Poll: Official British Grand Prix 2026 Thread - Silverstone Circuit - Race 9/22

Rate the Silverstone race out of ten

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Cannot believe this ending.
Isn't it about time lapped cars just dropped back.
Who cares about anything else. Like fuel etc.

Robbed. Absolutely robbed. What a joke.

KA will be OK. He's got the speed and the advantage.
 
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Jono8 said:
What I find most perplexing is why Lewis was nearly half a second off Charles through the first stint? How did the performance between the two change so much between the sprint and the race?
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He had issues with the car. Forgot what it was but he mentioned it early on
 
J1nxy said:
No chance, the aero package is now designed around it, they’ll be looking hard at the actuators and mechanism to understand why it’s not returning to the right position.
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Arguably it is not even legal. The wing is required to fail in the high downforce position.
 
Dr Jack said:
Arguably it is not even legal. The wing is required to fail in the high downforce position.
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I guess it'll depend on how or what failed, but they'll not back away from it as their aero package will be designed around the wing now. They'll be taking a serious look at what happened and what needs to change and will deal with that as that'll be easier and cheaper than trying to redesign the rest of the aero for a different rear wing config.
 
J1nxy said:
I guess it'll depend on how or what failed, but they'll not back away from it as their aero package will be designed around the wing now. They'll be taking a serious look at what happened and what needs to change and will deal with that as that'll be easier and cheaper than trying to redesign the rest of the aero for a different rear wing config.
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Hmm. I think they'll want to stick with it, but since three teams now have installed these wings on cars that also ran more conventional wings I don't think it's as critical as you suggest. Since the rear wing is the last element to interact with the airflow over the car I'd assume that it is less integral to the overall concept because it's not directing airflow onto other elements.

Either way, if the FIA decide the wing is illegal, they don't get the choice. I don't think it will but I can see another team deciding to protest it.
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
Complaining of huge understeer in the first stint. I think that's why they brought him in earlier.

It was a great drive from Charles yesterday though. Did everything required of him, didn't put a foot wrong. 100% what he needed after the last few races.
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Yeah he really needed it.

Russell needs something like that too. He needs to actually beat and be faster than Antonelli.
 
Dr Jack said:
Arguably it is not even legal. The wing is required to fail in the high downforce position.
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I think the actuator is still working but the aero is taking longer than expected to re-attach. Maybe they're closing it earlier in certain SM zones to help with that.

Only other team doing it are Ferrari so I wonder how much of an advantage it actually provides. Can't see them changing it for Belgium but it I don't think the SM zones are followed by high-speed corners, in which case the wing is fine.
 
413x said:
Yeah he really needed it.

Russell needs something like that too. He needs to actually beat and be faster than Antonelli.
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I think Russell will be happy enough with last week’s win, and this week’s second. A couple of weeks ago, he was basically not in the running. :D
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
I think Russell will be happy enough with last week’s win, and this week’s second. A couple of weeks ago, he was basically not in the running. :D
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Im not so sure. Both of these (especially this one) were incredibly lucky. I can't believe any f1 driver in this position can be happy about it.
 
Mesai said:
I think the actuator is still working but the aero is taking longer than expected to re-attach. Maybe they're closing it earlier in certain SM zones to help with that.
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That could be it. Although Red Bull's system operates faster than Ferrari's so you'd expect it to have less of a problem and we've not seen issues from the Italians, but maybe Ferrari are closing theirs more cautiously as a result? I don't know.

Mesai said:
Only other team doing it are Ferrari so I wonder how much of an advantage it actually provides. Can't see them changing it for Belgium but it I don't think the SM zones are followed by high-speed corners, in which case the wing is fine.
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McLaren have been developing their own system, so it clearly provides an advantage on paper. It's probably a fairly significant chunk of development budget and time though so I imagine some teams are just deciding to put that effort into other parts of the car.
 
Dr Jack said:
That could be it. Although Red Bull's system operates faster than Ferrari's so you'd expect it to have less of a problem and we've not seen issues from the Italians, but maybe Ferrari are closing theirs more cautiously as a result? I don't know.
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Definitely closes faster than the Ferrari but maybe the more extreme opening, or the rapid closure is where it struggles. Austria and Silverstone were both on high-speed corners where it seems to be a bit of Russian roulette.

For Spa it looks like it'll be the start/finish, Kemmel and Blanchimont straights, which all end in low speed. They'd have to fix it for somewhere like Monza though.
Dr Jack said:
McLaren have been developing their own system, so it clearly provides an advantage on paper. It's probably a fairly significant chunk of development budget and time though so I imagine some teams are just deciding to put that effort into other parts of the car.
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It must do - these teams will chase fractional seconds as it adds up over a race.
 
413x said:
Yeah he really needed it.

Russell needs something like that too. He needs to actually beat and be faster than Antonelli.
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Easy isn't it on paper, however driving an f1 car is far more complex than just going faster. From what I understand George is having rear tyre issues that Kimi's driving style actually suits these new cars. It's possibly similar with how Lewis struggled with the previous ground effect cars.
 
My thoughts on a few of the topics here (since nobody asked for them).

On the safety car and adding extra laps: I kind of like that in principle, I'd probably need to think more on how it would play out Vs red flag or finishing under SC to decide which solution would be reliably 'better'. I agree the teams all under fuel at the moment, but change the rules and they'd have to add that little bit more fuel to cover off the risk no? I don't see the current situation preventing a potential future situation.

I agree that lapped cars should just drop back though, seems far more sensible than what we have now. How you manage the deficit needs a bit of care, -1 lap could work I suppose. Incidentally if you know you're going to get lapped you could go slightly riskier on the fuel strategy given the likelihood you're going to do fewer laps total, though I imagine that already happens.

On the track limits: I suspect I'm a little on my own with this but in Kimi's example - yes he's not leaving the track and gaining an advantage in the traditional faster lap time sense, but the advantage that he is gaining is that he carries on running at all. If you can continue to race and maintain a points scoring position because you were able to leave the track multiple times and figure out the fastest way to drive with the issue, then you've gained an advantage in my book. The alternative is you drive slower to stay on the track until you're comfortable with the modified handling, or you pull off and stop because it's unsafe. Either of those are likely to drop you further down the order.

On the 'jump start': Similar to above, maybe I'm a bit too harsh/a bit of a misery guts but I think that was fair. The car moved, intentionally or otherwise, advantageously or otherwise, at a time where it was supposed to be stationary. As some others have said, if you open up a bit of tolerance there then all drivers start to creep just before the lights.

I'd apply the above to any driver not just those in yesterday's examples. I'm just after consistency really.
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
100% on that. It sound harsh on the track limits, but that’s how it goes. Rules are rules!
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Agreed
It gets super messy if you have to decide if someone is gaining or not.

If there were gravel traps there he'd have driven slower.

He was gaining an advantage by extending the time to the car behind by cutting corners. He was losing less time than he would have had he kept on track.
 
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Yea - if you can’t keep the car on the track without the limits, it probably shouldn’t be driven. Fair penalty really.
 
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