2021 British Grand Prix - Silverstone, July 16 - 18

[SmallSoldier]

Pole is determined tomorrow sadly; winner of the sprint race.

Which makes pole a win result, not a pole result. Another reason why the new system is stupid.

Pole Position is the position of the car staring first on a race… If that position is determined from the Sprint result… It makes sense that Pole will be recorded to the one that starts P1 on Sunday


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[Zynerji]

Going to put this out there now: I think Russell is the quickest driver in F1 over a single lap. He got the Williams in to Q3 and then beat "faster cars".

I think, given equal cars, Russell would beat Lewis and Max, hands down.

Mnah .. in equal cars there'd be 4/5 guys equally good and only punished for the slightest mistake they'd make; just a lottery.

He got 7th because he got the max out of the car whereas the others didn't. No more complicated than that.

How is that a lottery? That's the SKILL!

A lottery is who is closest to the pits when the Safety Car is deployed...

[Spacepace]

Have the rear tyre pressures lowered this weekend? If so that would be a bigger upturn in performance for Mercedes than the upgrade. Merc hate high tyre pressures

[JordanMugen]

Going to put this out there now: I think Russell is the quickest driver in F1 over a single lap. He got the Williams in to Q3 and then beat "faster cars".

I think, given equal cars, Russell would beat Lewis and Max, hands down.

Mnah .. in equal cars there'd be 4/5 guys equally good and only punished for the slightest mistake they'd make; just a lottery.

He got 7th because he got the max out of the car whereas the others didn't. No more complicated than that.

Where did Latifi finish in the same car?

You realize we’re talking about a Williams? It’s improved, but GR is on fire. If he was in a McLaren right now, people would be saying “Lando who?”

I'm not sure it works like that -- a driver can be hooked up in one car (e.g., Fisichella in Force India at Spa, Gasly in a Toro Rosso at Bahrain) and then struggle in another (e.g., Fisichella in Ferrari, Gasly in Red Bull). Anyway, it will be good to see Russell in a Mercedes or Red Bull to know for sure.

[JordanMugen]

My feeling is also that RBR is gonna have a hard time from now on. Remember Mercedes only had 1 FP to workout the setup with these new parts. Alone the optimising of the setup will bring them some time

Maybe. The upgrades seem handy on the Mercedes, but no need to panic for Red Bull Honda fans just yet!

As posted, spring, damper and alignment changes are permitted despite parc ferme, so the Red Bulls can get a tuneup before FP2.

[Radley]

Do you think any driver ventured out to the caravan parks tonite.? I'd like to think of Lando going out greet some some fans. Maybe George & Carlos. Wouldn't need much , take some swag and minimal security.

[darkpino]

But what’s going on with Perez? I mean: he’s not even close to his team mate?

[Starkblood80]

Do you think any driver ventured out to the caravan parks tonite.? I'd like to think of Lando going out greet some some fans. Maybe George & Carlos. Wouldn't need much , take some swag and minimal security.

I doubt they would risk catching rona mid season for a stroll around the great unwashed.

[Mr5in1]

Nice to see Riccardio putting in good laps and almost neck and neck with Lando think he's been lacking at the start of the season but I'm hoping he's on it now and can see him at his best in the Mclaren

[Artur Craft]

As predicted, Honda is not perfoming well without the altitude, hence Tsunoda being knocked out already on Q1 and even Gasly was very modest this time around.

Perez is only there with the Ferraris, Mclarens and even Russel! Max did a fantastic job to be up there with the mighty Mercedeses, their engine works too greatly in this track, always have, tbh.

Bottas´s time is reasonably close to pole so I think Max should be focusing on holding his P2 instead of desperately trying to get P1. Mercedes is just way too quick. On Paul Ricard, RB only won because they didn´t follow Pirelli´s recommended strategy as Mercedes was way faster. On the sprint race there will be no room for strategy so Max´s goal should be to hold Bottas and that´s it, he won´t even be able to keep up with Hamilton, nevermind pass him.

The only track where RB was really faster was the RBR, due to the altitude. Even at Monaco Mercedes was faster(Bottas would have gotten pole with the mini sectors he was doing prior to Leclerc´s crash)

[Artur Craft]

Pirelli can't even build a tyre that lasts a lap. Both Hamilton & Verstappen were complaining that the tyre was falling away at the end of the hot lap, and that's with a very pedestrian out lap. All of the changes for next year might be a waste of time if F1 can't resolve the tyre issues.

The only way to resolve the tyre issues is to give Pirelli the boot which is not going to happen because they pay a lot of money to the series in sponsorship and I doubt any other tyre company is willing to do the same.

Which makes pole a win result, not a pole result. Another reason why the new system is stupid.

It´s F1, they like to dumb things down. Even the current format of QLF is not good with these gimmicky split sections. A real QLF should be as before, one or two sessions of 1 hour where the best time gets pole(4 quick lap attempts from each driver). Yesterday, Hamilton did his best lap on Q2 didn´t he? Just as Bottas did the fastest time on Portugal, last year(which is the circuit´s record), but didn´t get pole. Just the idea of a record lap not being pole already exposes how stupid this is..... You often see drivers doing great laps on Q2 that they can´t repeat on Q3(for several reasons) and get punished for it.

[Artur Craft]

I would’ve been curious to see what the gap was if Hamilton cleanly finished his second Q3 lap.

Juzh was saying 4-5 tenths. Is that estimate accurate?

Going by the sector times, it would be a bit over 0.3s

Going to put this out there now: I think Russell is the quickest driver in F1 over a single lap. He got the Williams in to Q3 and then beat "faster cars".

I think, given equal cars, Russell would beat Lewis and Max, hands down.

It´s difficult to say because nobody knows how slow, or fast, that Williams really is. Latiffi is the worst driver seen in F1 in many many years. For instance, Mazepin won GP2´s Silvertone´s(while we are at it) feature race last year and got other many great results(poles, podiums....). Latiffi never showed speed(maybe a tiny bit when he was a veteran on junior formulae but I can´t remember any good result from him). Prior to Nicolas, Russell faced a handicaped Kubica.

Yes, he does seem to be putting Williams where it doesn´t belong but it´s difficult to judge just how fast he is.

I think he´s definitely way faster than Hamilton, given how he performed against Bottas on Bahrain, last year. But I´m not sure he would keep up with Verstappen, Leclerc or even Sainz(who is able to outqualify Charles, from time to time, and even when he doesn´t, like yesterday, he´s just 2 tenths away)

[f1316]

No one would know from any of the reaction that Leclerc put the Ferrari, which is down on power, on a track with a lot of on throttle, onto the 2nd row. Cracking lap to be ahead of a Red Bull.

Do we know it's down on power?

That would make it the best chassis on the grid if a weak engine can get so close to Honda/Merc.

I mean, pretty much, yes - insofar as we know that as much as we know Honda has increased its power this year (rather than simply a more aero efficient car). Ferrari being down on power, something in the region of 25-30 hp, has been reported by pretty much every outlet there is all season; Ferrari themselves have spoken multiple times about still having a deficit to Mercedes and Honda in terms of power (possibly not vs Renault? Unclear), albeit less so vs last year.

I think as F1 ‘facts’ go, it’s pretty well established.

And yeah, why would it necessarily be surprising that one of the largest and the most successful teams on the grid — who took pole at Monaco where power is least important —could design a chassis that might be class leading?

[ispano6]

As predicted, Honda is not perfoming well without the altitude, hence Tsunoda being knocked out already on Q1 and even Gasly was very modest this time around.

Perez is only there with the Ferraris, Mclarens and even Russel! Max did a fantastic job to be up there with the mighty Mercedeses, their engine works too greatly in this track, always have, tbh.

Bottas´s time is reasonably close to pole so I think Max should be focusing on holding his P2 instead of desperately trying to get P1. Mercedes is just way too quick. On Paul Ricard, RB only won because they didn´t follow Pirelli´s recommended strategy as Mercedes was way faster. On the sprint race there will be no room for strategy so Max´s goal should be to hold Bottas and that´s it, he won´t even be able to keep up with Hamilton, nevermind pass him.

The only track where RB was really faster was the RBR, due to the altitude. Even at Monaco Mercedes was faster(Bottas would have gotten pole with the mini sectors he was doing prior to Leclerc´s crash)

Baku Azerbaijan is 92ft below sea level.

[f1316]

In terms of the format of the weekend, I think the first objective (as I see it) was largely successful: start doing meaningful running earlier in the weekend, making Friday more interesting.

The next part was always going to be more challenging: make sure what you add to the weekend in order to facilitate objective 1 is both a. actually interesting as a spectacle b. not detracting from the main event (the race).

Let’s see - I suspect it may be less of a dud than people expect (although it would certainly become one if this was the format every weekend). Still, it has been fun to have a competitive session on a Friday, so a good start.