Sunday, 6 July 2014

Pirelli British Grand Prix Review

(Pirelli Motorsport Media)

This weekend's British Grand Prix at the Silverstone circuit saw Pirelli bring the Orange marked Hard and White marked Medium tyre for the team's to use over the course of the Grand Prix. It was expected that driver's could do the race distance with a two stop strategy however, Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo was able to complete the race on a one stop strategy and collected his fourth podium finish of the season with a third place finish. 

The Australian was joined on the podium by race winner Lewis Hamilton and the Williams Martini Racing Team's Valtteri Bottas who finished the race in 2nd place.

The team's will now remain in Silverstone to test on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday, Ferrari and Marussia will test for Pirelli while on Wednesday, Infiniti Red Bull Racing and the Lotus F1 Team will test for the Italian company.

The Lotus F1 Team have been chosen to test a brand new prototype 18'' tyre on Wendnesday which the company is hoping to introduce in the future as they want the Formula One tyre technology to become more relevant with road car tyre development. 

Speaking following today's British Grand Prix, Pirelli Motorsport Director Paul Hembery said:

'The restart at the beginning of the race obviously had an effect on the tyre strategy, with a few drivers taking advantage of the situation to switch from their original strategy. We saw some quite opposite approaches being taken, with most drivers who changed moving to the harder tyre, while Alonso was able to exploit the extra speed of the medium tyre – worth about a second a lap – to gain track position after the re-start. The same story continued throughout the race with a number of different approaches to strategy.

Even though Silverstone contains the highest lateral energy loadings of the year, seven drivers in the top 10 proved that it was possible to one-stop, which says a lot about the durability of these tyres. Even Lewis Hamilton, who took a brilliant home win, could probably have stopped just once. Now we look forward to this week’s test, during which we will see what an 18-inch tyre looks like on a Formula One car, and it’s going to be very interesting to hear what people think about that.'

© Ben Johnston 2014

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