Why it's Red Bull that really leads a three-way fight so far at Silverstone

The less said about the first practice session for the 2022 British Grand Prix the better.

The opening one-hour qualifying session was a tedious exercise in frustration for the 106,000 people that had packed into Silverstone, eager to finally see the new ground effect Formula 1 cars in a ‘natural’ high-speed setting.

But the British summer rather ruined that, with a sudden downpour just as FP1 was beginning and further rain sprinkles later on confining the cars to the pitlane for most of the session. Some did venture out, keen to get a feeling on the intermediate tyres given wet weather is currently predicted to threaten qualifying today, but it was a stunted session.

Even when the pack did pile out on slicks in the closing minutes, Lance Stroll’s Copse off in his Aston Martin ruined the fun with a red flag.

FP2, however, was much more like it with the drivers heading out early en masse. And Ferrari led the way, with Red Bull battling issues down in fourth-best of the 10 teams and Mercedes shaded by the Scuderia up front by just 0.163s.

But things were not quite as smooth as they looked for the red team, nor as bad as they seemed at Red Bull, even though McLaren’s Lando Norris stole ahead of Max Verstappen to make it a British 2-3 between Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton in the one-lap stakes. Mercedes was also much happier away from the bumpy street tracks F1 has raced on for the last three events.

Overall FP2 order

On one-lap pace, Ferrari ruled the day – much as it has over course of the season so far. It must be considered the favourite for pole given its record of six in nine. Plus, although Sainz’s run was calm, Charles Leclerc – the team’s one-lap speed king – had a specific problem that prevented him from matching his team-mate.

Sainz led the way on Friday for Ferrari as Leclerc suffered a technical issue

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

While Sainz led the way with a soft-shod 1m29.014s that he then bettered to post a session-leading 1m28.942s after a trip through the pits, Leclerc was disrupted by a technical issue. After being instructed to set his car into “mode push”, he aborted his first qualifying simulation run on the softs after going off into the run-off at Village, Turn 3.

The two-time 2022 race winner was distracted by his dash display changing to an unexpected screen and telling him he was still in “mode charge”. After backing off he went again, but was unable to change the dash display, which he called “super disturbing”. And so, without a reference and therefore unable to see where he was improving versus his earlier personal best on the mediums, Leclerc dived for the pits.

But after being told the issue would mean ending his qualifying simulation time by being wheeled back to the garage, he opted for one last go blind – winding up 0.4s slower than Sainz. Leclerc rued the soft being a “one-lap tyre – after that it’s done”.

“I could tell that our performance felt good in the car,” he explained. “I am confident that we will be competitive and it will be a matter of putting everything together.”

"It’s bouncing still quite a bit – not necessarily in a straight line, but through the corners it’s pretty harsh. Not physically harsh, but just like in the car, on the tyres and everything. So, we’ve still got work to do" Lewis Hamilton

Sainz felt “the wind made it tricky to get the right balance for the high-speed sections and the correct compromise for tyres in the low-speed ones”. He concluded that: “Overall we were quick, but it felt like there is margin to improve.”

Red Bull can say the same, with Sergio Perez ending up down in seventh and 0.8s from the top spot. The Mexican driver felt his car was “miles off” compared to what he had expected based on his simulator running at his squad’s nearby Milton Keynes base ahead of this weekend’s event, which he put down to so far unspecified “aerodynamic problems”.

Verstappen was being put off by his car making a strange noise at high speed, which Red Bull attempted to diagnose before his qualifying simulation run but was unsuccessful. The Dutchman’s sole flier appeared calmer than Sainz’s run, which featured a heavy run over the Copse kerbs as his F1-75 shot wide as he fought rather significant bottoming out through Silverstone’s highest speed turns.

This was also happening for Ferrari at Abbey and at the second part of Maggots, and it was a similar story for Mercedes, which at least did not encounter any end-of-straight porpoising even at top speed, following on from its Barcelona progress. The Red Bull cars were also repeatedly bumping their floors into the track at these turns, but to a far lesser degree.

Red Bull also bottomed out in the high-speed corners but to a far less extent compared to Ferrari and Mercedes

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Even so, Verstappen wound up 0.2s behind Sainz after he’d completed his qualifying simulation flier. He concluded the day saying it is “always a bit tricky after not driving in FP1 and then FP2 becomes a bit of guessing” – as it takes a while for the drivers to build confidence around this challenging circuit.

This was also the reason for the six places and 0.6s time gap between Hamilton and George Russell, who finished FP2 down in eighth. Mercedes had started its younger Briton on the hard tyres at the start of the session as it worked to assess all the compounds. And in the cooler than typical conditions for early July at Silverstone yesterday, he struggled to reach the required temperature range and so lacked grip.

Then when it came to taking the softs for his qualifying simulation efforts, he had to work through a “double step [in tyre grip level and overall fragility] when you get onto the soft tyre”, per Mercedes’ director of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin.

Hamilton reckoned “it has been a good day”. He added: “It’s bouncing still quite a bit – not necessarily in a straight line, but through the corners it’s pretty harsh. Not physically harsh, but just like in the car, on the tyres and everything. So, we’ve still got work to do. But it feels like a small step forwards. Just got to keep working.”

Soft tyre averages

Shovlin said “this was our best Friday for a few races” for Mercedes and this is borne out in the long run averages. These have the usual practice caveats regarding fuel loads and engine modes applying. Plus, comparisons are made more difficult because Red Bull ran a different long-run programme to the other two leading teams in the constructors’ championship.

It concentrated on the soft compound on both its cars – emerging with a 0.039s advantage per lap over Ferrari on a similar stint length on that tyre and so cementing its usual position at delivering better race pace. Although things are really very tight at this stage.

“[I did] a few laps with the softest compound, which I think is alright,” said Verstappen. “It's just around here with all the high speed corners the tyres in general wear a lot, so it was always going to be quite tricky to manage the tyres.”

As can be seen in the table above, Mercedes led the way on the soft tyre with a 1m32.904s average, but this was over Russell’s much shorter stint on the softs at the end of what had been his main focus, a long run on the hards that came in just 0.159s slower than Hamilton’s comparative stint on the mediums (see table below). He had therefore burnt off quite a bit of fuel by the time it came to try the soft compared to the set amount Red Bull and Ferrari likely chose to assess.

Mercedes appear to be in the hunt at Silverstone

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The medium and hard compounds are set to be the favoured race tyres given the high loads the flowing Silverstone track demands. But Pirelli is adamant that if the cooler temperatures persist, a strategy that works in the soft, perhaps late in the race, might be an option for some teams.

Given the caveat that surrounds Mercedes’ long-run pace on the softs and it likely to be used mainly as a qualifying tyre if the rain does hold off later today, the Silver Arrows is better compared with a rival ahead on the mediums. Unfortunately, this is only Ferrari given Red Bull’s differing FP2 approach, but Mercedes can take solace from being just 0.012s adrift here, albeit over a slightly shorter stint.

Medium tyre averages

It believes Red Bull and Ferrari have something more to come when everything is turned up fully for qualifying and the race, but nevertheless the team ended Friday practice buoyed by its showing on what is essentially home ground.

"Normally, we see a sort of gap of half-a-second, maybe even seven, eight tenths to the faster teams on a long run. And that didn't look like it was there" Andrew Shovlin

"We've still got a lot to improve but the car is working much better at this track than the last few street circuits," concluded Shovlin.

"Normally, we see a sort of gap of half-a-second, maybe even seven, eight tenths to the faster teams on a long run. And that didn't look like it was there. Probably a bit is the circuit suiting the car. There's a lot of bouncing around and it's tricky in the high speed at the moment. But hopefully, the updates sort of pushed us in the right direction."

The British GP is intriguingly poised between the top three teams heading into qualifying

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images