Have all the important information for this weekend’s British Grand Prix at your fingertips.
The F1 Fanatic unofficial race programme includes all the pre-race facts and figures you need, plus a video lap of the new Silverstone track.
The race
British Grand Prix preview – Red Bull’s speed may stop home success at Silverstone
Mansell on stewards’ panel at Silverstone – 1992 world champion to keep an eye on driving standards
New Silverstone ‘even tougher on tyres’ – Tyre wear could be a crucial factor this weekend
Fauzy to drive Lotus at Silverstone – The Malaysian driver returns to Lotus while Paul di Resta makes another appearance for Force India
The track
With Silverstone also hosting the Moto GP race this year the organisers had to change the circuit so the bikes could avoid the bridge before Bridge corner, which would have been too dangerous for them.
The new loop omits the Abbey chicane, introduced to slow the cars down in 1994, and replaces it with a fast right-left flick. That leads into a new slow section and on to a longer straight which brings the cars back to the previous track at Brooklands.
The changes are expected to make the average lap speeds even quicker and possibly create an opportunity for overtaking at Brooklands, although the corner is now quicker than it used to be.
- Silverstone opens new Arena circuit, expects cars to hit 185mph at Abbey
- Silverstone boss explains why they didn’t use Tilke for Arena track upgrades
- Is the new Silverstone better for F1? After a day in the stands I think so
The weather
It’s expected to stay dry at Silverstone but the warm weather Britain had been enjoying looks set to cool down this weekend.
Read more: Dry race expected at Silverstone
Following the race live
We’ll be commenting live on the British Grand Prix from start to finish. Join us for the race, qualifying and all three practice sessions at these times:
Friday 9th July 2010
British Grand Prix Free practice 1 – 10:00 – 11:30
British Grand Prix Free practice 2 – 14:00 – 15:30
Saturday 10th July 2010
British Grand Prix Free practice 3 – 10:00 – 11:00
British Grand Prix Qualifying – 13:00
Sunday 11th July 2010
British Grand Prix – 13:00
More session times and live blog details here: British Grand Prix live TV times
Also make sure you follow F1 Fanatic on Twitter for updates throughout the race weekend.
2009 British Grand Prix highlights
Sebastian Vettel dominated last year’s British Grand Prix, winning from pole position.
Championship leader Jenson Button suffered his worst result of the season so far – sixth – having won six of the first seven races.
Felipe Massa climbed to fourth place during the race having qualified 11th.
Previous British Grands Prix
2008 British Grand Prix – Lewis Hamilton scores home win as Ferrari flounder
2007 British Grand Prix – Raikkonen takes control
2006 British Grand Prix – Alonso leads home Schumacher and Raikkonen
2005 British Grand Prix – Montoya scores first win for McLaren
1992 British Grand Prix – Dominant Mansell takes popular home victory
2010 British Grand Prix
Image (C) Red Bull/Getty images
Hare
8th July 2010, 13:39
Has anyone noticed Keith has slying changed his profile info on the bottom right of this site? Including a new and improved picture. Shorter hair, more light, and of course a smile! :)
BasCB (@bascb)
8th July 2010, 13:58
I suppose it’s to do with the updated website, new header, Keith has a new avatar icon and the new picture, all smiles.
Whitty 123
8th July 2010, 13:40
Hi Keith, going to my second live race this Sunday. Sitting at Vale. First time I went my child began to grow a little bored in the long breaks between the races. I remember you had a great article on a kind of Grand Prix checklist. It told you to bring books, sandwiches and what not. Been looking for it and can’t seem to find it. Would be a great help if you could send me a link. Thanks in advance.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
8th July 2010, 14:09
Here you go:
https://www.racefans.net/2007/07/03/british-gp-preview-extra-what-to-take/
https://www.racefans.net/2007/07/04/british-gp-preview-extra-where-to-watch/ (Now slightly outdated!)
Eddie Irvine
8th July 2010, 16:56
keith you really need to fill this grey are at the top right with something… maybe the comment of the day (idea!)
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
8th July 2010, 17:05
See here: https://www.racefans.net/2010/07/08/f1-fanatic-round-up-872010/comment-page-1/#comment-394938
miguelF1O (@)
8th July 2010, 14:40
redbull doesnt show us much of their silverstone virtual track anyway i wouldnt tip him for victory this time those type of flights usually are only one way
sumedh
8th July 2010, 15:03
Felipe finished 4th, not 3rd. Correction required :)
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
8th July 2010, 17:07
Fixed, thanks.
spanky the wonder monkey
8th July 2010, 15:57
the new abbey to brooklands section is pretty cool. ‘driven’ it on r-factor (using last years cars), with abbey being a near flat corner. the feed turn onto the new brooklands straight is also very quick. of course, this is only from a computer game, albeit a pretty accurate one.
BS
8th July 2010, 17:00
Here is a high quality version of the video that plays back smoothly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPmOVYoYZU8 (up to 1080p even)
On an otherwise great site I really dislike seeing horribly recompressed video’s if the original is freely available online straight from the original source. Especially when the only ‘addition’ is shamelessly slapping a logo on a video this site has absolutely nothing to do with…
Just embed youtube videos directly. It’s much more professional, which really fits the otherwise excellent content here.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
8th July 2010, 17:12
It wasn’t at the time the article was written. But if you’ve got some thoughts on how to encode the videos better, please share them.
BS
8th July 2010, 18:16
That’s odd, it’s rare to see 3rd party compessions out before the official release, then again I’m not hooked to the F1 press umbilical cord. :)
The default youtube embedding option is very good in my opinion. I’ve seen youtube videos embedded here before though, so you’re probably already familiar. Especially now that the embedded videos feature the different resolution options as well as a fullscreen button (which for some reason weren’t present by default earlier).
You can even set the player colour to an F1Fanatic blue. :)
Encoding itself is very tricky, youtube uses the h264 standard using the open source x264 codec (or a proprietary version based on it) which I think is the best out there currently. But with all forms of heavy (internet) compression it really doesn’t lend itself well to recompression as the compressor only has a fraction of the original data available. I’d always avoid it if possible.
BS
8th July 2010, 18:20
This might be disabled in the comments, but here’s the video straight from youtube:
Reading back my original post has a bit of a nasty tone, which wasn’t intentional… I have been dealing almost fruitlessly with compression myself lately so the subject is rather irritating. :)
Dan Selby
8th July 2010, 17:01
Am I the only one thinking Red Bull don’t have the new version of Silverstone on the simulator…..? They were using the old version of Club (it’s now a double apex right hander), and they completely cut from any parts of the new section. It just seemed to be edited cleverly to not show any of the new sections at all. I was watching the smaller screen when it cut to Webber apparently driving the new hairpins/arena section, and i’m not entirely sure if that was even it. It looked like they’d just edited in some of the other corners in to it!
Kevin
9th July 2010, 13:10
Are you doing a meet and greet this year?