Change the tyre compounds, increase the pressures after the late-race dramas of last Sunday, ramp up the track temperature. Do it all at the same track a week later – and what happens? For Mercedes it doesn’t look much different, as Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas between them dominated both the single-lap qually simulations and long runs. By a comfortable margin.
Hamilton’s fastest time in FP2 (on the mediums) was 0.8s clear of any non-Mercedes. Similarly, the long runs on the same mediums (which were the C3s, the softs of last week) showed Mercedes comfortably clear of the pack, with Bottas and Hamilton over 1s clear of the field.
Actually, this was probably something of a relief for Mercedes, as a couple of times this year its usual advantage narrowed very significantly when the track temperatures became as hot as this. A lot of work has been done in understanding how to better manage the tyres – but actually the increase in mandated minimum pressures by 2psi at the front (to a unheard-of 27psi) and 1psi at the rear (to 22) has probably helped Mercedes relative to the others. The greater structural integrity of the tyre comes at the expense of grip – and therefore the generation of heat.
Mercedes didn’t look to have any more difficulties than anyone else with the tyres – but that was within the context of everyone having difficulty with them, particularly the softs (the C4 this week). Last week the C3 was generally slightly too soft for the track, so obviously the C4 was always going to be problematic for the teams.
Unfortunately for them, they are allocated eight sets of the softs they’d prefer to avoid (as it’s not even conclusively a faster qualifying tyre than the medium) but only three sets of the medium and two of the hard. Teams have therefore had to think very carefully about when to use which tyres. On the assumption that this is going to be a two-stop race, the likely ideal strategy will involve mediums and hards.
“You saw everyone running only the softs this morning,” said Christian Horner. “That was just to burn through them. Because everyone wants to have enough of the other tyres available.” A few multi-lap runs were attempted on these at the end of the morning session – and predictably it looked messy. The front lefts were surrendering after little more than a lap and the tread of the rear-lefts were blistering away to very little tread after about six.
“Yes, the tyres are a bit soft,” said Bottas, “but actually the balance was really good. It was a much better starting point for us than last week and the rear end grip I was lacking in qualifying last week we have managed to improve.” Bottas did his best time on the soft, 0.176s behind Hamilton’s best on the medium.
Single-lap pace
1 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m25.606s
2 Renault (Ricciardo), 1m26.421s
3 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m26.437s
4 Racing Point (Stroll), 1m26.501s
5 Ferrari (Leclerc), 1m26.812s
6 McLaren (Norris), 1m26.867s
7 AlphaTauri (Kvyat), 1m27.002s
8 Haas (Grosjean), 1m27.294s
9 Williams (Russell), 1m27.320s
10 Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen), 1m27.535s
“The medium and the soft seem to do pretty much the same laptime,” said Hamilton.
“The soft feels a bit overheating at the second part of the lap. The medium is ok until the last couple of corners when the rears are starting to get hot. But it’s been a good day, with good understanding, some good findings from last week applied.”
“The soft’s really not a good choice by Pirelli,” said Alex Albon after another difficult day trying to find the Red Bull’s elusive sweet spot. “It’s just way too soft for the track. I think you’ll probably see a lot of people doing qualifying on the mediums.”
Red Bull continues to have a difficult time with both reliability and car balance and probably didn’t show its full potential. Max Verstappen wasn’t even fastest of the non-Mercs. That honour went to Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault, who looks to be building nicely on his sparkling late stages of last week’s British Grand Prix.
On the soft tyre Ricciardo set the third-fastest time, a bare hundredth or so faster than Verstappen (also on softs). But Renault looks like it may be planning something a little different to the other teams, as both Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon burned through a set of the precious hards in the afternoon.
Verstappen spent much of FP2 in the garage having adjustments made and the VSC late in the day for oil dropped by Sebastian Vettel’s blown engine meant he didn’t get to complete a representative long run. Albon was struggling with understeer and was 0.4s off his team-mate on single lap pace. “I’m still struggling to get what I need from the car, but it’s improving,” he summarised.
The Racing Points were quick and consistent, with Nico Hulkenberg this time straight onto the pace of team-mate Lance Stroll. They finished the session fifth- and sixth-quickest (Stroll ahead) at around 1s off the Mercedes pace. Their long runs on the mediums were very consistent – both significantly faster than the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc
Vettel’s engine let go on the way to Copse before he’d done enough laps on the soft to give a significant reading. The short duration of his run tends to flatter his average.
Long-run averages
Mercedes (Bottas), 1m31.070s – Medium (9 laps)
Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m31.461s – Medium (6 laps)
Racing Point (Hulkenberg), 1m32.130s – Medium (15 laps)
Ferrari (Vettel), 1m32.160s – Soft (7 laps)
AlphaTauri (Kvyat), 1m32.328s – Medium (10 laps)
Renault (Ricciardo), 1m32.491s – Hard (14 laps)
Alfa Romeo (Giovinazzi), 1m33.046s – Medium (13 laps)
Williams (Latifi), 1m33.051s – Medium (14 laps)
McLaren (Sainz), 1m33.181s – Soft (7 laps)
Haas (Grosjean), 1m33.349s – Medium (13 laps)
This is not the ideal track for McLaren in that it tends to run more drag than its direct competitors, and the McL35s look a long way from their usual sparring partners Renault and adrift even of Ferrari. “Our race pace on the soft is terrible,” rued Lando Norris.
It will be especially important not to have to use softs to get to Q3. Even not getting to Q3 would probably be preferable to being forced to start the race on that tyre.
