Tyre preview - Pirelli brings its hardest compounds to Silverstone

Formula One's sole tyre manufacturer Pirelli will bring its three hardest compounds for this weekend's British Grand Prix, and has mandated extremely high minimum starting pressures for the Silverstone round. F1Technical's lead journalist Balazs Szabó delivers his tyre preview.

Following the hard-fought Austrian Grand Prix, the F1 field heads to Silverstone with the British Grand Prix marking the midpoint of the 2024 F1 season.

The British round takes place on a historic location. In 1942, a Royal Air Force airfield was established in Silverstone, Northamptonshire and on 13 May 1950 it hosted the first of the 1112 rounds that have taken place to date. The winner back then was Nino Farina, driving an Alfa Romeo fitted with Pirelli tyres.

Only two Grands Prix have been permanent fixtures on the Formula 1 calendar, this one and the Italian Grand Prix. Silverstone therefore hosts the 75th British Grand Prix this weekend, the 58th to be held at this track. The race has also been run twelve times at Brands Hatch and five at Aintree. In 2020, Silverstone hosted an additional round, celebrating the championship’s 70th anniversary.

5.861 kilometres long, the track is the fifth longest on the calendar after Spa-Francorchamps (7.004 km), Jeddah (6.175 km), Las Vegas (6.120 km) and Baku (6.003 km).

It features 18 corners and is one of the most exciting and also one of the most demanding for the car-tyre package. Some corner combinations, such as those from 10 to 14 – Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel – are taken at high speed and generate lateral forces on the tyres and drivers of over 5g: the average figure at Silverstone is similar to that seen at Spa and Suzuka.

On Pirelli's range, lateral forces and tyre stress achieve the maximum grade at Silverstone while traction and braking forced are moderate.

This, along with other technical aspects, means that as is always the case here, the compounds chosen for this round are the hardest in the range, the C1 as P Zero hard, the C2 as P Zero medium and the C3 as P Zero soft. The front axle comes under the greatest strain and the prevalence of right hand turns means that the left front is the tyre that wears the most.

Unsurprinsingly, Pirelli has nomintaed high minimum starting pressures. For the front, the limit is 26.5psi while it is 23.5psi for the rears.

The weather in England in the summer can always be very changeable, a further factor to be taken into consideration, especially as conditions can change very rapidly. Last year the entire race was run in the dry, with the Soft a somewhat surprising protagonist, with only two teams not using it.

However, the most used compound was the Medium, which was used to complete half the overall mileage. The great majority of drivers went for a one-stop strategy, even if in the past, a two-stop had been a popular choice.