F1 | British GP: analysis of qualifying

Formula 1 returns to Silverstone, one of the tracks that made the history of the sport, with its long straights and legendary curves. In front of his fans, Lewis Hamilton was expected to be ahead of everyone even in qualifying, but the one who took center stage, at least on this English Saturday, was his teammate Valtteri Bottas, author of the pole position. The Finn ended an exciting session in the lead, with the first 3 within just 79 thousandths: given also the complicated weather conditions, with the wind significantly influencing the stability of the single-seaters and the ability to put together a perfect lap, it was It is essential to be able to get the best out of each sector. It is no coincidence, in fact, that some drivers were unable to improve in the second attempt at Q3, including poleman Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel, who were struggling with a day that was complicated to say the least.

Fourth time for Max Verstappen, less than two tenths away from first place, but it should be underlined that the Dutchman was stopped by some turbo-lag problems which did not allow him to express himself at the highest levels, despite a potential that it could have been worth an important result. Behind him were his teammate, Pierre Gasly, and Sebastian Vettel, looking for a form in qualifying that seemed to be missing in the last few rounds, also thanks to the technical problem suffered in Austria. Concluding the top ten was an excellent Daniel Ricciardo, who did well to exploit a slipstream and obtain the seventh fastest time, ahead of Lando Norris, Alexander Albon and Nico Hulkenberg. Both the Haas and the Alfa Romeos were outside the top ten, clearly struggling on the English track.

Q1: Racing Point still in difficulty

As per tradition, in the higher areas of the standings there were no particular surprises, other than Ferrari's choice to attempt Q1 on the medium with both drivers, unlike all the other teams who had opted for the soft. This choice weighed especially heavily on Sebastian Vettel, forced to "waste" a set of new soft tires in a second attempt in Q1 due to the choice of the Red team's strategists to return to the track and carry out another run, even though there didn't seem to be any particular need. That same set of tires was then reused in Q2 in the first attempt, but it is essential to realize that if, in the second run, the German had failed to improve, at that point Vettel would have had to start on a set of tires used for two fast laps, therefore already with a heavy handicap even before starting.

Moving on to the fight to avoid exclusion in Q1, in this case there was not a particularly heated challenge with many drivers in the fray, but rather a battle between Sergio Perez and Kevin Magnussen alone, with the Mexican managing to come out on top by just 13 thousandths, nothing. A negative result for Haas, which continues between ups and downs, but at the same time not particularly positive for Racing Point either which, although it managed to get through Q1 with a car, once again finds itself having to deal with a qualifying subdued in which even overcoming the first trap is now complicated. In addition to the aforementioned Magnussen, Daniil Kvyat, Lance Stroll, George Russell and Robert Kubica also had to end their Saturdays early.

Kvyat himself illustrated his difficulties, identifying the poor balance as one of the reasons for the elimination in Q1: “I think our car wasn't in the right window today and I wasn't very satisfied with the balance. This weekend I didn't have any pace, so we need to analyze what happened and understand what we can do for tomorrow. In Free Practice 3 we had made some progress, but once we went into qualifying the car no longer did what I wanted. We are all very close in the central group and, therefore, even a tenth or two could mean exclusion from Q1”, commented the Russian at the end of qualifying.

Q2: The waltz of strategies

Generally, the drivers in the middle of qualifying are always very close and this was also confirmed at Silverstone, with six drivers within less than two tenths of the top ten. Between Lando Norris, eighth, and Carlos Sainz Jr., thirteenth, the gap stood at 193 thousandths, in which however we also find Nico Hulkenberg, Alexander Albon and the two Alfa Romeos. Also in this case it was essential to be able to put together a good lap, something that didn't happen to Kimi Raikkonen, who also suffered from some technical problems: "Honestly it wasn't what we hoped for, but unfortunately we didn't have the right speed" – admitted the Finn -. “Overall it's been a tough weekend so far, it's not easy to put it all together.” Worth noting is the excellent performance of Albon, the (almost) home driver.

The challenge, however, became interesting even in the higher areas of the rankings, especially in teams with strategies in view of the race. If Ferrari initially seemed to have decided to focus on the medium, following the choice of Mercedes and Red Bull, in the second attempt the situation was reversed: instead of starting on the medium compound, the engineers of the Maranello team opted to take to the track again but qualifying with the soft, going against the flow of his opponents. The Ferrari team principal himself explained the choice: “We are not at Mercedes' level in terms of pace, so we have to do something different. If we had followed their strategy, it would have been difficult to beat them. We made a similar choice in Austria and I think we will do well in the first stint, we think the soft could be the right choice. But we will only know tomorrow. At least it's something different than the others and maybe it will be to our benefit", declared Mattia Binotto. It is also possible that the Maranello team expected at least to start from the front row and play a strategy similar to what they did in the last round, with an attacking first stint and then managing the rest of the race differently, being the prey rather than the hunters.

Q3: Bottas takes pole, but the challenge is open

The third and final qualifying session saw an open battle for pole position, with 3 drivers within just 79 thousandths of a second. Valtteri Bottas, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc put on a show, finishing incredibly close. As we were saying, the weather conditions, including the temperature which dropped significantly compared to Friday and the strong wind, significantly influenced the performances of the various drivers, so it should not be surprising that the Finn's pole position came in the first attempt rather than in the final minutes.

After a few GPs in which he failed to hit the big shot, Valtteri Bottas finally managed to find his way back to pole position, getting his fourth start from the pole this season: "When they told me via radio that I was on pole, I felt really happy” – declared number 77 -. “I missed this feeling, it's very difficult to beat Lewis here, he is always strong at Silverstone. My lap wasn't perfect, there's still room for improvement, but no one was able to make a flawless attempt, so that was enough. Now I have to make good use of this pole, Lewis' race pace was very strong yesterday, so I'm sure it will be a good fight: Charles will also be a threat, especially at the start of the race having Soft tyres, while we are on the Mediums, the which will make the early stages difficult for us, but should be the best choice in the long term. We can have fun tomorrow,” added Bottas, who with this umpteenth pole position also surpassed his teammate as the best poleman of the season.

However, a first place with which Lewis Hamilton would have liked to pay homage to his fans, who rushed to Silverstone to support him in the world championship, escaped by just 6 thousandths. The English champion had all the elements to be able to achieve pole position on a track that has always been his friend, but some mistakes, especially in the first attempt, did not allow him to achieve an objective that will be his desire tomorrow , or first place: “Congratulations to Valtteri, he did the best job” were Lewis' words at the end of qualifying -. “It wasn't the best of my qualifying sessions, I had a difficult time in Q2 and in the first heat of Q3, while the last attempt went quite well, even though it wasn't perfect. There is still a lot to do ahead of us, it will be a long race, so I will try to see how I can improve my position tomorrow. Here you have to try to win, but it's not easy, every year it's a great challenge. Yesterday's long runs looked good, I hope to take advantage of the advantage of starting on medium tyres."

But where did they make the difference from each other? To better understand where Bottas took pole position, it is useful to consult the video provided by FOM regarding the comparison between the Finn and his teammate. As can be seen from the image below, the first point in which the number 77 managed to make a difference was in the complex of turns 3 and 4, where Bottas managed to bring more speed to the center of the corner, skimming the curb, which allowed him it also allowed us to have a better exit position and gain on the next straight. Very similar story for number 7, where right in the center of the corner the Finn managed to stay more attached to the internal curb and have a better exit proceeding towards number 8, a factor which allowed him to gain further hundredths of a second which later proved to be fundamental . On the contrary, it is in the second part of the track that Lewis Hamilton manages to recover and close the gap, in particular when exiting turn 14 (“Chapel”) and in the last chicane, where Bottas was also the protagonist of a noticeable oversteer of his own in the final stages of his tour. The gap between the two turned out to be only six thousandths, but that is worth a lot in terms of track positions.

Second row for the other protagonist of the day, Charles Leclerc, really close to making the big splash of the day by stealing pole from the two Mercedes. The Monegasque was the author of a masterful lap, in which he also made up for the shortcomings of a car that does not start with the odds on this track: we will see what he will be able to do tomorrow in terms of race pace, but the route at least for the first stint it is clear, that is, attack, attack and attack. The objective is to immediately get in front and think about managing the race differently, but managing to overtake both Mercedes at the start will not be easy, especially considering that in the last few events the two Silver Arrows have not shown any particular deficiencies in this aspect : “I'm satisfied because I think we managed to get the most out of our car on this circuit. At the beginning of the weekend we struggled a lot, especially with the front tyres, but today things went much better. We believe that the soft is the best compound with which to manage the early stages of the race. The cars in front of us will have medium tires and maybe we can have a slightly different start to the race than usual,” said Leclerc at the end of qualifying.

Although fourth place may be a satisfactory result for Max Verstappen on a chronometric level, the truth is that this qualifying could have told a very different story if it hadn't been for a turbo-lag problem that prevented the young Dutchman from expressing himself at his best levels and attempt a concrete assault on the front row or at least on third place. Undoubtedly, however, the leap forward made by the Anglo-Austrian team with the latest updates is evident: “I'm quite happy to have gained the second row” – said Verstappen -. “Before qualifying I didn't feel comfortable with the car, and if you don't feel it 100% here at Silverstone you can't get a good time given the presence of very fast corners. We improved in the afternoon, finding a good set-up. Unfortunately I lost time in the low speed corners. All day I had problems with turbo lag, so in low speed corners I didn't have the power I was hoping for. When you go on the gas and some corners are at low revs, there's just… a lag. You step on the accelerator but nothing happens and then suddenly you feel the power coming. Performance is lost, especially here, particularly on the exit and then on the long straights. The last attempt in Q3 was good, shame about the turbo lake problem. We lost a bit, otherwise I think we could have fought for pole”, added the Dutchman, confident after what he showed today.

It wasn't an equally positive day for Sebastian Vettel, sixth, also behind the other Red Bull of Pierre Gasly. The German was unable to find the right balance in qualifying, an aspect on which the four-time world champion often put in great performances. What is surprising is how the Red driver barely managed to improve during the various heats, with a delta between Q1 and Q3 of only about a tenth, unlike other drivers who managed to pull out even a gap of over half a second. However, the number 5 did not make any excuses, identifying the lack of confidence with the car as the reason behind his negative performance today: “It has been characterized by ups and downs so far and this afternoon the trend was confirmed. I struggled to get the best out of the car because I wasn't able to have the right confidence and I wasn't happy with how it behaved on the track" – declared the Ferrari driver -. “As qualifying continued I struggled to find pace in the flying laps. However, looking at the long runs of free practice this morning, I have to say that I expect to be more competitive tomorrow. It seems that our main rivals will be the favorites and that we will be able to fight with the Red Bulls, but let's see what happens in the race tomorrow,” added the German.

Excellent performance from Renault, again in Q3 with both cars, but also from Lando Norris, who confirmed he had something more in qualifying, and Alexander Albon.

It's also interesting to take a look at the mini sectors from the latest attempt at Q3. The only ones who failed to improve in this situation were Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel, so we also took the references from the first attempt. The various record mini sectors of Daniel Ricciardo certainly stand out, as he did well to exploit a slipstream in the last run and gain an important seventh position ahead of Norris, in the fight for fourth place in the constructors' championship.

The strategies

For tomorrow's race Pirelli suggests essentially two-stop alternatives as alternatives for the race, with soft-soft-hard as the fastest option. Secondly we find medium-soft-hard, but there is also a possible three-stop strategy which, however, would prove to be much slower on paper. Be careful, however, not to underestimate a possible race with just one pit stop, with the teams that will start on medium tomorrow who could opt to stop only once to fit the hard tires.