2021 British Grand Prix - Silverstone, July 16 - 18

[ispano6]

The gap was what, 0.075s with only 1FP session to prepare the car. This session doesn't really say much about how the season will play out at all.

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?

More so I would be curious to see what the gap would be if it were a normal weekend with 3 FP sessions to prepare the car for quali. Didn't Anthony Davidson take the W12 for a test run at Silverstone to aid development on the simulator? That in a sense is FP0 for Mercedes.

[f1316]

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.

Yes and I don’t agree with the sentiment was the only track where RB was faster (and that it’s all about altitude). I will however agree that Mercedes returning to competitiveness should not be a shock, nor is it entirely attributable to the upgrade, as - per the original comment - they were arguably the quicker package in Paul Ricard. This is less a factor of altitude and more circuit type - ie more fast, long corners - and we can track Mercedes’ strength in these across Barcelona, Paul Ricard and Silverstone (not just this year but EVERY year) so it should be no surprise that they’re back at the front.

It’s also not necessarily a sign of things to come because it is still track specific to a degree - ie this doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily be strong In Hungary, but it is likely they’ll be strong at Suzuka.

[Juzh]

The gap was what, 0.075s with only 1FP session to prepare the car. This session doesn't really say much about how the season will play out at all.

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?

He was up by 0.227 on his own time after the second sector.
In S1 he improved by 0.106s, that's 5 corners and the wellington straight.
In S2 he improved by 0.121s, that's 9 corners and the old start/finish straight.
There's only Stowe and the hangar straight between the end of S2 and his drift in vale, wonder what the mini sectors were for that bit.
But 4-5 tenths would mean an improvement of another 2-3 in just four corners and the hanger straight when he improved by roughly one tenth each in the other two, don't know how realistic that would be or if the tyres would have allowed it.

I agree 4-5 tenths was too much. For the first time in a long time I missed quali on a big screen and had to watch on mobile and misread 0.22 for 0.42s after first two sectors. So yeah, you're right. Still, it's big advantage.

[ringo]

Redbull still quickest car, even here at silverstone. Watch and see them tune in the setup and calibrate the PU. Hamilton thrives when there is lack of setup time and track data. Normal business will resume in the race. Redbull will be faster.

[zibby43]

The gap was what, 0.075s with only 1FP session to prepare the car. This session doesn't really say much about how the season will play out at all.

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?

More so I would be curious to see what the gap would be if it were a normal weekend with 3 FP sessions to prepare the car for quali. Didn't Anthony Davidson take the W12 for a test run at Silverstone to aid development on the simulator? That in a sense is FP0 for Mercedes.

He did. But he was on demo tires. They behave so differently than the regular compounds. Plus there was the variable of new rear tires this weekend, which was the same for everyone.

Toto said post-qualifying that they were focused on setting the cars up for the races, and all the teams can do further long-run tweaking in FP2 (within the constraint of allowed adjustments like FW, etc.).

[Schuttelberg]

Redbull still quickest car, even here at silverstone. Watch and see them tune in the setup and calibrate the PU. Hamilton thrives when there is lack of setup time and track data. Normal business will resume in the race. Redbull will be faster.

Verstappen makes 0 mistakes on his flying lap and misses pole by a whisker. Hamilton completely loses it on his last run and even his biggest cheerleader in Toto says they had 3-4 tenths in the bag and RBR are faster?

The whole "they're much faster" is just lack of sportsmanship. Judging by how this season has gone, in the same cars, Max would be dominating this WDC with Lewis in the same car.

[Schuttelberg]

Nobody can realistically say which car is faster. It's been the same old Mercedes PR BS that's gone on for seven years. Better to enjoy the title fight than just endlessly argue about this crap.

[Mogster]

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)

Bottas’s junior record was pretty stellar. He beat Ricciardo in Formula Renault 2.0 on the way. He’s always had excellent one lap pace, driving the Williams previously also.

Like Mazepin, Latiffi did have a handful of wins in his final F2 season. It was probably one of the weakest F2 fields in recent years though. Mazepin was 2nd to Hubert in GP3 but it was a weak year, Hubert didn’t really shine in GP3. Other than Peter Windsor being a fan of Mazepin’s I can’t see much in Mazepin or Latiffi’s junior record to suggest they are F1 material.

[zibby43]

Nobody can realistically say which car is faster. It's been the same old Mercedes PR BS that's gone on for seven years. Better to enjoy the title fight than just endlessly argue about this crap.

Data can help us with that. It’s close, but on balance, RBR have been a smidge faster.

[NathanOlder]

Redbull still quickest car, even here at silverstone. Watch and see them tune in the setup and calibrate the PU. Hamilton thrives when there is lack of setup time and track data. Normal business will resume in the race. Redbull will be faster.

Verstappen makes 0 mistakes on his flying lap and misses pole by a whisker. Hamilton completely loses it on his last run and even his biggest cheerleader in Toto says they had 3-4 tenths in the bag and RBR are faster?

The whole "they're much faster" is just lack of sportsmanship. Judging by how this season has gone, in the same cars, Max would be dominating this WDC with Lewis in the same car.

Lewis didn't make a mistake on his fastest run did he?

[NathanOlder]

Nobody can realistically say which car is faster. It's been the same old Mercedes PR BS that's gone on for seven years. Better to enjoy the title fight than just endlessly argue about this crap.

Very true. Lets see what the sprint qualifying throws up.
I'm hoping Mercedes can maintain their 'stronger in the race than in qualifying' and have a fairly comfortable day tomorrow.

[NathanOlder]

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

Pressures were all increaded further weren't they? did I read 23 in the rears and 25 in the fronts?

If thats the case, then the updates on the Merc look even better.

[Mogster]

Nobody can realistically say which car is faster. It's been the same old Mercedes PR BS that's gone on for seven years. Better to enjoy the title fight than just endlessly argue about this crap.

Very true. Lets see what the sprint qualifying throws up.
I'm hoping Mercedes can maintain their 'stronger in the race than in qualifying' and have a fairly comfortable day tomorrow.

Well we can hope. The championship is pretty much dead otherwise.

[sosic2121]

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.

regarding speed and racecraft Leclerc is possibly best driver at the moment.

[Sieper]

How is the championship dead? Mercedes are clearly capable of outqualifying even Max, let alone sergio. It could even happen with 2 cars. Even if Max wins this weekend (which seems unlikely but maybe they can indeed still find some speed) if Lewis comes second nothing is over. But I am thinking a solid Mercedes win at this point.