2011 British Grand Prix programme

Have all the important information for this weekend’s British Grand Prix at your fingertips with the F1 Fanatic race programme:

The race weekend

2011 British Grand Prix preview – Silverstone has a new look but expect the same winner

2011 F1 championship points – Full drivers and teams points standings heading into this weekend’s race.

Drivers

Daniel Ricciardo replaces Narain Karthikeyan at HRT as of this race weekend.

The following changes to the usual driver line-up will be made for first practice only:

Karun Chandhok will drive for Lotus in place of Heikki Kovalainen.

Nico Hulkenberg will drive for Force India in place of Adrian Sutil.

Tyres

Pirelli have brought their soft (yellow coloured) and hard (silver coloured) tyres for this weekend’s race. The hard tyre is the new hard compound introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix.

More information on the tyres in this video narrated by our own Dan Selby:

Stewards

Nigel Mansell is the drivers’ adviser to the stewards. The 1992 world champion and 1993 IndyCar champion also worked in this capacity last year.

He joins FIA world council member Lars Osterlind and French motor sport federation chairman Nicolas Deschaux on the stewards’ panel.

The track

This is the second race on Silverstone’s ‘Arena’ configuration.

The teams are using the new pit complex for the first time and the start/finish line has been relocated. The sweeping Abbey right-hander will be the new first corner.

The pit lane entrance is just before Vale corner. As it bypasses the corner, it should mean the time lost coming into the pits is quite low.

Through the five-corner sequence at Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel, the cars hit G-forces of 2.2, 4.8, 3.9, 3.9 and 2.2. The corresponding speeds for the corners are 300kph, 275kph, 230kph, 195kph and 240kph.

Mercedes give some insight into the track’s most demanding corners:

The fastest corner on the circuit is turn two, known as Farm Curve, on the new section of the circuit – but this is more a flat-out sweep than a proper corner.

The quickest true corner is turn one, Abbey, the flat-out right-hander after the new pit complex. This requires a small confidence lift, but no braking, and is taken at approximately 290 kph.

It was “quite slippery last year because it was very new,” according to Michael Schumacher , “but I expect it to be good this year.”

The drivers experience a peak G-force of 4.8G, and over 4G for 1.3 seconds, while the car experiences a peak vertical force, including car mass, of 22kN – equivalent to 2.2 tonnes. This means the car generates two and a half times its weight in downforce in the corner.

With the new corner numbering, Copse Corner is turn nine while the Becketts complex accounts for turns ten to 14, and Stowe is turn 15.

This section of the circuit is 1.88 km long (32% of the lap distance) and negotiated at an average speed of 272 kph – in around 25 seconds. The lowest speed of the car during this sequence is 195 kph.

The Becketts complex includes five corners in total, through which the drivers experience extremely high G-forces in opposite directions within an extremely short space of time.

As Michael says, “Silverstone is a lot about high-speed but it is also about getting the combination through turns 11 to 14 right – if you don’t get the first one right, you will still suffer at the last one.”

Nico Rosberg echoes those thoughts: “It’s a great part of the lap, and very challenging, because the car has so much grip through there! You need a perfect car balance to do a good lap.”

On the technical front, this sequence rewards both downforce and an agile change of direction; the cars experience an average vertical force of 21 kN (equivalent to 2.1 tonnes). The drivers barely touch the brakes through here: there is gentle braking before Turn 12, and a little more (but only 35% of maximum) before turn 13.

• Silverstone – circuit information

The weather

A wet start to the weekend is expected. With further rain threatening on Saturday and Sunday, teams may choose to limit their running on Friday to save tyres.

• Wet start to British Grand Prix weekend

Following the race live

F1 Fanatic Live will be open for your comments during every session.

Join us for every lap of the race, qualifying and practice at these times:

Friday 8th July 2011

British Grand Prix Free Practice 1: 9:00-10:30
British Grand Prix Free Practice 2: 13:00-14:30

Saturday 9th July 2011

British Grand Prix Free Practice 3: 10:00-11:00
British Grand Prix Qualifying: 13:00

Sunday 10th July 2011

British Grand Prix: 13:00

More session times and live coverage details here:

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And you can use the F1 Fanatic Live Twitter app to get updates from the drivers, teams and media at the circuit:

• F1 Fanatic Live Twitter app

2010 British Grand Prix highlights

It was civil war between the Red Bull drivers at Silverstone last year.

When Sebastian Vettel’s new front wing failed during practice, no-one guessed at the ramifications it might have.

Team principal Christian Horner took the controversial decision to take the other new-specification front wing – already on Mark Webber’s car – and put it on Vettel’s.

Vettel dully took pole position but Webber muscled past at the start. Contact with Lewis Hamilton gave Vettel a puncture which ruined his race. Webber won, telling the team on the radio afterwards it was: “not bad for a number two driver”.

2010 British Grand Prix review – Webber storms to win as it all goes wrong for Vettel

2010 British Grand Prix qualifying – Vettel on pole as Red Bull dominate at Silverstone

Previous British Grands Prix

2009 British Grand Prix: Untouchable Vettel romps to Silverstone victory
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

Join in the 2011 F1 Fanatic Predictions Championship

There’s F1 races tickets DVDs and more to be won. Play for free by guessing the top five in each race.

You can enter and edit your predictions up to the start of qualifying on Saturday:

• F1 Fanatic Predictions Championship

Image design by PJ Tierney