British GP rates below its average despite late-race drama

2017 British Grand Prix Rate the Race result

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The British Grand Prix featured close racing between Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, impressive recovery drives by Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo – and a shock development in the final few laps.

But F1 Fanatic readers rated it 6.6 out of ten, making this one of the less popular races at Silverstone over the last ten years. Here’s why.

We got some proper ding dong wheel to wheel battles, interesting strategies in play, and late race drama. No battle for the lead is disappointing but still solid.
Philip (@Philipgb)

A lively start and a good battle between Verstappen and Vettel. Vettel and Bottas was interesting for a while and then the excitement of the last two laps. Would have been better with a rain shower or two.

Ricciardo and Bottas both drove well coming through the field. I thought the win for Hamilton was a foregone conclusion though after the safety car restart.
Phil Norman (@Phil-f1-21)

Some typically tasty action between Vettel and Verstappen, and Bottas kept it interesting with his alternate strategy. Dramatic ending with both Ferrari’s suffering tyre failures, looks like a set-up related thing to me. Good race in my view.
James Brickles (@Brickles)

Ferrari’s troubles left some of you feeling deflated (sorry):

I think it was not much different from Austria to be honest. Just a little bit more action, like the fight of Verstappen and Vettel. But other than that, all other fights were heavily unequal. I don’t care about Bottas overtaking Haas mid-straight. And I can’t be bothered about Ricciardo driving by cars as if they are standing still. I want to see real fights, and other than Verstappen/Vettel, I haven’t seen any.

Then seeing a race result end due to car failure, tyre failure, whatever, I absolutely do not enjoy. It leaves a bad taste, especially when it happens in the final laps. Like Le Mans last year. I enjoyed the beginning of this season so much, with real fights between Mercedes and Ferrari. Fights for the win. That’s what I want to see. But yet again, Ferrari shows they are not competitive when it comes to in-season car development.
@Spafrancorchamps

Others felt the inevitability of the pit stops detracted from the action:

I’ve always found tyre strategy to be really dull and I’ve always hated seeing races decided in the pits via tyre/fuel strategy.

I want to see racing done on the track, i want to see overtaking done on the track so seeing them have to pit for mandatory stops and all that has always been a big turn off for me since 1994.

this race was looking good early on and it was purely down to pit stops that ruined this race as it killed the great on track fighting we were seeing beforehand and stung the field out which led to less racing from then on. same thing happens in IndyCar, good racing which green flag pit cycles always ruin.
RogerAyles

However Max Verstappen’s first finish in four races was good news for some:

Now I really noticed how we dearly missed Verstappen the last races. Adding some needed taste to the race.
Sethje (@Seth-space)

Rate the Race: The Twitter verdict

Those who attended the race found more to enjoy about it:

2017 Rate the Race Results

RaceAverage score
2017 Australian Grand Prix6.408
2017 Chinese Grand Prix7.534
2017 Bahrain Grand Prix7.957
2017 Russian Grand Prix4.900
2017 Spanish Grand Prix7.869
2017 Monaco Grand Prix4.936
2017 Canadian Grand Prix7.545
2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix8.790
2017 Austrian Grand Prix5.821
2017 British Grand Prix6.625

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2017 British Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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16 comments on “British GP rates below its average despite late-race drama”

  1. so it was basically like last year, according to the rating. Shame little Max didn’t get a podium, but I enjoyed it.

    1. Agree about Max, Red Bull’s pit stops seem to be a major issue (remember Monaco last year?) in holding up podiums, real shame

      1. A good pitstop wouldn’t have helped him. Ferrari was too fast after the pitstop.

  2. A bit surprised by the low-ish rating. The GP had some good points throughout. I understand there was no battle for the lead but I’d still say it was one of the better races this season.

  3. Jason Blankenship
    20th July 2017, 20:58

    Yeah it was boring, but most Hamilton wins are.

    1. lol Ham has 3 wins in top 5

  4. I’m surprised the race got a normal rating. It’s an average rating for this season, and the rating is in line with past British GP’s, that said I’d say this year’s race was more enjoyable than 2014, 2015 and 2016(in spite of the rain). Strange to see an Ham victory low on the rating, I guess it’s because this season it’s an inter team battle rather than an intra team battle.

  5. ILuvSoundtracks (@)
    21st July 2017, 5:45

    The British GP won’t be at its peak again.

  6. It’s not all about the battle at the front.

    So many other battles and stories throughout the field.

    Bottas had another steady drive rewarded by 2nd place.
    The wonder of where and how blatant Ferrari would swap Kimi with Seb.
    Sergio desperate to pass Esteban, yet Esteban needing to prove a point and the team needing solid points at their home gp.
    Williams poor qualifying.

    Silverstone announcing activating the break clause.
    And many others.

    As ever there is a lot of drama going on,

    Don’t forget the race winner is still behind in the championship.

  7. like many longer circuits, modern silverstone races suffer from the low lap count. it’s good to have the odd longer circuit (old hockenheim and spa would be enough) and the odd shorter circuit (interlagos, austria and monaco) but i think GPs should be between 60 and 70 laps. there are far too many races that are <60 laps these days.

    the problems with this are manifold – fans at the track see the cars much less, the cars go through the cool bits (fast corners, passing places) less often, there are fewer back markers creating potential obstacles for the leaders, there is less room to play around with strategies, and the race is often shorter in overall time as a result. all of these things are worse for the 'show', the sponsors.

    as for this race, the DRS effect was too strong on the hangar straight (this is a well worn moan). i feel like there must be some way of calculating how powerful it's going to be and then adjusting the activation point. it worked quite well on the shorter farm(?) straight before brooklands (or whatever that corner is called now)

  8. Ham win was to easy, to straight forward to make it fun.

    Rules about gearbox and engine penalties need to be changed.

    1. @jureo With Hamilton’s starts he probz gets minumum 3rd or probs 2nd in Aus, remember he had a penatly aswell there. Ham should be in the lead. He has also stole poles from Vettel in Catalunya this year and Australia. Vet should have been on pole two more times. Ham been far a better qualifyer

      1. Ham has also had a very bad weekend in Russia but you cannot deny Vet is going off the boil, Kimi is a corpse these days and Kimi qualified 2nd in silverstone

  9. Guess Pole position up to number 4 should start at the back to make it more interesting.

  10. Vettel qualifying been subpar, Ham has stole 2 poles from him

    1. In a faster car.. Article speaks of driver performance.

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