2018 British GP : Race Preview

The canonical birth of FF1M, Silverstone is steeped in history and has seen many a winner from Luigi Fagioli to Romain Grosjean in its 67 year history, although with some gaps. The circuit has also seen a plethora of layouts used such as the super fast late 80s variant where Roberto Moreno took a shock win, and also the more angular mid 90s layout which often created chaos, but it’s the noughties layout that FF1M favours mostly these days, and in modern FF1M, a balanced car with strong aerodynamics is usually the quickest way round.

Vaino Kimminen bounces back with fighting win

At FF1M’s first race at the Österreichring for over 30 seasons, Vaino Kimminen returned to form after a difficult three races that saw just one points finish at Monaco, a rare crash at Road America, and a late mechanical issue robbing a certain podium at Montreal, but from 10th on the grid at the Österreichring, he displayed his champion qualities and trademark patience to work his way up the order and beat Alessandro Farina in a thrilling race-long battle. With championship leader Fernando Alonso tangling with James Clark and retiring from the race, this has reignited Kimminen’s championship defence, although Farina finishing 2nd means that he is still the driver to beat having retaken the lead of the Drivers Championship.

Further back, one of the stars of the race was Esteban Ocon, who took his first career points with a superb attacking drive to 5th and helped Monolith move up to 10th in the Teams Championship ahead of Tildesley GP and GRM. This also equalled the team’s best individual race result and it was sweeten, they have acquired a new engine deal with Playlife for the 2019 season and join Gojira, Tornado, Shake ‘n’ Bake, and FJR as a manufacturer team. At this point in the season, it seems as if Mugen and Climax are the benchmarks in terms of performance. Megatron have been the most dependable with an 85% mechanical reliability rate, while Judd seems to have slipped back all round with their three teams struggling for pace and reliability at the Österreichring. However, Judd can boast the most race entries this season as FJR, CBA, and Willows have made all races so this season. By contrast, Galaxy Grand Prix have only made one race this season and it doesn’t seem likely they’ll make another as Robert Kubica and Carlos Sainz have been wrestling with an underdeveloped car and the slower hard tyres. They would do well to qualify at Silverstone with the running order being as follows:

Group A

Gojira AutoSport

Tornado Motorsport

FJR

Andrew Racing

Willows Racing

Tildesley GP

Galaxy Grand Prix

Group B

Shake ‘n’ Bake Motorsport

Mitchell

CBA Racing

Ajay Motorsports

Monolith Racing System

GR Motorsports

Paddock News

• The news of a sixth engine manufacturer in the form of Playlife has meant an engine restructure for 2019 with Judd, Megatron, and Hart set to lose a customer team. With the main Hart manufacturer team, Ajay Motorsports stepping aside next season, this means there will only be one Hart runner for 2019.

Silverstone to spring a surprise?

As a circuit that promotes strong aerodynamics, some teams could play around with the set-up and take a chance with a good qualifying set-up to ensure a strong grid position, but with Hangar Straight being overtaking friendly, it is more likely that teams will focus on the race. Tornado have been doing this for most of the season with Shake ‘n’ Bake starting to follow that trend, while Gojira and in particular Farina have recently gotten qualifying down to a T with three pole positions in a row, although they haven’t won since Aragon. Andrew Racing have also been qualifying well this season but haven’t gotten the races together for a variety of reasons, while FJR have tended to experiment with unconventional set-ups and thus their qualifying performances have been erratic, but who will master the sweeps of Silverstone?

Support Races

FF2M returns to support the FF1M meeting with STV Racing’s championship lead being cut down after a disastrous Road America where as in Mugello, Lando Norris and Cristobal Alvarez failed to cooperate team tactics with each other which led to Norris flipping out of the feature race after a collision with Daisuke Sekiya. Alvarez then unnecessarily crashed out from a possible podium place and apparently received such an furious dressing down from his team that this could be Alvarez’s final FF2M meeting with Pierre Gasly waiting in the wings.

The British FF4M series also makes an appearance at Silverstone with Irish driver Callum Murphy leading the championship by six points from Oscar Piastri.

Coverage Details

The race itself will be broadcast on Sunday at 5pm with FJR’s James Brickles and Tornado’s Tobias Wolff in the commentary box.

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