A 44th career pole position and 4th pole of the season came out of nowhere for Verstappen, after he and Red Bull Racing had struggled to extract the maximum from their car throughout Friday’s sessions. They are running a new floor this weekend and fine tuning the setup around this to find the right balance and grip levels for Silverstone’s high speed corners took a while. But once they’d cracked it, Verstappen was unstoppable and found over a tenth to the closest McLaren of Piastri.
And even in the midst of these issues, Red Bull Racing’s lower downforce setup for the weekend was reaping its rewards for Verstappen’s pace over his long run on the mediums in FP2. His average lap time over 7 laps on the C3 was not only quickest, but also consistent which is promising for how the RB21 is likely to fare over a grand prix, even if a low downforce setup is typically harsher on tyres, and could open up the one-stop to Verstappen.
While McLaren were pipped in qualifying yesterday, the battle is far from over as Norris was very closely matched to Verstappen over his long run. Just 0.025s separated the rivals on average, with Norris also showing impressive lap time consistency – perhaps even more so than Verstappen.
On the other hand, Piastri looked to struggle for time over his directly comparable 7 lap stint on the mediums. His average lap time was 0.293s slower than Verstappen’s, and means he ranked P4 with Leclerc splitting the McLaren duo.
Ferrari were somewhat off in qualifying and so will start today’s race from P5 and P6 despite looking promising all through practice for single lap pace. But this promise extends to their long runs and means they could be back in the mix once again on race day.
Leclerc completed an eleven lap long stint on the mediums, giving a marginally more representative look at his pace than the Red Bull or McLarens with their shorter stints. Though this may be the case, Leclerc looked to suffer with more inconsistency in lap time over this longer run which could be concerning. It’s also not a pattern they can corroborate with Hamilton’s run from FP2 as he completed just five laps. Even so, his average time ranks him fifth fastest.
Mercedes rank fourth of the team’s over these FP2 stints, with Russell ahead of Antonelli at a driver level. While they have a fair margin back to Aston Martin in fifth, there’s also a considerable margin between Russell and Antonelli themselves – 0.116s to be exact – with Russell almost seven tenths off the pace set by Verstappen.
But these long runs were completed on Friday when the track temperature was much higher than it was for qualifying and what it’s predicted to be for the grand prix. While this would usually be a comforting thought for Mercedes, as their car much prefers the cooler, cloudier, even wet conditions, their usual performance in these conditions didn’t reflect in their qualifying performances.
Russell did make it up to P4 with Antonelli in P7, but after his 3 place grid penalty carrying over from his collision with Verstappen in Austria he will start the grand prix from P10. To make it up the order from there Antonelli will need improved race pace on what his FP2 simulations suggest he has, and Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director, said they’ve “made some changes” since Friday to help with this.
Looking to the midfield and Aston Martin’s final upgrade package of the year has seen them gain performance with Alonso topping the midfield in qualifying and Stroll ranking 8th in these long runs. After a tricky qualifying, the Canadian driver will line up P17 on today’s grid and his strong race pace will give him, and the team, hope of a recovery drive.
What’s perhaps most of note over the midfield and the long run data is how closely matched the teams and drivers are following relatively even gains in time over the top seven drivers. Just 0.732 separates the bottom thirteen drivers for FP2 long runs, even considering the mix of tyre compounds being run.
Sainz and Hadjar completed their stints on the soft, C4 tyre while Bearman and Ocon completed a combined twelve laps on the C2, hard tyre. They clearly found a rhythm on that harder compound that allowed Haas to rank 8th for average pace ahead of Sauber and Alpine – cars Bearman and Ocon will start near today.
With such fine margins over the majority of the field (outside the top four teams) strategy is going to be even more critical in finding the edge, with tyre allocation also set to play a major role in how each driver can approach the grand prix. Sainz and Hadjar’s soft tyre long runs will provide vital information to the teams who may be considering a two-stop race yet only have one set each of mediums and hards.
The British Grand Prix is set up to be another one for the books, and with the midfield so closely matched for pace yet some larger deltas appearing out front, it’s going to be all to play for!
