#F1 @Pirelli #BritishGP 2020 Preview. @SilverstoneCircuit @F1

After Lewis Hamilton cruised to a dominant victory in Hungary, round four of the 2020 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the fast and historic Silverstone Circuit this weekend for the Formula 1 Pirelli British Grand Prix 2020. This marks the 74^th running of the British Grand Prix, the 71^st time as part of a World Championship event and the 55^th time that the British Grand Prix has been held at Silverstone. Silverstone will also host next weekend’s Formula 1 70^th Anniversary Grand Prix.

 

 

A look at the Silverstone Circuit

 

 

Silverstone Circuit is a permanent racing circuit in England next to the Northamptonshire Villages of Silverstone and Whittlebury. The circuit sits on the Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire border, with the current main circuit entry on the Buckinghamshire side. The Northamptonshire towns of Towcester, Brackley and Buckinghamshire town of Buckingham are close by, and the nearest large towns are Northampton and Milton Keynes.

 

Silverstone is the current home of the British Grand Prix, which it first hosted in 1948. The 1950 British Grand Prix at Silverstone was the first race in the newly created Formula One World Championship. The race rotated between Silverstone, Aintree and Brands Hatch from 1955 to 1986, but relocated permanently to Silverstone in 1987.

 

The circuit is built on the site of a World War II Royal Air Force bomber station, RAF Silverstone which opened in 1943. The airfield’s three runways in classic WWII triangle format lie within the outline of the current track.

 

Giuseppe Farina was the inaugural winner of the British Grand Prix which was the first round of the championship in 1950 when the Formula One World Championship was formed and was also the first driver to win the inaugural Formula One World Championship with Alfa Romeo.

 

The circuit layout has changed many times throughout its history on the Formula One calendar with the current front straight featuring the Silverstone Wing pit building which is located in between Club and Abbey Corner has been used since 2011. The current front straight was also used in 2010 while the Silverstone Wing building was being built but the front straight was located at the old pit straight in between Luffield, Woodcote and Copse corner.

 

The current Arena Grand Prix Circuit layout currently being used runs in a clockwise direction and is 5.891km (3.661mi) in length and has 18 corners.

 

Race distance is 306.198km (190.163 mi) with 52 laps in total.

 

Lewis Hamilton holds the fastest lap record of the current circuit layout set last at last year’s event with a 1:27.369 in his Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport F1 W10 EQ Power+.

 

Six-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton has the most British Grand Prix victories with six to his name.

 

Scuderia Ferrari are the most successful Constructor at the British Grand Prix with 16 victories.

 

A lap of the Silverstone Circuit

 

 

The start of the track begins between Club and Abbey corner. Almost flat out, the right-hander of Abbey leads immediately into the left-hander of Farm before cars heavily brake into the second gear, right-handed turn 3 Village corner. The even slower left-hander of The Loop comes immediately after, and leads into the flat-out left-hander of Aintree, before cars head down the first DRS zone of the Wellington Straight, designed in 2010 to promote overtaking. Turn 6, the left hander of Brooklands, is taken by drivers in second gear and leads immediately into Luffield, another second gear curve; a right-hand hairpin. The right-handed kink of Woodcote leads cars down the old pit straight, before the difficult sixth gear right hand Copse corner, with a minimum speed of 281 kph in the dry for Formula One cars.

 

Then, the equally tricky complex of Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel – a left-right-left-right-left complex with a minimum speed of 209 kph, leads cars down the Hangar Straight with the fifth gear right-hander of Stowe lurking at the end. The fifteenth turn of the track, Stowe, has a minimum speed of 201 kph and precedes a short straight, named Vale, which leads cars downhill towards the Club complex. Heavy braking is required for the left-hander of turn 16, and understeer can be an issue for the next right-handers of turns 17 and 18, as cars tentatively accelerate round to the start-finish straight. You can watch Valtteri Bottas’ blistering pole position lap from last season’s British Grand Prix of a 1:25.093 in his Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport F1 W10 EQ Power+ around at the link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLI2Mpdhc30

 

The Last Five Winners

 

 

2019: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1. 2018: Sebastian Vettel, Scuderia Ferrari. 2017: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1. 2016: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG Petronas F1. 2015: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG Petronas F1.

 

Tyres

 

Pirelli will be bringing with them to Silverstone, the white side-walled C1 Hard tyres along with the yellow-branded C2 Medium compounds and the red-marked C3 Soft rubber as well as the Intermediate (green) and Wet (blue) compounds to the event in case of rain.

 

All drivers will have the same allocation of tyres, eight sets of the softs, three of the mediums and two of the hards.

 

DRS Zones

 

There will be two DRS Zones at Silverstone. The first detection point is 25 metres before turn three (Village) with the activation point 30 metres after turn five (Aintree) on the Wellington Straight. The second detection point is at turn 11 (Maggots) with the activation point 55 metres after the exit turn 14 (Chapel).

 

Pitlane Speed Limits

 

Pitlane speeds will be 80km/h during practice, qualifying and the race.

 

ICYMI: Hungarian GP Rewind – Hamilton storms to dominant victory

 

 

Lewis Hamilton claimed the World Driver’s Championship lead with a flawless drive in wet-dry conditions to win the Hungarian Grand Prix as Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen held a fast-charging Valtteri Bottas to finish second.

 

Verstappen made a two-stopper work to perfection after the initial running on a wet track, which followed the Dutchman crashing on his reconnaissance lap to the grid and needing fast repair work in the small amount of time available before the warm-up lap.

 

When the 70-lap Hungarian GP began, Bottas appeared to jump the start before the lights went out and he and Racing Point’s Sergio Perez moved slowly off the line from second and fourth respectively, while Hamilton and Lance Stroll blitzed clear, with lightning-quick Verstappen and the two Ferrari’s of Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel making their way up the order.

 

Hamilton pulled away comfortably from Stroll in the opening corners while Verstappen clinched third on the rundown into the turn two left-hander after Vettel lost momentum after sliding on the exit of the first corner.

 

At the front of the field, Hamilton charged to a 3.1 second gap at the end of the first lap, with the frontrunning drivers starting to switch their intermediates to slicks at the end of lap two as the Hungaroring continued to rapidly dry – lead by Leclerc and Bottas, who put on a set of softs and mediums respectively.

 

Hamilton and Stroll dived into the pits a lap later for a set of medium rubber, with the former emerging in the net-lead, while Verstappen remained out for an extra lap and used his time in first place to jump Stroll when he took a set of yellow C3 mediums at the end of the fourth tour.

 

Whilst Hamilton reclaimed the lead from Verstappen, Stroll found himself behind both Haas F1 Team entries of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean pitted at the end of the formation lap for medium tyres.

 

On lap six after the pit-stop rush, Hamilton lead Verstappen by 7.8 seconds, which saw the Briton post a series of fastest laps.

 

Stroll made short-work of Grosjean with DRS assistance into the first corner and then focused his efforts on passing Magnussen, which he did after momentarily pausing to take third place at the same spot at the beginning of the 16^th lap.

 

As the drivers were constantly warned of the threat of more rain – Hamilton continued to build his lead over Verstappen – while Stroll was unable to close in on the Red Bull, instead found himself under intense pressure from Bottas’ Mercedes.

 

The Finn chased down Stroll through the pack after slipping into a puddle and into the turn two run-off area while fighting Leclerc, who quickly started to struggle for grip on his soft tyre stint.

 

As the next band of rain failed to appear, Bottas was the first of the leaders to pit on the 33^rd lap and used the clear air to his advantage to jump ahead of Stroll, who stopped two laps later and re-joined well behind the Mercedes in fourth.

 

Verstappen and Hamilton both came in on lap 36 and 37 respectively, putting on the C2 white-marked hard compounds, and while they remained in the same order, Verstappen was immediately under threat from Bottas’ quick pace on the medium rubber.

 

As Hamilton extended his lead over 20 seconds, Bottas was on the hunt to pass Verstappen with his softer tyres compared to the hards, with a string of fastest laps.

 

With 25 laps remaining, Bottas was within striking distance of the Dutchman, but after dropping back in traffic, Mercedes decided to bring Bottas in for a third stop and switched the Finn to hards, with a 22-second gap to attempt to take second.

 

Although Bottas chopped down time from Verstappen’s lead in the early stages of his last stint, he could not close as rapid as he expected despite running fresher compounds.

 

After they made their way through the traffic it went down to the final lap, but although Bottas had made it within DRS range, he was not close enough into the first corner and could not find his way by and wound up 0.7 seconds adrift.

 

Meanwhile at the front, after some confusion between his race engineer on whether to make a final stop and which tyres to take, Hamilton traded in his massive gap over Verstappen for a fresh set of softs – which saw the Briton break the fastest lap twice in succession – for the second time on the final lap.

 

Hamilton reached the chequered flag by 8.702 seconds ahead of Verstappen to clinch his eighth victory at the Hungaroring – equalling seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher’s record of Hungarian Grand Prix victories.

 

Behind the podium finishers, Stroll finished 57.579 seconds off of Hamilton to come home fourth to score his best result for BWT Racing Point.

 

Red Bull Racing’s Alexander Albon went from 13^th on the grid to finish fifth and in-front of Vettel, who shortly after Ferrari team-mate Leclerc made an early second stop despite the chance of rain.

 

It looked to have worked for Vettel but running deep into turn two gifted the Red Bull the place.

 

Perez recovered his Mercedes-powered RP20 to seventh after running a long-middle-stint and ahead of eighth-placed Renault of Daniel Ricciardo.

 

Magnussen drove his Haas VF-20 to an impressive ninth place to give the Kannapolis-Banbury outfit it’s first points of the 2020 campaign after falling down the pack as the faster cars made their way by during the race.

 

The Dane held on ahead of McLaren’s tenth-placed Carlos Sainz, who survived a tangle with Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi in the pit-lane (who finished 19^th and at the rear after suffering two spins, also a puncture after clashing with the McLaren for which the Canadian was hit with a five-second time penalty).

 

Sainz came out on top in a close-fought battle with Leclerc to grab the final point on offer.

 

Latifi wound up as the final runner and five laps down, with Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly the sole retiree after retiring on lap five with a ploom of smoke pouring out of his Honda-powered AT01 racer in the pit-lane.

 

The Situation

 

 

Lewis Hamilton returns to Silverstone on top of the World Driver’s Championship with 63 points and a five-points lead over team-mate Valtteri Bottas who is second on 58 points while Max Verstappen is a further 30 points behind the Briton in third on 33 points.

 

Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport comes to Great Britain comfortably on top of the World Constructor’s Championship with 121 points and a 66-point advantage over nearest rival Aston Martin Red Bull Racing who are second on 55 points while McLaren Racing is third and are a further 80 points behind the Silver Arrows on 41 points.

 

Click here for the 2020 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings

 

F1 2020 Season Latest News

 

 

• Formula 1 have added Portugal’s Autodromo Internacional do Algarve (Portimao), Germany’s Nurburgring and San Marino’s Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari (Imola) to the 2020 Formula 1 calendar to make it 13 rounds of the championship. You can see the full calendar here. More Grands Prix to be added in due course.

 

• Last Friday, Formula 1 confirmed the sport will not be able to race in Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and the United States this 2020 campaign. Formula 1 said the decision was: “Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, local restrictions, keeping the communities and our colleagues safe.” F1 CEO Chasey Carey also commented: “We want to pay tribute to our incredible partners in the Americas and look forward to being back with them next season when they will once again be able to thrill millions of fans around the world.”

 

• From Friday July 17-Thursday July 23, 1,461 tests for COVID-19 were performed on drivers, teams and personnel and the sport’s governing body, the FIA and Formula 1 confirmed zero people tested positive for the virus.

 

• Last Wednesday, Ferrari announced a technical restructure in a bid to make a more effective and holistic emphasis on car development after a poor start to the 2020 campaign. This was achieved by implementing a chain of commands that is more focused, simplified and gives the heads of their respective departments necessary powers to achieve their objectives. The Maranello-marque have established a Performance Development Department lead by Enrico Cardile. Enrico Gualtieri will remain as head of the Power Unit, Laurent Mekies as Sporting Director, and in-charge of track-side duties, while Simone Resta continues to lead the Chassis Department.

 

The Formula 1 Pirelli British Grand Prix 2020 weekend begins Friday July 31 with Free Practice 1 and 2, followed by Free Practice 3 and Qualifying Saturday August 1 along with the 52 lap Race Sunday August 2.

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#F1 #HungarianGP Report: @LewisHamilton storms to dominant victory.