Got your pass? Check. McLaren kit? Check. Okay, good, now switch off your phone and follow us through the glass doors and into the Paddock Performance Centre. Grab a coffee on your way in, and we’ll get started with our engineering briefing for the British Grand Prix.

After a weekend off from Formula 1 racing that was spent tinkering, testing and talking in technical meetings, we arrived at our home grand prix well rested and raring to go. We want to make the most of all of our hard work since the Canadian Grand Prix, so let's make this weekend's engineering room session count.

Make sure to pay close attention to downforce and rear wing levels this weekend, as they'll be key. You'll also want to keep one eye on the ever-changing weather conditions.

Will Joseph is leading this weekend’s briefing, and there’s plenty on the agenda.

Take notes if you need them, but please keep them to yourself.

Engineer: Will Joseph
Event: British Grand Prix
Circuit: Silverstone Circuit

Background

Our plan this year is different to last year, when we were preparing for F1’s first sprint weekend. Having three practice sessions before qualifying makes everything a little less rushed – but having said that, we have lots to learn.

Although the circuit can act differently depending on which way the wind is blowing, we’re not expecting any physical changes since last year. It’s a fairly smooth circuit now. After the resurfacing a couple of years ago, there were still complaints about bumps, but most of the issues have been resolved, though we’ll still want to evaluate that.

Challenges

Of course, these questions really need a dry session to be answered properly – and we’re not sure when or if we’ll get dry sessions this weekend. The weather model is constantly changing, which makes planning very difficult – but we do know there is bad weather around.

What we can say is that investigating all of the below becomes compromised with a wet track: the rain tyres behave very differently, but also, the car is travelling slower: it isn’t quite so excitable over the bumps and kerbs; and the learning we would get is not as representative – but sometimes we just have to take what we can get!

Agenda

1 | Downforce levels

This will be the big talking point this weekend. Stating the obvious, you want to take the load off for the straights – but there’s quite a few corners where you need the loads. So, there’s a compromise to be found.

Separately, rear wing levels are another issue to be studied today because there isn’t a conclusive solution – especially for us after the last couple of races where we’ve struggled to overtake.

We’ll aim to do some testing with different wings during practice. These tests are primarily looking at long-term development of the car, but they’ll also help us judge where we should put the downforce this weekend. As a general rule at Silverstone, a lower downforce level will be preferable for qualifying, but higher downforce is useful in the race.

2 | Tyres

After three races with Pirelli’s softest compounds, we’re back now with the three hardest tyres for the first time since Barcelona. We obviously have experience from other races – but the specifics of the circuits mean each race requires the tyres to be evaluated virtually from scratch.

So far this year, we haven’t really seen blistering, so it hasn’t been part of the conversation – but historically, it’s been an issue at Silverstone. Likewise, we’ve seen front tyres grain here.

Both are concerns: blistering if it’s hot; graining a possibility on all three compounds. What’s interesting is that we could have a swing between which is the limiting tyre. Front left will be massively limiting… but if track temps are high, rear left will be a concern.

The front-right can also suffer high wear. It isn’t used a lot but it is dragged, wearing the inside shoulder. It’s all hugely dependent on track temperature – but the forecasts keep changing – and also very dependent on set-up. So, something we’ll have to figure out during practice.

3 | Braking

We’ll also be exploring our options for brakes. Silverstone is a little weird in this regard. There isn’t much braking, so things don’t get hot.

This leads teams to blocking-off brake ducts to keep heat in. This issue here is that too much blocking means they never cool back down. Another thing we’ll only be able to dial-in through practice.

Briefing complete. Let's hope the British weather holds for Lando and Daniel to head out to track, collect some data and put our hard work to the test.

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