Ahead of the 2017 British Grand Prix, be sure to catch up with the long run pace of Mercedes and Ferrari from Friday’s practice sessions!

With Pirelli’s decision to bring the supersoft tyre to Silverstone for the first time in recent history, Friday’s long runs at the British Grand Prix have become all the more important, because the teams were scurrying to discover the true potential hidden inside the red-striped tyre.

And from initial viewing, it looks as though both Mercedes and Ferrari were able to unlock the pace the supersofts had to offer as all four cars were covered by less than half a tenth in the final standings of Friday’s second practice session.

Supersoft long runs: nothing to choose between the teams

But if half a second seemed close enough for the two teams over one lap alone, their respective long run pace on the supersoft is even more close, with just 0.447s separating the average times of each driver.

Since all good things come in threes, the final surprise was the drivers themselves – and which one from Mercedes and Ferrari was setting the pace.

As you can see in the graph below, Valtteri Bottas was comfortably quicker than team mate Hamilton, who’s contesting his home grand prix this weekend. Likewise, Kimi Raikkonen – who was criticised for a poor performance in Austria by Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne – was clearly ahead of Sebastian Vettel on the long runs.

Despite the above graph showing Bottas with the quickest overall long run average, Kimi Raikkonen’s substantially longer run was a mere 0.130s behind his countryman.

Another illustration of the convergence between the two rivals teams is the fact that the average times line up Mercedes/Ferrari/Mercedes/Ferrari – which suggests overall pace from the driver may be a factor come Sunday’s race.

But one main reason why this pace may be actually representative is all drivers completed a considerable number of laps. Raikkonen and Hamilton both completed comprehensive eleven lap runs, whilst their respective team mates only covered six laps. Either way – six or eleven laps is enough to extract a lot of data out of the tyres – especially considering the supersofts are thought to have high degradation.

On the other hand, one reason why this pace may not be representative is fuel loads, which are a completely unknown variable when analysing these runs. Although it’s said in every analysis of the long runs, fuel loads carry a particular significance at this track due to the 5km+ lap distance.

The Soft tyres – hinting at strategies

The soft tyres, however, saw arguably the most significant runs during FP2 at Silverstone. In the end, Valtteri Bottas was the only one of the top four who didn’t don the softs as he instead chose to experiment with the medium tyre, which we’ll analyse later.

Anyway, the correlation of the average lap time on the softs was considerably different to that of the supersofts. Instead of a gap which was under half-a-second, Hamilton’s average time on the softs was 1.406s faster than the slowest average held by Kimi Raikkonen. Sebastian Vettel, the man in the middle, also couldn’t get close to Hamilton’s blistering pace, finishing 0.981s away from Hamilton’s average time.

Now, there’s actually a potential reason for why Hamilton has such a massive gap to the two Ferrari drivers. His run was conducted over three laps, which immediately suggests he was on low fuel, though this cannot be guaranteed. Vettel and Raikkonen’s simulations, by comparison, were ten and seven laps respectively.

This means Hamilton’s run may not have been a soft ‘long’ run after-all, instead it may have been a qualifying run – suggesting Mercedes may try to use the soft tyre in Q2 to negate starting on the supersoft tyre for Sunday’s race.

But, the evidence which doesn’t support this theory is the lap time itself. Hamilton’s soft tyre average is 2.976s slower than his supersoft qualifying simulation lap, which was also conducted in FP2. Pirelli have officially estimated the gap between the two compounds at 0.7s, whilst pundits, including Mark Hughes of Motorsport Magazine, have suggested the number is more like 0.3s.

Despite this, Hamilton’s run looked suspiciously more like a qualifying run than a long run simulation. And, if it’s a long run, which I seriously doubt, than Hamilton and Mercedes have some strikingly quick pace. But then again, Nigel Mansell always said the home crowd would be worth a second-a-lap at Silverstone.

Oh, and don’t forget the medium! Why would Mercedes use it?

I promised I would come back to Valtteri Bottas’ medium tyre run, and I’m keeping to my word.

His eight lap simulation in FP2 is further proof Hamilton’s soft run was a qualifying simulation. This is because their medium long run choice somewhat suggests their strategy will be a definitive one-stop, starting on the softs and changing to the mediums.

Or, Bottas’s run could be acting as a cover in case Hamilton’s run showed the team they didn’t have the pace to get out of Q2 on the soft tyre. (This is possible given Pirelli’s prediction of a 0.7s difference between compounds). Using the medium for the second-stint if you were starting on supersofts would still make a one-stop realistically possible, if the team isn’t prepared to stop twice.

And with another ‘or’, Mercedes could also be looking to use the medium tyre during the race if the start is damp or slightly wet. As we saw in this year’s Chinese Grand Prix, teams might start on intermediate tyres and then change back to slicks within the first ten laps depending on weather conditions.

If a similar situation to China unfolds on Sunday, which is possible given Weather.com suggests a 50% chance of rain during the race; Mercedes could be looking to make an early change from intermediates to the mediums for the rest of the race distance.

Either way, Mercedes’ decision to run Bottas on the medium tyre suggests the team are not confident they can use the soft tyre in a one-stop strategy. Their pace in FP1 certainly suggests this, too, as Hamilton and Bottas on the soft tyres were four tenths clear of the nearest competitors, who were also supersoft runners! Although the pace is quick, it shows the Mercedes W08 is more suited to one-lap pace than a long run on the soft tyre.

Conclusions

Overall, it’s surprisingly hard to pick who’s got the edge for Sunday from FP2 so far. For example, in Austria last time out, Mercedes were comfortably ahead of Ferrari on Friday and subsequently won the race in a comfortable fashion too, despite Vettel’s late race attack.

This time out though, nothing separates the two heavyweights on the supersoft tyre in a long run. But, then when you look at the soft and medium tyre simulations, it suggests Mercedes might not even use the supersoft come Sunday.

When I say that, the only way we’ll actually know if Mercedes will not use the supersoft tyre in the opening stint for the British Grand Prix is during the second part of Saturday’s qualifying session. For those who don’t know, the cars that get into Q3, which will presumably be both Mercedes, must start the race on the tyres they set their quickest lap on in Q2. Mercedes presumed strategy is going to be using the soft tyres instead of the supersoft during this session.

Then again, all of that might just go out the door if it’s raining either during qualifying or for the race start. And, if Silverstone has taught us anything in it’s 67 years on the Formula 1 calendar, it’s that the weather is always unpredictable!

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