As the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship approaches the historic and high-speed Silverstone Circuit, McLaren arrives at its home Grand Prix with great ambitions but also a degree of caution. The extremely fast and flowing layout of the British track will provide a crucial test of the recent aerodynamic and mechanical improvements introduced by Ferrari, particularly in addressing the excessive wear of the floor. At the same time, the McLaren F1 team will have to pay close attention to managing tyre degradation at the front of the car, on a layout that is expected to expose even the smallest vulnerabilities of the MCL39 single-seater.
The Woking-based outfit dreams of ending a long drought at Silverstone, as the last time McLaren won its home race dates all the way back to the 2008 Formula 1 season. Although the team performed remarkably well at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, where both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri showed strong pace, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone represents a very different kind of challenge. It is a circuit that will not allow any weaknesses to remain hidden. Current World Champion Max Verstappen is fully prepared to seize any opportunity that may arise, and Mercedes will also be looking to capitalize on the abrasive nature of Silverstone’s track surface and the typically cool and unpredictable British weather conditions.
For Ferrari, this race weekend represents a true test of the Maranello team’s ongoing work to reduce and control floor wear — a recurring issue in the early part of the 2025 Formula season, particularly linked to the management of ride height and downforce levels.
Ride Heights, Aerodynamics and Circuit Demands
The Silverstone Circuit, located on the site of a former Royal Air Force airbase, remains one of the most spectacular and technically demanding venues to witness a modern Formula 1 car in action. This is mainly due to its high-speed configuration, with flowing corners and lap averages that can exceed 250 kilometers per hour. For Ferrari, the track will represent a particular challenge, especially considering that throughout the first half of the season the Italian team has often been forced to adopt conservative car setups in order to mitigate excessive floor wear — a direct result of difficulties in managing ground clearance and ride height effectively.
On a circuit such as Silverstone, where numerous corners are taken at extremely high speeds, cars are constantly generating substantial aerodynamic downforce. This heavy load pushes the car closer to the ground, increasing the wear of the floor plank — a critical performance component in Formula 1 regulations.
That is why the 2025 British Grand Prix represents a perfect occasion to evaluate the true progress made by the Ferrari engineers and technicians. It is important to keep in mind that for every single millimetre a team is forced to increase the ride height of the car — to protect the plank from damage — there is an approximate loss of downforce equivalent to about half a tenth of a second per lap. Attempting to recover this lost performance with a more aggressive rear wing configuration is not a viable solution, particularly at Silverstone, which is one of the circuits that most rewards aerodynamic efficiency. This concept of efficiency is often misunderstood as merely straight-line top speed, but in reality, it refers to a car’s ability to generate significant levels of aerodynamic load while keeping drag as low as possible.
Achieving strong top speeds down the former airbase’s long straights is crucial for setting a competitive lap time, but it cannot come at the expense of high-speed cornering performance. This is especially true in the famous sequence of Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel, where drivers navigate five rapid changes of direction at speeds exceeding 230 kilometers per hour. Andrea Stella, Team Principal of McLaren Racing, had previously stated at Imola that when it comes to these types of corners, he did not believe that the McLaren Formula 1 car enjoyed a particular advantage. Indeed, it was at circuits like Imola, Suzuka and Jeddah — all tracks rich in high-speed directional changes — where Max Verstappen and Oracle Red Bull Racing had shown their ability to challenge and, in some cases, outperform the papaya-coloured MCL39.
McLaren’s Awareness and Technical Preparation
Nonetheless, McLaren arrives at Silverstone with the status of pre-race favourite. The MCL39 single-seater has proven to be one of the most versatile and complete cars on the grid, equipped with a wide range of strengths and setup options. In Austria, the car completely dominated proceedings, although the Red Bull Ring’s characteristics differ significantly from the British track. It is worth noting that McLaren also performed well in Spain, at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, another venue known for its long, high-speed corners. However, the nature of those turns is still distinct from the shorter and more abrupt ones seen at tracks like Imola and Jeddah.
Speaking at the Spanish Grand Prix, Andrea Stella had explained that, despite similar speeds to other circuits, the longer duration of the corners at Barcelona had played to McLaren’s strengths. He remarked that one of the distinctive features of the Spanish track is the extended length of its curves, in contrast to the much shorter corners of Imola. In those long, sweeping bends, the MCL39 appeared to revive some of the key traits of its 2024 predecessor — a car that had already laid a strong foundation for this season’s improvements.
Silverstone will once again give the McLaren F1 team the opportunity to exploit its excellent stability in long-radius corners, such as Turn 6 (Brooklands), Turn 7 (Luffield), and Turn 15 (Stowe). The track also includes a number of slower-speed sections — for instance, Turn 5, a tight hairpin leading onto the Wellington Straight, is taken at less than 100 kilometers per hour. Corners like Luffield and Vale, while more flowing, still require strong low-speed mechanical grip. In this sense, Silverstone does not fit the profile of a purely high-speed circuit like the one in Jeddah, but rather serves as a comprehensive examination of a car’s overall balance. It requires a careful compromise between high-speed aero performance and slower-corner mechanical grip.
On several occasions this season, McLaren has demonstrated that its MCL39 has a remarkably wide setup window. This flexibility allows the engineers to find the right balance between different cornering demands, as was perfectly demonstrated during the Miami Grand Prix. One of the standout strengths of the MCL39 is its superior ability to manage rear tyre degradation — a factor that becomes slightly less significant at Silverstone. In the United Kingdom, it is the front axle that is often the limiting factor in terms of tyre wear. Front tyre graining remains a recurring risk and could limit the competitive advantage McLaren has held in previous rounds.
Tyre Strategy and Weather Variables
Further increasing the strategic complexity of the race, official Formula 1 tyre supplier Pirelli has opted for a softer range of compounds this year. The selection includes the C2, C3 and C4 compounds — a step softer compared to the tyres used during the 2024 edition of the British Grand Prix. The aim behind this decision is to promote more two-stop race strategies or, at the very least, accelerate performance degradation to enable more overtaking opportunities on track.
The ultimate impact of this tyre strategy will also depend heavily on weather conditions. In addition to the usual chance of rainfall at Silverstone, temperatures in the region are typically cooler than the European summer average, especially during early July.
This could play into the hands of Mercedes, which understands that repeating its dominant 2024 performance will be far from easy. Last season, the Brackley-based squad locked out the front row in qualifying and went on to win the race with Lewis Hamilton on Sunday. At the time, the Silver Arrows had a car that was particularly strong on circuits where front-end grip is key — such as Silverstone. However, the current W16 car has been troubled by understeer, which is the flip side of its otherwise strong and stable rear end. That said, the car has inherited a preference for cooler conditions from its predecessor — a trait that may offer an edge in this specific environment.
Conversely, McLaren tends to thrive in warmer temperatures, with its advantage over competitors often growing as the ambient heat increases. It is also worth noting that Silverstone is one of the circuits most prone to bouncing — an aerodynamic phenomenon caused by floor oscillations — which the McLaren MCL39 has experienced in other races, though without significant performance losses thus far.
Scuderia Ferrari’s Objective at Silverstone
For Ferrari, controlling floor wear will be mission number one at the 2025 British Grand Prix — a critical factor in the team’s goal of repeating its strong result from the Austrian Grand Prix, where it returned to the podium. Like McLaren, the SF-25 operates best in warmer conditions, which may not be available in the United Kingdom due to forecasted lower-than-average temperatures.
Nevertheless, the high-speed corners of Silverstone are an area where the Ferrari SF-25 shows great strength — and this will serve as the baseline for building a competitive weekend. The driving style of seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton has not always aligned perfectly with the Ferrari’s tendency to exhibit oversteer in high-speed sections. Since the beginning of the season, Lewis Hamilton has been working closely with the Maranello-based team to adapt the car’s setup in a way that better suits his driving preferences. The British driver has recently expressed growing confidence in the technical direction Ferrari is taking to achieve greater harmony between him and the SF-25 single-seater.
With the support of the passionate British fans in the grandstands at Silverstone, Lewis Hamilton will be especially motivated to secure his first podium finish as a Ferrari driver in what has so far been a challenging and somewhat disappointing 2025 Formula 1 season. The energy of the home crowd could provide the final push needed to turn potential into results on one of the most iconic circuits in motorsport.
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