Join Jonny Reynolds for a quick-fire round-up of everything that happened on-track and off on the Friday of the British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone, including a very interesting driver market update...
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The Athletic. Hello and welcome along to the Race F1 Briefing for Friday 5th July 2024, brought to you by the Singapore Grand Prix, home of Formula One Night Racing. I'm Johnny Reynolds and on today's episode I'll be bringing you up to speed on all the key things that happened on track and in the paddock today at Silverstone, ahead of Sunday's British Grand Prix. So let's get going. The British Grand Prix at Silverstone is of course one of the highlights of the British Sports in Summer, which of course means the day began with grim and gloomy conditions and plenty of rain. Happily though, it dried out for FP1 early in the afternoon, during which Lando Norris set the pace for McLaren, with his team-mate Oscar Piastri and Lance Stroll's Aston Martin keeping Max Verstappen out of the top three. And it was a similar story in FP2 later in the afternoon, when Norris led another McLaren one too and gave a stronger indication that the team is in contention to beat Red Bull at Silverstone. Unlike in FP1, there was no tyre offset between the top teams, they all ran the medium and then the soft, and in the qualifying simulations it was McLaren on top. Sergio Perez in third was more than four tenths off the pace, with Verstappen seven tenths off in seventh, and even accounting for fuel loads and engine modes, that still leaves Red Bull with a lot of work to do to beat McLaren. Nicole Holkenberg was the major outlier finishing fourth for Haas and suggesting the Ferraris and the Mercedes were either sandbagging on engine modes or underperforming. Charles Leclerc reported potential floor damage on his car after a high speed off track moment of Beckets and indeed both Ferraris appeared to be struggling with stability at high speed. So on pure pace McLaren looked to hold the edge over Red Bull, the orange car is looking especially brilliant through Silverstone's spectacular high speed maggots and Beckets section. But how does the picture look on longer, more race representative runs on medium rubber? Well, both Norris and Verstappen ran the medium tyre for the final part of FP2, and Norris averaged 1 minute 31.846 over his best seven laps of that run, while Verstappen averaged 1 minute 32.045 seconds over the best six laps of his. That's almost two tenths per lap in hand for Norris if it translates to the race. Mercedes meanwhile were only sixth and tenth on the soft tyre in FP2, but on the medium compound early in the session they were relatively more competitive, with Austrian GP winner George Russell helped by running the tyre slightly later than the others fastest of all. The Race F1 Briefing A foot note to Friday's track action was that four rookies took part in FP1. 2025 has signing Ollie Baerman replaced Kevin Magnussen at Haas, Jack Duhan took over Pierre Gasly's Alpene, Isaac Hadjar drove Sergio Perez's Red Bull and Franco Colopinto took over Logan Sargent's Williams. Baerman started with consecutive laps on the hard tyre in the upgraded Haas, and his pace compared decently to Nico Holkenberg, who was on mediums. On the soft tyre, Baerman was almost half a second off Holkenberg, but correcting for tyre life is conceivable that gap was closer to 0.25 to 0.3 seconds. Colopinto was the one who actually lapsed closest to his team mate, 0.429 seconds off Alex Alpene's Williams. He looked aggressive and confident behind the wheel and was rewarded quite well for that approach on the soft tyre. Duhan did a solid but unspectacular job in the Alpene, chipping away on the soft tyre but ending up quite a way away from regular driver Esteban Ocon. Hadjar's running meanwhile was compromised by having to do a huge amount of experimental running and testing for Red Bull, so his lap times are not really representative. The most notable thing he did was almost cause a massive accident with Norris by failing to see the McLaren coming on a faster lap through one of the fastest parts of the circuit. Just moments after the other McLaren and Piestry broke down on the track with a suspected hydraulics problem. Coming up in a moment we've got some fantastic off track stories to bring you but first of all I wanted to speak to you about the Formula One Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix. The term 'instant classic' is probably overused today but when the Singapore Grand Prix landed on the calendar in 2008 it was the very definition of the phrase. Every year the organisers put on a special event and it's not all about the track action either with unmatched off track entertainment. See it for yourself, single day tickets start from 128 Singapore dollars. Just head to Singapore GP dot SG to make your selection and book your place at one of the sporting events of the year. The Singapore Grand Prix. Nothing else comes close. If you are new to F1 it's worth underlining that the British Grand Prix remains one of the most important races on the Formula One calendar and not just because of its historical significance but because of the challenges the Silverstone circuit demands. It's little surprise then that the majority of F1 teams have brought upgrades for this weekend's race. As Mark Hughes reports, seven teams declared technical updates for this race with just three Ferrari, Alpine and Williams not running anything new. Silverstone is now very responsive to drag reduction and not particularly demanding of brakes which explains why Mercedes has made circuit specific changes to the front and rear wings and brake cooling and why McLaren has brought a lower downforce rear wing. For similar reasons RB have removed the winglet from its halo which eagle-eyed viewers might be able to spot. Red Bull, Sauber and Hasmyn while have all made floor changes, major ones in the case of Haas and finally Aston Martin who have been struggling mightily for pace over recent races introduced a new front wing with a revised twist to the elements in an effort at giving a better load distribution across the wing. Did it work? Well, Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso were 9th and 11th in FP2 showing there's still plenty of work for the team to do. So we've wrapped up on track matters but what stories were doing the rounds off track? Well, yesterday we brought you the news that Lando Norris and Max Verstappen have patched things up after their Austria run-in, seemingly drawing a line under 2024's most explosive on track incident. But on Friday Zach Brown, CEO of the McLaren team Norris drives for, decided to reignite the storyline and he didn't waste his opportunity to share his opinion which started with a point about permanent stewarding and transitioned into a very public dig at Red Bull and not just over a perceived lack of restraint it's shown in trying to control Verstappen. Brown said "Having part-time stewards is a very difficult job, it's quite complex and so to do it on a part-time basis on the level Formula One is at, I think is difficult because Max and Lando were just duking it out as you'd expect them to do and until someone tells Max, 'Hey, that's against the regulations, he's not going to know any different'. So I think there were missed opportunities for the stewards to make note." After that, Brown took aim at Red Bull's leadership saying the team "almost encourages Verstappen's uncompromising approach" and that "we all have a responsibility on Pitwall to tell our drivers the do's and don'ts and what's going on in the race." He continued "We need to have respect for regulations and we've seen there be a lack of respect whether it's financial regulations or sporting, on track issues with fathers and things of that nature. I just don't think that's how we need to go racing and we need to guide our drivers on what's right or wrong." As the race's Jack Cousins reports, calling out Arrival's lack of respect so pointedly was a huge statement, but this is not the first time Brown's Red Bull grudges surfaced. He was a man on a mission over the winter to question Red Bull's ownership of two teams and seemed to revel in predicting more Red Bull exits in the wake of Adrian Newey's departure. He was, on a similar and more serious note, among those advocating greater transparency around the external investigation into Christian Horner, action by Red Bull. And while those public callouts all happened at least two months ago, the total recall really isn't that difficult. That's to say, it's hard to see this as anything but the latest in a line of attacks with a loose attachment to an on-track incident, rather than that being the central focus of his messaging. So while Norris and Verstappen have expressed a desire to move on from the incident, Brown has undermined his driver's chances to do so, by stoking a fire which had looked like dying down. And finally tonight, some driver market news because there's Scott Mitchell Mound reports from Silverstone, two curveballs have been thrown in Formula One's most erratic driver market in recent memory, a speculation over Sergio Prose's Red Bull future has intensified and Carlos Science has been reminded he still has a top 2025 option after all. An unusually unpredictable silly season seemed to have calmed down recently with Science the bottleneck in the final few decisions to set the 2025 grid. The following last week's emergence that Science was seriously considering the Alpin team again, not just Williams or Aldio and Salba, another option is back on the table. Mercedes. Furthermore, what have boiled down to a choice of Daniel Ricciardo or Liam Lawson for Red Bull's second team is now under scrutiny again, as a doubt about Prose's recent form has sparked further suggestion he could be dropped despite recently signing a new contract. Sources close to Red Bull have indicated that the OnePlus One Deal Prose has inevitably included multiple clauses, and given Red Bull has shown many times it is willing to drop drivers mid-season, most drivers under contract there could be seen to be on rolling one-race contracts in reality, only Max Verstappen has true job security. That demands a level of performance that Prose has not lived up to recently, and reputed German publication Automota Un Sport have reported that the Mexican is not as safe in his seat as his new deal might suggest, which very much reads as Red Bull turning up the pressure. If Prose does get dropped, it potentially solves the other Red Bull driver problem that had emerged, how to choose between Ricciardo and Lawson for the final available seat at RB. That's because it seems Ricciardo would be in line to replace Prose at Red Bull, despite his own shaky form this season, leaving the path clear at RB for Lawson to join Yuki Sonoda. One thing that seems certain is that Red Bull does not want to pair science with Verstappen. The two were teammates at Toro Rosso as F1 Rookies, and as is widely known, the presence of their fathers created significant tension within the team. But there is, it seems, a possible door open for science at Mercedes after all, with team boss Toto Wolf telling Spanish media he was still an option. The team had been leaning towards promoting its protege Kimi Antonelli from F2, but Wolf indicated that Silverstone, though that was not nailed on. Were Mercedes to science science, it would mean a different path for Antonelli, either a second year in F2, or possibly an apprenticeship at Williams, where it must be noted that boss James Vals is still not ruling out replacing second driver Logan Sargent before the end of 2024, let alone for 2025. So absolutely loads going on still in the driver market, and if you want to know more on any of what I've just said, I implore you to check out Scott's article on D-race.com. Well, that's all for today's episode, if you're enjoying the show, and I do hope you are, please do tell a friend, or better yet, leave us a nice review on your podcast player of choice. It's super useful for helping others to find the podcast. I'll be back with another episode of the Race F1 Briefing Tomorrow, when I'll bring you up to speed on everything that happened in qualifying. Until then, goodbye! [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]
