Pirelli: Hembery, “At Silverstone, the question mark remains the weather”

The British Grand Prix is ​​well known for its changeable weather, and although both practice sessions took place in dry conditions, the forecast for the rest of the weekend is uncertain – and this will obviously have a profound effect on the tire use and strategy.

To cope with the highest lateral loads of the year, the two hardest compounds in the Pirelli range were chosen at Silverstone: P Zero Orange hard and P Zero White medium.

The teams completed their programs during the two test sessions, evaluating the performance of each compound with different fuel loads; although the usefulness of this information would be reduced in case of rain.

Wear and degradation are within expected parameters for this extremely demanding circuit, meaning that in the event of a dry race, between two and three pit stops are expected.
Track evolution is not a relevant factor at Silverstone, so the teams can already start working out their race strategies.

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton set the best time of the day on the medium compound in FP2; while in FP1 the best time was set by Nico Rosberg.

As usual, the drivers only used hard tires in FP1, before testing both compounds in the afternoon session which, theoretically, should be more representative of qualifying and race conditions.

So far, the lap time difference between the two compounds is around one second, and this gap is set to remain constant throughout the rest of the weekend.

Paul Hembery: “The weekend started well; the teams completed their programs and the performance of the two compounds was perfectly in line with our expectations. Obviously the big question mark remains the weather, so we need to see how useful the information collected today will be; even if every data is important and there is some probability of having a dry race. There are many fans here, as is tradition, and it's great to be represented in front of some of the most enthusiastic fans from around the world.”