The Formula 1 British GP at Silverstone on August 2nd witnessed one of the craziest and most exciting finish to a Formula 1 race. In the last lap of the race, Lewis Hamilton suffered a tyre failure. However, he was well ahead of Max Verstappen going into the final lap of the race. Max Verstappen was behind him at 2nd position. But, he closed the gap from around 35secs to 5.856secs in the final lap of the race forcing Lewis Hamilton to finish the race on three tyres. But his tyre failure wasn’t the only one. Other drivers faced the Pirelli tyre failures in the British GP 2020. Despite being on three wheels, Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix.
During his final lap he also hit the pace of 230kmph on a straight. He pushed his car to it’s limit and clocked 141kmph on the corners of the the final lap of the race.
Similar to Lewis Hamilton’s left front puncture, his teammate Valtteri Bottas and McLaren’s Carlos Sainz had the same problem to their cars. During the final laps of the race Valtteri Bottas who was P2 at that time had a tyre failure. He was forced to pit and hence, was pushed below at P11 by the end of the race. Similar to Bottas, even Carlos Sainz had the tyre failure. He was pushed from P4 position to finish only at P13. It was a big question on why did everyone had the same problem on their front left tyre.
During the second safety car time, each driver except Romain Grosjean and Alex Albon pitted on lap 12 or 13. Caused by Dani Kvyat ‘s crash, which was co-incidentally due to a right-rear puncture, to reach the finish of the 52-lap race on hard tyres. The Pirelli report stated that the main reason for this is a set of individual race circumstances which led to extremely long usage of the second set of tyres.
The second safety car phase prompted almost all the teams to expect their planned pit stop and to carry out a long final stint. This stragey backfired for the Mercedes teams’ both the drivers and McLaren’s Carlos Sainz.
Even though, Pirelli faced tyre failures in the British GP. They will still stick with the original plan go one step softer for this weekend’s 70th Anniversary GP at Silverstone. With the C2, C3 and C4 in use, without the hardest C1 compound.
It was an unexpected P3 finish for Charles Leclerc and the Ferrari. It was a disappointing weekend for Nico Hulkenberg as he couldn’t start the race. The Racing Point team said “We were unable to fire up the power unit because issues related to the gearbox unit”.
