06/07/2024
NEWS STORY
Three Brits on the top three grid slots: the Silverstone crowd could not have asked for more on this Saturday at the British Grand Prix.
At the end of a thrilling and dramatic qualifying session, George Russell came out on top with a time of 1'25"819, beating his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton (1'25"990) while Lando Norris was third for McLaren in 1'26"030. This was Russell's third Formula 1 pole after those in Interlagos in 2022 and Montreal this year. It is pole number 139 for Mercedes, the team's eleventh at the British Grand Prix. Tomorrow's race will mark the 84th time there's been an all-Silver Arrows front row in Formula 1.
Today's third free practice session was one of the coldest since 2011 when Pirelli took on the role of Formula 1's sole tyre supplier, with air temperature at 11 °C and the track at 13 °C. The record for low temperature goes to the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix (air 10°C, track 11 °C). Rain and wind characterised the 60 minutes of track time, with all drivers using one set of Intermediates each. In these conditions, the tyres struggled a bit in the initial warm-up phase, but after that they performed well, even over quite long stints.
Qualifying provided an opportunity to check the crossover time from ideal conditions for the Intermediates to the point when slicks could be used. In the first part of Q1 all the drivers used one set of new Intermediates before switching to the C3, the one exception being Hulkenberg who used the same set as in FP3.
The Pirelli Pole Position Award was presented to George Russell by Marcus Wandt, an astronaut with the ESA (European Space Agency). Born in Switzerland in 1980, Wandt has over 20 years of experience with the Swedish Air Force as a pilot, commander and test pilot. Back in January, Wandt travelled with the Axiom 3 mission to the ISS (International Space Station) staying in orbit for 20 days, carrying out experiments and research into microgravity.
Mario Isola: "It was a very exciting qualifying and provided a crowd-pleasing result with three British drivers in the top three places. In conditions pretty similar to those experienced in last year's qualifying here, we saw that times have come down by around one second, confirming how much car development has moved on from one year to the next, given that the tyres are completely identical to those used at Silverstone in 2023. Then, when one considers that the grip level on the track surface was definitely not at its best after so much rain had fallen during the day, one can surmise that the cars might have been even quicker!
"Tomorrow, the great unknown will be the weather. If, as forecast, it should rain and the track is wet throughout as was the case in FP3, all the teams have sufficient sets of Intermediates and Wets to run a two-stop race. However, if it's dry, then a one-stop is quickest on paper, with all three compounds being viable. The C3/C2 strategy is slightly quicker than going from the C3 to the C1, while a strategy without the Soft gives greater flexibility."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Silverstone here.