Red Bull unreachable, possibly over half a second faster than everyone
The pre-race predictions currently leave no doubt about who will lead the pack in the 2023 Formula 1 British Grand Prix. It’s difficult to find a better track for the Red Bull RB19 than Silverstone, with its long straights and fast corners, where downforce, efficiency, and lateral stability are crucial characteristics. These are exactly the DNA features of Adrian Newey’s design, and based on this early feedback, it seems unlikely that the competition will come within half a second of the Max Verstappen – Sergio Perez duo (with some doubts regarding the latter).
Battle Looms Behind Red Bull
However, the battle behind them appears very interesting. Mercedes seems to be struggling for now, mainly with a weak rear end that tends to suddenly lose grip in the middle of corners, a behavior observed in both George Russell’s and Lewis Hamilton’s W14 cars.
Toto Wolff’s side was one of the teams, along with Ferrari, that still had issues with aerodynamic bounce in 2023, and currently, the Brackley-based team’s car is suffering in that area. As a partial confirmation of what was seen in Austria, the SF-23 of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc seems to have made a significant step forward in addressing the bounce issue, which is virtually absent during the fast laps of the two Ferrari drivers. This allows for a lower and stiffer car, and the initial impressions are also of excellent initial balance and good front-end response, somewhat surprisingly more in the high-speed sections than in the slow ones. Let’s look at the comparison graph between Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, and Fernando Alonso from the first free practice session for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Charles Leclerc struggles in the first sector, where he has tried different trajectories to see if there was room to “come up with something.” In the middle sector, the Ferrari performs similarly to the Red Bull at Copse (turn 9), where Alonso still needs to lift off the throttle significantly. However, in the Maggots-Becketts-Chapel sequence, the Monegasque to be more cautious than the competition in the initial phase but approaches the exit of Chapel and the subsequent Hangar Straight well. Particularly interesting is the passage through Stowe corner, where Leclerc is currently even leading, in a historically challenging section for cars lacking downforce and balance. In these high-speed corners, Alonso’s Aston Martin seems to suffer significantly in terms of minimum speed but recovers well in traction. However, it is in the slow section where the strength of the Stroll’s team car lies, as Alonso manages to recover a large part of the disadvantage accumulated by Leclerc in the fast corners and closes with practically the same time.
Crucial will be understanding from the second session whether there will be any changes in track conditions, both to see if Mercedes can fix its setup and be competitive and in the battle that currently appears to be a zero-sum game between Aston Martin and Ferrari. The early stint runs have shown Ferrari initially struggling with tire degradation but then finding stability and bringing the tires back into the correct operating window. We’ll see if this impression is confirmed in the long-run tests during the second practice session.
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