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British GP: Pirelli Grand Prix Review


By Courtesy of Pirelli
July 15 2019

 
 Pirelli British Grand Prix Review
 
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Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won a thrilling British Grand Prix for the sixth time with an unexpected one-stop strategy, having switched from medium to hard tyres under the safety car before the halfway point of the race. He was the only one of the top three to stop just once, winning with a margin of more than 20 seconds and shattering the existing lap record at the end of a race in which every P Zero compound performed extremely well.

KEY MOMENTS
- There was a wide variety of strategies seen throughout the 52-lap race, with four different strategies in the top five.
- Only Mercedes and Red Bull started on the medium tyre from the top 10 of the grid, with Mercedes finishing first and second, and Red Bull fourth and fifth.
- Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was the highest-placed driver to begin the race on the Red soft tyre, finishing the grand prix in his qualifying position of third.
- The safety car marked a turning point, with nearly all of the frontrunners (with the exception of Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas) using it to make a pit stop.
- Conditions remained dry and cool throughout the race, but there was no rain at all, unlike the previous two days at Silverstone.

HOW EACH TYRE PERFORMED
HARD C1: Incredibly, a 32-lap old set of the hardest compound of the 2019 P Zero range set Silverstone’s fastest-ever race lap on the final tour, more than 3.3 seconds faster than the previous benchmark.
MEDIUM C2: Starting the race on this tyre enabled the winner, plus five others, to complete this demanding race using just one pit stop. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen started on medium but used a two-stop strategy to finish fifth. Bottas also started on medium and stopped twice.
SOFT C3: Bottas and the Racing Point duo were the only drivers to finish the race on this compound, but it was used widely during the opening stint.

MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF F1 AND CAR RACING
“All three compounds played an integral part in a fantastic race today, with perhaps the most remarkable performance coming from the hard tyre with Lewis Hamilton, who claimed the fastest lap just before taking the chequered flag, on a set of tyres that had already covered 32 laps. And this on one of the most demanding circuits of the year, with energy loads in excess of 4g through some of the corners. From start to finish we saw a highly entertaining race with plenty of action and close battles. The safety car was a decisive element, which effectively split the race into two sprints as most drivers took advantage of it to make a pit stop. The decision to pit Hamilton from the medium to the hard during this safety car proved to be a key element of his victory. Now we look forward to continuing our development of the 2020 compounds, with two days of testing with Red Bull and Williams at Silverstone.” 

 

BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
HARD		      MEDIUM		 SOFT
Hamilton 1m27.369s    Vettel 1m28.733s	 Bottas 1m27.406s
Verstappen 1m29.272s  Bottas 1m28.784s	 Stroll 1m29.390s
Leclerc 1m29.313s     Hamilton 1m30.236s Perez 1m29.456s

LONGEST STINT OF THE RACE
COMPOUND	DRIVER	LAPS
HARD C1		Gasly	40
MEDIUM C2	Albon	39
SOFT C3		Perez	22

 

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