long free practice session today took place in the warmer conditions of the afternoon, where the drivers had the chance to sample the other nominated tyres as well. Verstappen was fastest in FP1, going 0.4 seconds quicker than the equivalent session last year. Pole position was slower than last year, but this was also affected by the engine maps being fixed for tomorrow’s sprint qualifying race.
  • The revised format makes it harder to work out the performance gaps between the compounds. But based on the data from FP1, there’s an estimated gap so far of about 0.6 seconds between P Zero White hard C1 and P Zero Yellow medium C2, as well as between medium and soft C3.

FORMULA 2: LATEST NEWS

Prema driver Oscar Piastri claimed his first pole position in Formula 2, running on the P Zero Yellow medium tyre (nominated together with the P Zero White hard this weekend) which all the drivers used for qualifying. The session was run in warm conditions, with Piastri setting the best time just 10 minutes into the half-hour session. By qualifying 10th, ART Grand Prix’s Christian Lundgaard ensures that he will start tomorrow’s opening race on pole. Carlin’s Dan Ticktum went fastest in free practice this morning (where all the drivers used the hard tyre) eventually qualifying fourth in a session that was ended two minutes early after Prema driver Robert Shwartzman went off.

MARIO ISOLA – HEAD OF F1 AND CAR RACING

“There was a lot for the teams to get used to with the new format, influencing the way in which they used their tyres, bearing in mind the half-hour sprint qualifying race tomorrow that the teams will want to run without pit stops. Considering the severity of this circuit, there’s an important decision to be made about whether to run on the medium – which should be the most popular choice – or soft tyre tomorrow, keeping in mind also the mandatory tyres that will be needed for the grand prix on Sunday. As a result, there is quite a complex set of parameters for the teams to take into account with no previous experience to fall back on. And this is why many teams ran all three compounds in FP1 to gather as much information on them as possible. Qualifying was obviously much straightforward than usual with all the drivers running on the soft from start to finish, culminating in a fight for the fastest time that was extremely closely-fought at one of the most demanding tracks for tyres of the year.”

FREE PRACTICE 1 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER TIME COMPOUND
Verstappen 1m27.035s SOFT C3 NEW
Norris 1m27.814s MEDIUM C2 NEW
Hamilton 1m27.815s SOFT C3 NEW
QUALIFYING TOP 10
DRIVER TIME COMPOUND
Hamilton 1m26.134s SOFT C3 NEW
Verstappen 1m26.209s SOFT C3 NEW
Bottas 1m26.328s SOFT C3 NEW
Leclerc 1m26.828s SOFT C3 NEW
Pérez 1m26.844s SOFT C3 NEW
Norris 1m26.897s SOFT C3 NEW
Ricciardo 1m26.899s SOFT C3 NEW
Russell 1m26.971s SOFT C3 NEW
Sainz 1m27.007s SOFT C3 NEW
Vettel 1m27.179s SOFT C3 NEW
BEST TIME BY COMPOUND SO FAR
COMPOUND DRIVER TIME
HARD C1 Ocon 1m29.603s
MEDIUM C2 Verstappen 1m27.745s
SOFT C3 Hamilton 1m26.023s
MIN. STARTING PRESSURES (slicks) EOS CAMBER LIMIT
PRESSURE 25.0 psi (front) | 23.0 psi (rear) -2.75° (front) | -1.5° (rear) CAMBER