The hat-trick is over
The FIA Formula 1 World Championship season reaches its halfway point with the British Grand Prix, the twelfth of the 24 rounds of 2024, and it does so right where its history began. 74 years ago. It was on the Silverstone track, located in Northamptonshire, built in 1942 as a military airport for the Royal Air Force, that on 13 May 1950 the first of the 1112 chapters of its journey that has accompanied us to this day was held. That day the winner was Nino Farina’s Alfa Romeo, which was fitted with Pirelli tyres.
The track features 18 corners and, at 5,861 metres, is one of the longest in the entire world championship calendar: only Spa-Francorchamps (7.004 km), Jeddah (6.175 km), Las Vegas (6.120 km) and Baku (6.003 km) surpass it. It is one of the most fascinating and challenging tracks, especially for the car-tyre package. Some combinations of corners, such as the one from 10 to 14 – Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel – are taken at high speed and generate lateral forces on the tyres and drivers in excess of 5g: the average of this data for the Silverstone track is similar to that recorded on tracks such as Spa and Suzuka. This, together with other technical considerations, has now become a tradition, confirmed again this year, that the three compounds selected for this race are the hardest of the range: the C1 as the P Zero hard, the C2 as the P Zero medium and the C3 as the P Zero soft. The front axle is the most stressed and the prevalence of right-hand bends makes the front left the tyre most subject to wear.
The English summer is always characterised by a high variability of weather conditions and it is a factor to always take into account, also because the changes can be very sudden. Last year the race was held entirely on a dry track, with the Soft as a somewhat surprising protagonist: only two teams did not use it. The most used compound was however the Medium, with which half of the total mileage was completed. The vast majority of drivers adopted a one-stop strategy, even if a double stop was still a popular option in the past.
The 2023 edition saw the debut of a new tire constructiona solution introduced by Pirelli to cope with an increase in loads recorded in the first races of the season that was higher than the average of the simulations provided by the teams the previous winter. Completely transparent in terms of performance, the construction has proven its validity and will be used until the end of the 2024 championship, despite a further increase in loads generated by this year’s cars of around 10% compared to the end of last season.
Only two Grand Prix have been held so far always present in the calendar of the top motor racing competition: the Italian Grand Prix and, indeed, the British Grand Prix. The one that will take place at Silverstone this weekend will therefore be the 75th edition, the fifty-eighth to be held on this track. The race has in fact been held twelve times at Brands Hatch and five at Aintree. Furthermore, in 2020, Silverstone hosted a Grand Prix dedicated to the seventieth anniversary of the championship.
Although the vast majority of teams that have raced in Formula 1 have been or still are based in England, The team that has won this Grand Prix the most times is Scuderia Ferrari, first with 18 successes. Behind him are McLaren (14) and Williams (10). Ferrari is also first in terms of number of pole positions (16), fastest race laps (20) and podium finishes (59). Among the drivers, the most successful is Sir Lewis Hamilton, first in eight home Grands Prix, ahead of Jim Clark and Alain Prost, both with five wins each. The seven-time world champion from Mercedes is also first in terms of number of pole positions (7) and podium finishes (13) while his compatriot Nigel Mansell has achieved the highest number of fastest race laps (7).
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