Who’s going to win the British Grand Prix? Head over to the pre-race analysis to shre your thoughts.
Here’s today’s round-up:
Links
Red Bull Map-Q: The secret to the team’s Q3 pace (Scarbs)
“Rather than driving the piston down, the explosion of the mixture goes into the exhaust, still expanding as it does so. This creates a rush of gas through the exhaust mimicking the effect of running with the throttle open. Thus the diffuser still sees a flow of gas and maintains downforce despite the engine slowing down.”
Great Day For Red Bull Tarnished (Speed)
Christian Horner: "For example, Mark has a new floor this weekend, and compared to Sebastian, Mark’s chassis is slightly lighter than Sebastian’s. There are always those little mini-decisions that are being made. They’ve always been fairly distributed. The problem is when you have one component and two drivers, only one can run it. I think there’s this emotion that it was robbed from Mark’s car, but the front wings change between the cars.”
Comment of the day
STRFerrari4Ever looks forward to an exciting British Grand Prix – behind the Red Bulls at least!
As for Ferrari, McLaren, Renault & Mercedes I think there could be some very fierce battles. Firstly Alonso will want to finish on the podium to try to get back into the title picture whilst Hamilton will give his all in his home race to get a result to stay near the top of the drivers championship. Personally I have a feeling that Kubica & Rosberg could spring a surprise, I know it doesn’t seem likely after all the sessions that have taken part this weekend but don’t count them out.
Further back Jenson will have it all to do I doubt he’ll be able to make much headway so I’m guessing he’ll end up with low points or no points at all. Strategy if there is a safety car or surprise, surprise some rain will be fascinating, seeing what teams & which drivers decide to take gambles will be very interesting.
Lastly one thing that could destroy a variety of driver’s races, is the Abbey corner that bump on full tanks & in a racing environment will cause many drivers to make some mistakes. Even the slightest mistake will leave a driver exposed going into the last sector particularly allowing the driver behind a run down the Wellington Straight. All these things being considered I feel this could be a very good British Grand Prix I sure hope it doesn’t disappoint!
STRFerrari4Ever
From the forum
Nik asks who is the most improved team so far?
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Pabs1, Joaqo and TomD11!
On this day in F1
Will the crowd see a home win in today’s British Grand Prix?
The race was also held on this day in 1993 and very saw Damon Hill’s first Grand Prix victory. But an engine failure on lap 41 of 59 handed the win to team mate Alain Prost.
BasCB (@bascb)
11th July 2010, 9:11
I think Button will do a bit better than STRFerrari4Ever expects. Maybe some nice tyre strategy and a good start with some moves in the first laps could get him to 5-7 places.
And with Hamilton giving his all, he might just be the first guy to get thrown out on the Abbey bump early on. Maybe having to fight a bit back while Alonso will continue to press the leading Red Bull (i hope that will be Webber, it might force Vettel to do some putting pressure on someone and overtaking on track as well).
I expect the midfield to be pretty exiting with Button, Alguersuari, Buemi, Sutil, Kobayashi and Hülkenberg putting pressure on the likes of Schumi, Barricello and De la Rosa.
I hope Massa makes it a nice battle between Rosberg, himself and Kubica. Maybe with Hamilton joined in after going off at Abbey.
But it might just be a Vettel walkover, with Webber defending from Alonso etc. Than the only saviour will be Liuzzi battling from behind with Heikki, Petrov, Alguersuari and Glock.
BasCB (@bascb)
11th July 2010, 9:22
The piece by Adam Cooper is very nice. .
I think the wing was on Webbers car, Vettels mechanics had made a mistake in attaching his to the car, so bad luck. The important thing is how Webber sees it, it gives Vettel an advantage over Webber and that’s not fair. The time gained 1thenth was hardly nessicary for Vettel, nor Red Bull.
As the argument for the FP3 times, those guys were running different strategy, so Vettel had a better chance of going faster, but still Webber was close (as you pointed out yesterday Keith).
I agree with Horner, that Withmarsh might easily do the same if confronted with the same situation, but i am not sure about it. With McLaren really pushing to be seen fair to both drivers they might take it off, especially if they would have such an advantage over the competition.
KNF
11th July 2010, 11:36
Whitmarsh HAS done the same thing before last season, so it’s a bit rich that he’s even mentioning this. For sure, we know that the difference between Hamilton and Button is a lot less than the difference between Hamilton and Kovalainen, but if there was only one part available, it would go to the faster guy…
BasCB (@bascb)
12th July 2010, 7:35
The point IS about the small difference between both Hamilton/Button as well as Vettel/Webber when compared to McLaren last year.
A very big and desicive difference is, that McLaren discussed this openly with Heikki up front and he was OK with it, see his comments on the same subject made Saturday.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85205
DougieCow
11th July 2010, 10:02
Easy to read as “Mark now has the same floor that Vettel has been using for the last race, and we’ve added a bit more weight to Vettel’s car as being shorter & lighter we need to meet the minimum weight limit”
Come on Christian, we’re not stupid!
KNF
11th July 2010, 11:25
Those were my thoughts too, of course Webber’s car is lighter, he’s taller and heavier than Vettel, plus using ballast actually helps the weight distribution on Vettel’s car…
Eric
11th July 2010, 10:15
i think Fernando might make his presents felt around the track this Sunday.
now that would make up for the lousy showing they had at Valencia.
his qualifying has certainly proved he has the machine to get the job done.
im going to root for him as Mclaren don’t stand a chance this weekend.
sorry Lewis, still hope you do ok as i need someone to support if you fall out.
cyanide (@cyanide)
11th July 2010, 10:31
Hi Keith, The ScarbsF1 article you posted is pretty much what I had said a few days ago: https://www.racefans.net/2010/07/08/f1-fanatic-round-up-872010/#comment-394779
I guess I need a fancy blog to be featured on the website now :D
KNF
11th July 2010, 11:30
Pretty deep insight into the retarded ignition for getting a consistent flow over the diffuser… Renault would definitely know about this, and I’m surprised that as the ECU supplier (and past EBD user) McLaren hasn’t gotten theirs to work as well as the RBR solution.
cyanide (@cyanide)
11th July 2010, 12:20
Getting the required amount of exhaust gas during deceleration should be easy once they find out the actual airflow values. Depending on the sophistication of the ECU or the other computers and how much the rules can be bent, it can easily be done in closed loop so that the driver doesn’t have to vary the throttle during deceleration. Just pressing a single button would automatically determine the amount of revs and/or throttle position required to get the required amount of airflow.
That is only half the battle though, as the diffuser has to be designed to make use of that airflow. We saw last year how Brawn owned the rest of the field in the first half of the season while others were busy trying to make their double diffusers work at all.
With the testing ban, it’s almost inevitable that 1-2 teams will come up with something revolutionary that skirts the rules and the rest of the field is having to do catch-up for the first half of the season.
Ads21
11th July 2010, 11:18
another one for on this day; Schumi breaks his leg in the 1999 British Grand Prix.
Steph90 (@steph90)
11th July 2010, 11:22
Wasn’t there a grid girl who said “break a leg” to him before the race? She must have felt bad
Scott Joslin
11th July 2010, 11:46
Loved reading about Scarbs explanation of the problems with a blow diffuser. It comes at a great time when we are seeing Mclaren probably suffering all those problems he highlighted.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
11th July 2010, 12:21
Say what you will about Max Mosley, but sometimes the man does talk sense:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85208
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
11th July 2010, 12:22
And also: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85209
Finally! Ecclestone talking about Grands Prix in Russia and South Africa! This is what I’ve been wanting for years: a championship that visits every major region on earth. For the first time, we’ll have a true World Championship!
Dave Harding
11th July 2010, 15:14
Wow, i would just like to say what a superb race it was at Silverstone today.. Many thanks to all concerned.. All i need now is to find a little snack-bar where i can buy perhaps buy a “Maclaren Ham-Buttie” .. Any suggestions please? .. Once again, many thanks to you all ..
Joaqo
11th July 2010, 14:56
Thanks for the congrats, yay! What a great race it was by the way.
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16th September 2010, 4:48
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