The qualifying session for the 2022 British Grand Prix was a wet affair that ultimately saw Carlos Sainz claim his maiden pole in Formula 1.
The Spanish driver profited from mistakes made by both Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc in order to secure his best ever qualifying result.
Behind the front three, it was Red Bull’s Sergio Perez who claimed fourth with home heroes Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris qualifying fifth and sixth respectively.
With the entire session run under damp conditions, the drivers essentially have a fresh set of tyres to choose from for this afternoon’s race. However, the rain might throw a spanner into the works meaning that there is still a lot to play for come the race.
As always the pit stop strategy employed by the teams will be crucial in determining the final outcome of the British Grand Prix.
What are Pirelli saying?
Pirelli have brought their hardest range of tyres to the venue, given the high demands of the Silverstone race track. The C1 will represent the hard compound tyres, while the C2 and C3 compounds are the medium and soft compounds respectively.
The Italian tyre manufacturer believes a two-stop strategy could be the best one to employ during the race if the conditions stay dry, with two stints on the medium and a final stint on the hard being the optimum strategy.
However, given the fact that the drivers failed to use any of their dry compound tyres during qualifying, the drivers starting in the midfield and at the back of the grid might be tempted into running a stint on the soft compound tyres, especially towards the end of the race.
“The British Grand Prix was where the new show car for the 2022 season was displayed last year, to highlight the future direction of the sport that we have embarked on from this season,” Pirelli’s Motorsport Director Mario Isola said.
“The latest aerodynamic regulations are designed to allow drivers to follow each other more closely for longer to give more chance of overtaking, as we saw in Canada, while the tyres are designed to provide less overheating, more stability, and increased driveability within a wider working window.
“All these aspects will be tested this weekend, on one of the most challenging tracks for tyres of the year.”
Rain could play a role
The race at Silverstone has always thrown up a surprise in relation to the weather. This weekend has proved to be no different with the drivers undertaking qualifying in the rain.
Many expect the start of the race to be a wet affair, which once again could throw the aforementioned permutations out the window.
If the race indeed starts under wet conditions, the onus will be on the teams and drivers to determine when the best inflection point would be to swap tyres from either the intermediates or wets to their dry options.
