2017 British Grand Prix - Silverstone, 14-16 July

[Mandrake]

As long as Mercedes retains their qualifying advantage Ferrari is going to have a hard time winning on pace alone. If you need 1s+ in performance to be able to overtake Ferrari is not going to have such an advantage in the race. So either winning the start or undercutting at the pit stop is their only chance. And only if on the US tires Mercedes does not open up a 9 second gap.

Interesting choice of tires though between Merc & Ferrari

[F1NAC]

Damn. I wonder how big gap will be after first few laps on US between Ferrari and Merc. Mercedes was strong on US easily

[godlameroso]

As long as Mercedes retains their qualifying advantage Ferrari is going to have a hard time winning on pace alone. If you need 1s+ in performance to be able to overtake Ferrari is not going to have such an advantage in the race. So either winning the start or undercutting at the pit stop is their only chance. And only if on the US tires Mercedes does not open up a 9 second gap.

Interesting choice of tires though between Merc & Ferrari

US tires will not be used at this round. It'll be a tight fit to 1 stop the race if conditions are dry. The Ferrari is a better chassis but the Mercedes engine is still better. In normal conditions Hamilton should walk away with this one. The best Ferrari can hope to achieve is coming 2-3.

The race won't have normal conditions however, so should be quite interesting. I still expect Hamilton to take this one.

[godlameroso]

Completely agree.

Any takers on pole time prediction? I'm guessing 1:27.5, and fastest race lap in the low 32's.

From what I've seen so far the race pace is similar to 2015 pole times.

[Craigy]

Hoping for some rain in the race.

One can hope.

http://u.cubeupload.com/ChrisDanger/201710Weather1.png

Meh, it will be like Austria, speaking about rain the hole week and finally, nothing.

Its Silverstone and after two bad weekends I see Hamilton winning this race. He will be 100% focused on this, for sure.

But it will be interesting because both Mercedes and Ferrari will bring important PU updates so let´s see if Ferrari can close the gap. Their car should be strong here.

*looks out the window*

It's raining right now. The forecast is for rain for the forseeable future.

I'm 13 miles as the crow flies from Silverstone.

[Craigy]

Completely agree.

Any takers on pole time prediction? I'm guessing 1:27.5, and fastest race lap in the low 32's.

From what I've seen so far the race pace is similar to 2015 pole times.

It it's wet, all bets are off.

[matt_b]

The rain is coming through now but come the weekend it will be a nice warm mid July weekend

I'm interested to see the gap in qualifying because it was huge the last time we had the SS as the qualifying tyre. I cant see warmup issues with all those high speed corners.

[Sevach]

The tire choices are "aggressive" for the first time in a while we could see some interesting stuff.

[Vasconia]

The tire choices are "aggressive" for the first time in a while we could see some interesting stuff.

Ferrari has changed its tyre allocation for a more aggressive one. I think we could see different strategies this time, very interesting. =D>

[Vasconia]

Every single race we get the exact same analysis from the exact same people ... its a hamilton track and he will run away with the race ...
I find it amusing.

Its Silverstone and Mercedes has been strong here so yes, he should win. Plus he he has ended behind Vettel the last two races so it seems that we should see "a fight back" weekend this time.

Anyway I hope Ferrari can surprise Mercedes here.

[SamH123]

As long as Mercedes retains their qualifying advantage Ferrari is going to have a hard time winning on pace alone. If you need 1s+ in performance to be able to overtake Ferrari is not going to have such an advantage in the race. So either winning the start or undercutting at the pit stop is their only chance. And only if on the US tires Mercedes does not open up a 9 second gap.

Interesting choice of tires though between Merc & Ferrari

US tires will not be used at this round. It'll be a tight fit to 1 stop the race if conditions are dry. The Ferrari is a better chassis but the Mercedes engine is still better. In normal conditions Hamilton should walk away with this one. The best Ferrari can hope to achieve is coming 2-3.

If you think Ferrari has the better chassis I don't know how you conclude Hamilton will walk away with this one. We've just had 3 power tracks with Vettel almost qualifying on pole in Austria and fairly close in Canada (another day could have been different).

Silverstone is less power sensitive so Ferrari could be quicker here.

Surprised to see no one has mentioned Red Bull either, 3 weak tracks for them, Ricciardo seemed to have very good race pace in Austria. Unfortunately they will probably start behind Merc and Ferrari but I think they could match them in the race

[Sevach]

The tire choices are "aggressive" for the first time in a while we could see some interesting stuff.

Ferrari has changed its tyre allocation for a more aggressive one. I think we could see different strategies this time, very interesting. =D>

I'm thinking that too, Ferrari might be considering multiple stints on supers.

And when you remember that originally Pirelli didn't even want to take supers to Silverstone it makes this even better

[Phil]

We've just had 3 power tracks with Vettel almost qualifying on pole in Austria and fairly close in Canada (another day could have been different).

We had the oil story in Canada, which changes made to Baku, where suddenly, Mercedes was clearly faster with both cars. Austria is a very short track, so any gap will be smaller. Adding to that the arguably stronger qualifier was on a different strategy and perhaps was addiotionally hampered by that, so I wouldn't read too much into the closeness of Austria between Ferrari and Mercedes.

Silverstone is gonna be interesting though, that is for sure.

[aral]

Fanboyism is rearing its ugly ahead once again. The topic is the British GP, and all talk about Hamilton being the boss there has nothing to do with the 2017 race. So several posts have been removed.

[adrianjordan]

Is there a thread anywhere talking about the BRDC triggering the break clause in the contract to host the British GP at Silverstone?