F1 – 2020 Pirelli British Grand Prix: Event Analysis

Free Practice:

With Sergio Perez testing positive for COVID-19, Racing Point were left with around 24 hours to find a replacement driver, and finally with just 10 minutes before FP1, Nico Hulkenberg was confirmed to race at the British and 70th Anniversary Grands Prix in Perez’s place, after the German was tested negative for COVID-19.

Having been 8 months since Hulkenberg has driven an F1 car, he took his first outing at the physically demanding Silverstone Circuit relatively easy, but would be happy to be inside the to 10 in FP1, just half a second behind teammate Lance Stroll.

Someone else who we didn’t see out on track in FP1 was Sebastian Vettel, with a reported intercooler issue on his Ferrari confining him to the pits with just 2 laps completed. Leclerc on the other hand will be happy in P5 in FP1 a power circuit.

Red Bull seemed more competitive than expected, Verstappen topping FP1 on the Softs, 4 tenths ahead of Hamilton on the Mediums. Albon with his new race engineer Simon Rennie, race engineer of Ricciardo and Webber in the past, was 4th behind Stroll.

It was a poor session for Alfa Romeo – Raikkonen spinning at Luffield early on before Giovinazzi had an even bigger spin at the fast Chapel curve, flatspotting all 4 tyres badly. The Italian then drove too fast back to the pits, shredding debris down the Hanger Straight, resulting in massive oscillations through the car and a Red Flag to be brought out.

Alfa looked quicker in FP2 however, with Raikkonen even breaking into the top 10.

In the qualifying sims, a surprising order played out, with Stroll ending up fastest just ahead of Albon, with Bottas 3rd and Hamilton down in 5th. Verstappen never got a clean lap together so finished in P14, however showed strong race pace, making Red Bull a threat on both Saturday and Sunday.

While Albon finished in P2, his session finished with a heavy crash on the exit of Stowe corner, losing the back end and hitting the Armco barriers hard. The Red Bull mechanics will have their work cut out to fix the car without breaking the curfew tonight.

Albon crashes heavily during FP2

Vettel’s miserable Saturday continued – he never looked at one with his Ferrari, with mistakes left right and centre, and thus ended up in P18.

In FP3, Albon’s struggles continued, suffering an electrical issue putting him out for nearly all the session.

Qualifying:

In Q1, Nicholas Latifi spun at Luffield the end of the session. Teammate George Russell overtook under the yellow flags caused by his teammate, and was subsequently handed a 5 place grid penalty. He went to go through to Q2 in an impressive P9.

Magnussen, Giovinazzi, Raikkonen, Grosjean and Latifi were knocked out in Q1.

In Q2, a rare mistake was seen by Lewis Hamilton, making the same mistake as Latifi did in Q1 and span at Luffield.

However his second lap was enough to place him 2nd behind Bottas, however the gap between Mercedes and the rest of the field was ominous, with Mercedes over 1 second faster than anyone else.

Disappointment from both Hulkenberg and Albon, who were knocked out in Q2 in cars capable of qualifying on the second row, however for Hulkenberg he can still be happy as he was only 1 tenth off his teammate Stroll despite getting in the car for the first time on the Friday.

Gasly and Stroll set identical laptimes, however because Stroll set his time before Gasly did he was classified higher, and as a result Gasly was knocked out in P11.

In Q3, Leclerc surprised everyone in the Ferrari to finish in P4, just 1 tenth behind Verstappen’s Red Bull. His teammate Vettel however had his best time deleted due to track limits and ended up in P10, over 2 seconds off Hamilton’s pole time, but his best lap was only good enough for P9 anyway.

Hamilton won the pole, an impressive 3 tenths faster than 2019 British GP polesitter Bottas.

The Race:

Before the race even began, the most eagerly anticipated driver to race was out of the running, as an engine issue meant returnee Nico Hulkenberg never made it out of the garage, meaning he will have to wait an extra week to make his F1 race return.

At the start of the formation lap, environmental movement group Extinction Rebellion hung a banner of their logo at Club Corner visible on TV, which read ‘Act Now’. Not only did they break into Silverstone’s grounds and therefore breaking into F1’s ‘bubble’ to remain as separate as possible from COVID-19, but they later emerged onto the start-finish straight disguised as marshals.

Extinction Rebellion protesters being escorted away - image by Motorsport Images

This action could potentially put so many lives in danger, as breaking F1’s bubble could cause COVID-19 to enter the F1 paddock and put personals’ lives in danger, and posing as marshals puts drivers’ lives in danger, as they would have no marshal training and in the event of an accident at the final corner where they were situated, they would disrupt the actual marshal’s response to the incident.

On the race start, Hamilton didn’t make the best of starts, with Bottas drawing alongside, however Hamilton was able to sweep around the outside into Turn 1.

Verstappen had to back off through Turn 2, losing a place to Leclerc, however through Turns 3 and 4 he fought back, regaining the place onto the Wellington Straight.

The 2 McLarens battled away on Lap 1, Sainz getting the better of Norris at Luffield before attempting to make a move on Leclerc into Copse.

Through the final corner on Lap 1, Albon and Magnussen collided, with the Haas spearing off into the outside wall making heavy contact, even ripping the front left tyre off the tethers. Thankfully the Extinction Rebellion protesters had been removed so the marshals could get to work safely and quickly.

Magnussen crashes out at Club

Magnussen had clouted the kerb through the Vale chicane, giving Albon a chance to look up the inside through Club, but Magnussen closed the door, causing them to collide.

That wasn’t the end of the incidents though. On Lap 13, at one of the fastest sections of the circuit, Daniil Kvyat had a scary crash, later reported at over 25g.

The AlphaTauri driver seemingly lost the rear going into Maggots, making a massive frontal impact with the red concrete wall, narrowly missing the Armco. Kvyat was seemingly very upset at the incident, apologising over the radio before pushing away a cameraman after getting out of the car.

Kvyat suffers huge crash at Maggots

This meant almost everyone made a pitstop for Hard tyres, with the plan to run the rest of the 39 laps on those tyres. The only driver who didn’t pit was Romain Grosjean, who was promoted to 5th as a result.

On the restart, it was McLaren versus Renault, was Norris trying to pass Ricciardo, however the Renault driver held on, before going on to attack Sainz into Becketts. This put him offline, giving Norris the chance to go all the way around the outside of Ricciardo at Luffield, which he pulled off successfully.

For most of the race, most of the field were in a DRS train, whereby they were all following at just under a second of each other but no one could get close enough to make a move. One person however who was getting very feisty on track was Grosjean, who was defending very dangerously against the faster cars before he made his pitstop, making very late defensive moves into corners causing drivers to nearly pile into the back of him. As a result he was shown the Black and White Flag for driving standards.

Towards the end of the race, things started to get interesting. On Lap 48, Raikkonen, who was suffering from possibly his worst race of his career in the woeful Alfa Romeo, suffered a bizarre front wing failure through the Maggots and Becketts esses.

Stroll then started to lose a lot of pace mysteriously, the ‘Pink Mercedes’ dropping behind Gasly’s AlphaTauri.

Albon, who had converted to a 2 stop strategy, was closing onto Vettel in the fight for P11 on Lap 50, taking the position away with ease from the struggling Ferrari.

At the same time, second place man Bottas suffered a tyre failure at the start of the lap, dropping him out of the points and suffering a major blow to his title hopes.

Verstappen, running a lonely P3, decided to make a late pitstop with 2 laps to go, to ensure his tyres do not fail in the same way. At first, this seemed like the right choice, as moments later Sainz suffered a tyre failure.

Sainz pits after tyre failure

However on the final lap, race leader Lewis Hamilton suffered the same tyre failure half way around the lap. Because of his pitstop, Verstappen was now over 30 seconds behind the Mercedes. The race was on, with Hamilton’s pace massively reduced.

However it wasn’t quite enough - Hamilton’s tyre didn’t fully disintegrate, meaning he was able to keep the car on the circuit, and crossed the line with 3 wheels ahead of Verstappen just over 5 seconds behind. In hindsight, Verstappen could have won if he didn’t make that precautionary pitstop, however the same tyre failure could then have easily happened to him as well.

The 2020 Pirelli British Grand Prix results:

The Drivers' and Constructors' Championship Standings after Round 4:

Formula 1 returns next weekend for the Emirates 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone.