Analysis: Tyre usage at the British Grand Prix

Pirelli's new specification of slick tyres made their debut in yesterday's Silverstone race, and displayed excellent durability. F1Technical’s senior writer Balázs Szabó analyses the tyre usage at the British Grand Prix.

After using the softer compounds at the previous two rounds, teams had harder compounds available at Silverstone: the C1 served as the P Zero White hard, C2 as the P Zero Yellow medium and C3 as the P Zero Red soft in Great Britain.

Pirelli’s choice was dictated by the high energy loads that Silverstone puts through the tyres with some of the highest average cornering speeds of the year being experienced at Silverstone and drivers are subjected to lateral forces that can exceed 5g.

Last year’s British Grand Prix saw the field prefer a two-stop strategy and yesterday’s race had also been expected to propel drivers towards the same approach. However, Friday’s long runs indicated that a one-stop strategy might also be viable.

Weather conditions were ideal for the Silverstone race with rain staying away for the most important track action of the race weekend. Ambient temperatures fluctuated between 21.2 and 24.0 degrees Celsius. Track temperatures dropped to a minimum of 28.8 degrees Celsius when the clouds arrived a few laps into the race. However, with the clouds blown away, track temperatures rose up to 35.9 degrees Celsius.

Ahead of the race, Pirelli was unsure which strategy might turn out to be the fastest way to complete the 52-lap British Grand Prix. However, during the race it soon became evident that tyres held on very well, enabling a one-stop strategy for the race despite the high-speed corners and the relatively high ambient and track temperatures.

12 of the 17 drivers who finished the race completed the 52-lap race distance with a single stop. In fact, the five other drivers -Charles Leclerc, Yuki Tsunoda, Nico Hulkenberg, Zhou Guanyu, Nyck de Vries - were also set to complete the race with a single stop, but the safety car intervention changed their plans.

After starting on the mediums, Leclerc made an early stop on Lap 18 for the hard compound with Guanyu following a similar strategy, albeit making his first stop a bit later on Lap 24. AlphaTauri drivers started the race on the red-walled softs with Tsunoda making an early tyre change on Lap 14 while his teammate de Vries swapping his softs for mediums on Lap 27.

Hulkenberg came in for new tyres very early on Lap 7, but his early stop was a result of a contact, meaning that his stop was not planned.

All of them made use of the safety car intervention, coming in for new tyres for a second time. However, the safety car was rather a disadvantage for them as some of their direct rivals gained valuable time by only pitting under the interruption. Moreover, they had no other choice than pitting for new tyres as they had used, harder tyres opposed to the fresh, soft compounds of their rivals.

As for the performance of the different compounds, each of them showed great durability with no significant drop off. Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas racked up the highest number of laps on the hard compound with the Finn completing a 32-lap stint on the white-walled tyres. McLaren’s Lando Norris set the fastest lap on this compound on Lap 43 with a time of 1m30.543s as he was eager to cling on to P2, defending his position from seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.

On the yellow-banded medium, the longest stint was a 33-lap run with four drivers – Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Norris and Max Verstappen - having achieved this extremely long stint. The fastest lap was recorded by George Russell, who went on to post a 1m31.124s on the 13th lap of his second stint.

The longest stint on the C3 compound belonged to Russell, who extended his opening stint until Lap 28, showing great consistency. The Briton was also able to pick up his pace when Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc pitted for new tyres early on which give the Mercedes driver free air. Race winner Verstappen set the fastest lap on the C3 compound with a 1m30.275s on Lap 42 which became the fastest lap of the race.

In terms of strategy, two teams executed questionable moves. Running fourth four second adrift of the McLaren duo and just under a second ahead of George Russell, Leclerc came in very early for new tyres with Ferrari servicing the Monegasque on Lap 18.

On the last two laps of his first stint, Leclerc posted a time of 1m33.248s and a 1m33.151s on Laps 16 and 17 respectively which were only two tenths of a second slower than his best time during his opening stint. With his team mate Carlos Sainz also able to pick up his speed later on during the first stint, it is fair to suggest that Leclerc had much more left in his tyres.

In fact, Ferrari anticipated greater tyre degradation and much more grip on the new tyres and hence a much more powerful undercut effect. However, Leclerc’s rivals were able to extend their opening stint and even raise their pace, meaning that he could not make use of his early pit stop. In fact, the safety car meant that he dropped down the order and needed to pit under the SC interruption for a second time not to become vulnerable after the restart.

Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseuer conceded that his team was too conservative regarding Leclerc’s strategy.

"And we were a bit scared with the degradation. Probably somewhere in our mind we had the first races of the season. Today we were far too conservative on the tyre management and we didn't push enough.

"Then we are a bit unlucky with the Safety Car - this is not in our hands and we don't have to think about this, we have to think about what we can manage. Honestly I think that we could have pushed much more,” concluded the Frenchman.

Elsewhere, McLaren put their drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in a very difficult situation after the late-race Safety Car period.

A virtual safety car period was triggered on Lap 31 when Kevin Magnussen stopped on the Wellington straight. It prompted the drivers who were yet to pit at that point of the race to dive in to the pit for new tyres.

McLaren also called their drivers in and wanted to play it safe, fitting the hard compounds on both cars. However, the VSC was then upgraded to a safety car, meaning that the direct rivals behind the McLaren duo closed in on Norris and Piastri and the number of remaining laps on race speed was further reduced.

With Hamilton making a significant jump to P3 thanks to the safety car and Mercedes fitting the soft tyres on the Briton’s car, Norris became vulnerable in the first laps.

McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella explained that his team prepared the hard tyres for the two drivers and it would have been operationally difficult to make a sudden switch to soft tyres.

"Under the Virtual Safety Car, we were happy to go on Hard tyres because it wouldn't have been a problem in terms of warm up. But then the Virtual Safety Car was converted into a Safety Car when we were pitting, and everything was [ready] at the pitstop to put Hard tyres on. A last-minute change to Soft would have been an operational problem.

"If you have the pit crew ready with the Hard tyres, and you make a call for Soft tyres, it means that the guys that need to pick the tyres would have to rush in the garage, remove the blankets, and bring the tyres back. It can create quite a bit of a situation, and it could have delayed the pitstop."