Everything you need to know about the coming 2022 British Grand Prix

The 2022 Formula 1 World Championship will continue with the upcoming weekend’s British Grand Prix at the Silverstone Circuit. The event will be the 10th race of the current championship, and Max Verstappen and Red Bull have healthy leads in the standings.

Red Bull Racing Comfortable on Top

The Dutchman (175 points) and his teammate Sergio Pérez (129) are first and second in the World Drivers’ Championship, while Red Bull leads comfortably in the World Constructors’ Championship, with 304 points against Ferrari’s 228.

Red Bull arrives at Silverstone after winning the last six races of the calendar consecutively, and is certainly favourite to win again, as its car has been getting more dominant as races go by.

Ferrari (Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz) could’ve won three of the last four races if reliability and strategic mistakes weren’t there, but it is certainly time for the Scuderia to step up if there’s going to be a title fight in 2022, and Silverstone could be crucial for the Italian team.

Moreover, Mercedes (George Russell and Sir Lewis Hamilton) is expected to bring important updates for the race at Silverstone, but it’s obviously unclear whether the team will manage to be competing for the top spot or will be a close third in the battle.

There was controversy surrounding Hamilton this week, as three-time World Champion Nelson Piquet was heard using a term with racist connotation when talking about Hamilton’s clash with Max Verstappen in last year’s event at Silverstone.

What about the midfield arriving at the 2022 British GP?

McLaren (Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo) is fourth in the World Constructors’ Championship with 65 points. The team is coming off a weekend where both cars failed to score points at Montreal.

(L to R): Fernando Alonso (ESP) Alpine F1 Team A522 and Carlos Sainz Jr (ESP) Ferrari F1-75 battle for position at the start of the race. Canadian Grand Prix, Sunday 19th June 2022. Montreal, Canada.

After scoring points with both cars for the second race in a row, Alpine (Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso) remains solid in fifth place in the WCC standings with 57 points, only eight behind McLaren.

Alfa Romeo (Valtteri Bottas y Guanyu Zhou) scored with both drivers at Canada and has 51 points in the season, clearly fighting for fourth place in the WCC, but needing to keep the consistency from Canada in the upcoming rounds.

AlphaTauri had its best result of the year with Pierre Gasly finishing fifth in Azerbaijan but could not score in Canada (the team, with Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda, has 27 points).

Aston Martin (16 points with Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll) surpassed Haas for eighth place in the WCC after Stroll finished 10th in his home Grand Prix.

Haas (Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher) had a brilliant qualifying day in Canada, but hasn’t scored points in the last five races. The American team is now ninth in the WCC with 15 points.

Williams (3 points - Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi) round out the positions of the World Constructors’ Championship.

2022 British GP Facts & Figures

Sunday’s race will be the 73rd British Grand Prix since the creation of the World Championship of Drivers. The event is one of the most iconic in the Formula 1 world and has been part of each championship since 1950.

British drivers lead the table in terms of the World Champions by country, with 10 racers winning 20 titles for the UK. With multiple World Champions being British, such as Hamilton, Sir Jackie Stewart, and Jim Clark. It is, therefore, not a surprise to see Hamilton and Clark as the most successful competitors in the British Grand Prix.

Sir Lewis won his home Grand Prix a record eight times, while Clark did it five times. Nigel Mansell (4), Stirling Moss (2), Jackie Stewart (2), and David Coulthard are the other British drivers to win at home multiple times.

Before the inception of the World Championship, the British Grand Prix was held four times. The first two British Grand Prix occurred in 1926 under the regulations of the AIACR World Manufacturers’ Championship. French drivers Robert Sénéchal and Louis Wagner won the first race after a 463-kilometre-long event at Brooklands, while Robert Benoist won in 1927 after taking 125 laps at the same 4.21-kilometre circuit of Brooklands.

The other two non-championship British Grands Prix were held in 1948 and 1949 at Silverstone, both won by Maserati drivers Luigi Villoresi and Emmanuel de Graffenried.

The British Grand Prix has been held at Brooklands, Silverstone, Aintree, and Brands Hatch with only the last three circuits hosting World Championship races.

Amongst drivers, Hamilton is the most successful with eight victories and Ferrari leads McLaren in the teams’ standings, having won 16 races to the British team’s 14.

Ferrari 375 F1 driven by
José Froilán González (1951)

Legendary teams Ferrari and Williams both achieved their first-ever F1 win in a British GP event. Ferrari won in 1951 with José Froilán González and Williams did it with Clay Regazzoni in 1979.

Also, Williams’ achieved their 100th Grand Prix win in the 1997 British Grand Prix, with victory for Jacques Villeneuve.

Of course, the British Grand Prix has given us amazing memories. From Giuseppe Farina’s win in the first-ever Grand Prix to the battle between the Silver Arrows of Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss in 1955. From Nigel Mansell beating Nelson Piquet in 1987 after a beautiful dummy heading into Stowe to Michael Schumacher winning in 1998 by serving a drive-through penalty in the final lap or a man entering the track in 2003 with the cars flying by his side at unbelievable speeds.

More recently, we saw Hamilton’s amazing victory in the wet 2008 race with more than a minute over the second-placed car and lapping every car which finished outside the podium. Also, in 2014 there was a fantastic battle between Fernando Alonso and his Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull.

In 2020, the race was quite normal until the last few laps, as the Mercedes of Hamilton and Bottas suffered tyre failures while running 1-2. Hamilton managed to win the race with three wheels on his car as Max Verstappen was desperately trying to catch him right at the flag.

The 2021 race saw a huge first-lap crash between Hamilton and Verstappen, with the Dutchman ending up in the wall after both cars collided at Turn 9 (Copse). The pair had been battling throughout the entire first lap, with Hamilton trying to overtake but the Dutchman closing the door on every area of the circuit.

It was a legendary battle until the crash occurred, and there were mixed reactions about it, with many defining it as a racing incident and putting blame on both drivers. The Red Bull camp went against Hamilton in full force, claiming bad sportsmanship from the seven-time championship and more.

Silverstone Track Info

Silverstone received the first-ever Formula 1 race on 13 May 1950 and will be hosting its 56th British Grand Prix on Sunday.

Since 1987, Silverstone has been the home of the British Grand Prix every year.

The track’s nature has always been the same: a power track with sweeping corners which demand a lot of bravery from the drivers. Though the layout has been changed quite significantly since the first time this former World War II Royal Airforce Station received a Grand Prix, its essence remains.

The current layout, which has not had significant tweaks since 2011, is 5.891 km long and is constructed with 18 corners, with around 10 of those turns being high-speed turns.

The circuit’s current records were established in 2020. Hamilton’s Pole lap for the 2020 British GP is the current outright record (1:24.303 min) and Verstappen’s Fastest Lap during the 2020 British GP of 1:27.097 min is the official Fastest Lap.

The Silverstone track was really unchanged from 1948 to 1990, with the exception of some tweaks to prevent some high speeds that were becoming a little too dangerous for the drivers. Still, the track is one of the most historic ones in the Grand Prix world and it maintains its most iconic sections.

2022 British Grand Prix - Tyres

The dry tyres for the 2022 British Grand Prix will be the C1 as P Zero White hard, C2 as P Zero Yellow Medium, and C3 as P Zero Red soft.

Pirelli explained its choice with a press release: “Along with Suzuka in Japan and Spa in Belgium, Silverstone places the highest energy demands on tyres all year, which is why the hardest tyres in the range have been nominated: C1 as the P Zero White hard, C2 as the P Zero Yellow medium, and C3 as the P Zero Red soft. This is the third time that this combination has been nominated all year.

Ultra-rapid and high-energy corners such as the Maggotts and Becketts complex aren’t the only challenge that Silverstone has to offer: the weather can be extremely variable, from bright sunshine to heavy rain.

Last year’s race was won with two tyre changes: one of them taking place under an early red flag period following the collision between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. Nearly all the drivers completed two stints on the medium plus a final one on the hard.

This year, the compounds and structures are completely different, and there’s no sprint qualifying either – which was a factor in the strategy last year..”

The minimum starting pressures for the tyres will be 26.0 PSI (front) and 23.0 PSI (rear).

2022 British Grand Prix Weather Forecast

Friday, July 1st - FP1 & FP2
Conditions: Partly sunny with a brief shower or two
Max. temperature: 19°C
Chance of rain: 55%

Saturday, July 2nd - FP3 & Qualifying
Conditions: Partly sunny
Max. temperature: 20°C
Chance of rain: 25%

Sunday, July 3rd - Race
Conditions: Partly sunny
Max. temperature: 21°C
Chance of rain: 6%

Who will be on the 2022 British Grand Prix Podium?

As happened in the 2021 F1 season, Red Bull arrives at the British Grand Prix with a comfortable lead in both championships. This time, the team certainly needs to maintain its advantage over rivals Ferrari and keep its winning streak going.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, 2nd position, Sir Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1st position, the Mercedes trophy delegate and Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, 3rd position, on the podium during the British GP at Silverstone Circuit on Sunday July 18, 2021 in Northamptonshire, United Kingdom. (Photo by Mark Sutton / LAT Images)

The Red Bull has definitely shown to be a powerful car and is mighty on the straights, which would definitely adapt well to Silverstone.

Also, we could expect a normal dry race from the weather side, and it could all go in Red Bull’s favor, with Ferrari pressured to come up with a response to the Austrian’s side six-race winning streak.

Mercedes will be intriguing to follow this weekend, with both drivers racing at home and hoping for a competitive W13. On the other end, Alpine or McLaren could be right there waiting for any issues at the front to try and grab a strong result.

Prediction time

Here we go. The top three for the 2022 British Grand Prix will be 1. Max Verstappen, 2. Sergio Pérez, 3. Charles Leclerc.

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