Grand Prix 2016 British Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

There will be no doubt what will be the talk of the town in Silverstone this weekend. The latest step down the road that leads the relationship of the Mercedes drivers to complete disaster will be discussed long and hard...

What may be missed is the 20 point swing Hamilton pulled off on that last lap in the hills of Austria, reigniting the Englishman's title campaign ahead of his home Grand Prix. Rosberg must stem the momentum or face a third year as runner-up.

Who will be challenging Mercedes in case of crash, strategy mess up or poor starts? Barcelona suggests that the Red Bull boys offer the sternest test at such a circuit. Ferrari will, as ever, be hoping to challenge but this circuit has been weak by Sebastian Vettel's lofty standards over the years.

Obviously, there will be the unique challenges of Silverstone too. The cold weather and the hard tyres often reduce the grip available. There may be changable conditions; there will be lots of wind. The pit lane is practically a legalised shortcut.

Of course, the main challenges are also the main attractions. Copse. Maggots. Becketts. Abbey. Some of the motorsport world's greatest bends, all in front of a noisy and possibly partisan crowd. This is truly one of F1's sepia-tinted classics, and long may it reign.

 

[olegg]

Good spot FB!! Someone just sent me a pic of it. That's me underneath it with sun glasses on my cap.I had a superb weekend really loved it! Silverstone rocks!!

So many visitors on the GP from Thursday to Friday - it's great.

 

[Speshal]

Ha, I thought I spotted it too!

(It's still upside down;!)

 

[Mezzer]

If it was upside down it would still be correct, it's back to front.

 

[F1Brits_90]

Good race, brilliantly typical summer day in England torrential rain then bright sunshine. Good drive for Lewis untroubled but did well to not get caught out like many other drivers did at wet turn 1. Verstappen brilliant again. that move on rosberg just fantastic he reminds me of Lewis from 2007. Because he pulls move where shouldnt be allowed to. Surely he is a multiple world champion In waiting no pressure haha

Im sure due to Ferrari shocking form last few races came into preseason as the main challenger to Mercedes for both titles & yet we were not even at summer break title hopes haved faded & their now the no3 team. Fighting Red Bull just to get on thd podium

I thought Rosberg's penalty was quite harsh despite contravening the rules. Because im all for stopping driver coaching & anything that stops drivers going faster outside of their own knowledge. Ie try 6th gear thru 130r instead of 5th. But If its an electronic fault like Lewis in baku or nico in Silverstone the engineers should be allo

 

[marksawatsky]

I think it would be easier for the FIA to just have a list of things teams CAN'T tell their drivers. They should be allowed to advise drivers on settings because there are far too many for any driver to keep track of

 

[Dartman]

Perhaps the answer is that there are no driver operated settings except for brake balance, fuel rich/lean, alternative fuel pump and whatever was available in the rules when selection was manual by levers or hydraulics by levers like suspension settings. The rest is a pit reset, Fortunately resets from the pits by data transmission were banned a long time ago as they were used to manipulate team mates positions without team orders in the early 90's

 

[Kewee]

I don't think the Rosberg penalty was harsh. If a penalty is going to be imposed it needs to have an impact on the drivers and teams result by loosing a place and points, otherwise its no penalty at all which is completely meaningless.

 

[TR]

I think it would be easier for the FIA to just have a list of things teams CAN'T tell their drivers. They should be allowed to advise drivers on settings because there are far too many for any driver to keep track of

That would open the door to teams indirectly telling the drivers the things they can't tell them.

(Of course they may already do this. Unless they are totally retarded Hamilton and his engineer with have a finely defined notionof what "It's Hammertime" means in terms of engine settings.)

 

[racecub]

A few pics of the weekend. Hope it's ok to put them in this thread.

 

[Lewywo4]

Just fine racecub.....just fine....

 

[vintly]

Nice pics

 

[Road of Bones]

Terrible shoes though...

 

[racecub]

They're crocs. Comfy, warm and dry quick after rain.

 

[marksawatsky]

Now that the stewards have dished out a punishment for illegal radio messages, the teams can make the calculations about what will cost them more time-not telling the driver something that is costing lap time or telling him and taking the punishment. In that light, it should have been 30 seconds added to Rosbergs time. At the race in Baku, how much time did Lewis lose because they couldn't tell him anything? If the Baku race was next weekend, would they have told him what to change on his steering wheel and taken the 10 second penalty?

 

[Westy]

A great blog post about Rosberg's penalty.

 

[Incubus]

Good point marksawatsky but suggesting a 30-second penalty doesn't solve it. How do you quantify it? And who's to say a 30-second penalty still wouldn't be a better option than not telling the driver anything anyway?

In a race situation any kind of time-penalty for infringing driver instruction rules risks leaving the door open to arbitrary punishments one way or the other so they have to think of something else altogether. Don't ask me what though...

 

[TR]

Now that the stewards have dished out a punishment for illegal radio messages, the teams can make the calculations about what will cost them more time-not telling the driver something that is costing lap time or telling him and taking the punishment. In that light, it should have been 30 seconds added to Rosbergs time. At the race in Baku, how much time did Lewis lose because they couldn't tell him anything? If the Baku race was next weekend, would they have told him what to change on his steering wheel and taken the 10 second penalty?

Why are people assuming that any other infraction of the radio ban rules will automatically result in the same penalty? Any infraction will surely be judged on its own including the context. The important precedent set by the ruling on Sunday is what is considered an infraction of the rules, not ho high the penalty is. In particular, in this case the fact that there was uncertainty on what would be considered breaking the rules will have played a role in the determining the height of the penalty. Any future infractions are almost certain to lead to higher penalties.

 

[Westy]

Why would the next infringement of the rule result in a higher penalty. If anything this ruling has set a precedent for future infractions of this nature. Teams now know that 10 seconds is the penalty, they can weigh that up against the importance of the message and go from there.

The FIA have been taking up the importance of this ruling and posturing like the penalty was going to be extremely harsh. This is why the teams have been so timid when it comes to breaking the rule. No one wanted to be the first. Mercedes weighed the risk of breaking the rules and the problem that Rosberg was facing and felt it was better to break the rule. Probably because he would have lost an astronomical amount of time or not finished the race at all.

Teams will now start working this "penalty" into their race strategies. I bet Force India would have loved to have told Perez about his break issue in Austria. Knowing what the know now I bet they would have. A 10 second penalty is better than crashing out and not finishing the race.

 

[TR]

Why would the next infringement of the rule result in a higher penalty. If anything this ruling has set a precedent for future infractions of this nature. Teams now know that 10 seconds is the penalty, they can weigh that up against the importance of the message and go from there.

Again, teams know no such thing. The penalty for infractions can vary hugely from case to case. In the previous race Rosberg was given a 5 second penalty for "causing a collision". In the past vastly different penalty has been given for the same offense. In particular, nobody is worried drivers will start ramming others of the track left and right knowing that the penalty for this is at most 5 seconds.

On Sunday, Rosberg was given a penalty that was large enough to change the outcome of the race, but not large enough to make Hamilton the new leader in the championship. Period. Depending on the context and circumstances and nature, the next infraction may incur a different penalty.

 

[Westy]

Sky reported that the ruling took so long to create a precedent which Christian Horner (amongst others) took as meaning that this will be the penalty for such an issue.

I do see your point on driver penalties, they can vary from case to case. However, team penalties do not change. This is why a loose wheel always incurs the same penalty, whereas a driver with multiple collisions can incur a larger penalty. We also don't see drivers banging into each other as there is also a risk that a move such as that will result in damage ruining the drivers race.

I do hope that the championship positions were not a factor in the decision. That was my main issue with Grosjean's race ban after the Spa incident. It was said that the penalty was influenced by the presence of championship contenders in the incident. This makes it very apparent that some drivers are more valuable than others. If Toro Roso break the radio ban rule and get a different penalty because they don't matter in the championship battle we may have a much more serious issue on our hands.