Track: Silverstone Circuit
Number of Laps: 52
Circuit Length: 3.7 miles (5.9km)
Race Length: 190.3 miles (306.3km)
Start Time: 13:00 BST
Fastest Lap: 1:29.607 (Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG Petronas, 2013, Q3)
Fastest Race Lap: 1:33.401 (Mark Webber, Infiniti Red Bull Racing Renault, 2013)
2015 Pole Position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG Petronas, 1:32.248, Medium Tyres)
2015 Race Winner: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG Petronas
Tyre Compounds: Soft, Medium, Hard, Intermediate, Wet
First F1 Championship Grand Prix: 1950
Most Wins (Country): Jim Clark, Alain Prost (5)/Ferrari (15)
Most Wins (Circuit): Alain Prost (4)/Ferrari, McLaren (12)
Lewis Hamilton will be hoping to take a hat trick of wins at Silverstone as he looks to continue to close the gap to his teammate and championship rival Nico Rosberg.
The Brit is 11 points behind the German coming into the tenth race of the year and a victory on home soil would guarantee the gap would drop to at most four points ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
For the first time since 2012, Pirelli have brought the soft compound tyre to the British Grand Prix thanks to the new three compound rule. Haas are the only team to split their drivers’ strategies, with Grosjean bringing an extra set of hard tyres and one less medium set compared to his teammate Guttierrez.
There is a variety in tyre choice, with Ferrari bringing an extra set of hards and softs compared with Mercedes – who therefore have two more sets of the medium tyre than the Prancing Horse. Force India are the most conservative team. The Silverstone-based squad are the only ones to bring three sets of hard tyres and only have six sets of soft tyres for each driver. Whilst this may make qualifying a bit of a struggle for them, the VJM09 has worked the harder tyre well in the races that have passed so far this year.
Williams surprisingly struggled in Austria and will want to bounce back to the front at home. Felipe Massa led a Williams 1-2 for the first 18 laps of the race last year after both he and Bottas made blistering starts off the line. In the end, the rain scuppered their chances of a good result due to the slippery nature of their car design.
Last year’s rain, however, helped Manor. Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens finished 12th and 13th respectively in 2015 – with Stevens potentially throwing away a point after spinning and losing his front wing. After Pascal Werhlein scored the team’s first point in over two years last weekend, the now much changed Manor team will be hoping to correct last year’s errors and claim points in back-to-back races for the first time in their history.
