British Grand Prix 2016: 5 Bold Predictions for Silverstone Race
The 10th round of the 2016 Formula One season will take place at this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, England, where Lewis Hamilton will be hoping to take advantage of his latest flashpoint with Nico Rosberg.
After the Mercedes drivers made contact on the final lap in Austria last weekend, comparisons were made to their collision at the 2014 Belgian GP, where Rosberg punctured his team-mate's tyre and caused his retirement.
Hamilton lost out on that afternoon at Spa, but he channeled his disappointment to win all but one of the last seven races of that season to secure his second championship in style.
And with Rosberg facing heavy criticism for his blatant manoeuvre at the Red Bull Ring, Hamilton may be set to embark upon a similar season-defining run of form starting at Silverstone, where he could draw alongside 1992 world champion Nigel Mansell with a fourth British GP win.
With a look at the contrasting fortunes of the Mercedes drivers, a timely return to form for Williams, a reality check for McLaren-Honda's Jenson Button and the latest development in the back-of-the-grid battle between Sauber and Manor, here are five predictions for Silverstone.
Lewis Hamilton Will Snatch Victory from the Jaws of Defeat
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There is no such thing as home and away fixtures in a sport as cosmopolitan as Formula One, but Hamilton comes closer than any other current driver to turning his local track into a fortress.
While he lacks the common touch of Our Nige, there has been a Mansell-esque quality to Hamilton's performances at Silverstone in recent years, when he has extracted just as much energy from the home crowd as the three-time world champion provides them.
After the disappointment of qualifying sixth in changeable conditions in 2014, Hamilton made good progress in the early laps and, on the hardest tyres available at the halfway stage, set a lap that was more than two seconds quicker than any time produced until that point.
Despite the use of fresher, softer rubber and ever-decreasing fuel loads later on, it remained untouched as the fastest lap of a race in which Hamilton inherited the victory after Rosberg retired with a gearbox problem.
In 2015, Hamilton was jumped off the line by both Williams drivers and, after wresting the lead back during the pit-stop phase, later found himself under threat from Rosberg as intermittent rain arrived at the circuit, only for a well-judged tyre change to come to the rescue.
The trend of heroic wins will continue this weekend, when Hamilton will suffer more bad luck—be it another engine issue in qualifying, a grid-place penalty, a slow start, a collision, a puncture or an ill-timed safety car—but will save the day just in the nick of time to claim his third consecutive British GP victory.
And, perhaps, to take the lead of the drivers' standings for the first time in 2016.
Nico Rosberg Will Retire from the Race with an Engine Failure
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So where do you go from here, Nico?
When Rosberg last initiated a collision with his team-mate and showed little remorse—in the 2014 Belgian GP—what appeared to be one giant leap toward his first world championship actually proved to be the beginning of the end.
His recovery to second place at Spa extended his points lead over Hamilton to 29, yet the damage done to his confidence and self-belief—he told ESPN F1 how being booed during the podium ceremony was "not a nice feeling"—was irreversible.
At the summit of the drivers' standings with seven races of that season remaining, Rosberg suddenly became prone to unforced errors and added just one more victory to his tally as that seemingly comfortable advantage ultimately became a 67-point deficit.
Having again poked the beast with his brazen, unsuccessful attempt to take Hamilton out on the final lap of the Austrian GP, Rosberg now has the opportunity to show just how far he has come—how he has grown accustomed to the pressures, dramas and fluctuations of a title fight—since that afternoon.
But just days after the Silver Arrows' collision in Spielberg, a trip to the lion's den is hardly ideal.
Prior to the Austrian GP, Hamilton spent much of his time complaining about the vastly different reliability records at Mercedes, telling Sky Sports' Matt Morlidge and James Galloway he is "probably going to have to start dead last in at least one race, maybe two" for exceeding F1's engine-component-usage limits.
After being outpaced by his team-mate all weekend, we fear Rosberg will suffer a powertrain problem of his own at Silverstone, slowing to a halt at a part of the track draped with British flags and—just two months after extending his points advantage to 43—losing the lead of the championship.
Valtteri Bottas, Felipe Massa Will Claim a Double-Podium Finish for Williams
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As the halfway stage of the 2016 season fast approaches, tensions appear to be rising at Williams.
Since the team's revival two years ago, deputy team principal Claire Williams has often been at pains to remind us how brilliantly Williams are performing compared to those "with budgets three times the size of ours," as she recently told Motorsport.com's Jonathan Noble (h/t Pablo Elizalde).
To her credit, Williams admitted it is "boring" to "say it repeatedly," and head of performance engineering Rob Smedley, now in his third year with the team, is struggling to disguise his boredom.
Ahead of the Austrian GP, Smedley—having challenged for regular podiums, grand prix wins and titles for much of his time at Ferrari—told Sky Sports' television coverage how Williams "shouldn't hide behind that" and "use finance, resource and the size of the team as an excuse for mediocrity."
Much of his frustration stems from the numerous opportunities Williams have missed to return to winning ways over the last few seasons.
Perhaps the most scarring of those occurred at Silverstone 12 months ago, when Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas comfortably led the opening phase of the race but—following a team-orders squabble, poor strategic decisions and the arrival of rain—ultimately failed to make the podium.
With Ferrari and Red Bull now the closest challengers to Mercedes, Williams haven't come remotely close to a return to the top step of the podium since.
But they will make up for last year to some extent at a circuit where their low-downforce, Mercedes-powered package has traditionally excelled.
We're backing Bottas and Massa, who has never finished higher than fourth at Silverstone, to secure the team's first double-podium finish since Abu Dhabi 2014.
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Jenson Button's British GP Misery Will Continue
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For the third year in succession, the British GP is likely to be billed as Button's last at Silverstone.
At this stage of the season, with several twists and turns still to come in the driver market, nobody truly knows whether this weekend really will be the 36-year-old's last grand prix appearance on home soil.
But a great British goodbye is bound to be prepared just in case.
That awkwardness, that uncertainty that the end may or may not be nigh, has overshadowed Button's last two visits to Silverstone, a place that—in racing terms—he must be sick of the sight of after 16 years.
The 2009 world champion has famously never stood on the podium at his home event and has failed to score a point in half of his previous visits to the track—including 2015, when he suffered the humiliation of retiring on the opening lap.
His revitalising sixth-place finish in Austria has generated increased interest in Button's British GP, but the driver himself has already warned his supporters not to get too excited, telling Sky Sports' Emma Walker how the weekend is "going to be tough."
His McLaren-Honda team, however, just can't help themselves.
Buoyed by one of the Japanese manufacturer's most convincing performances since its return to F1 at the beginning of 2015, Honda is considering fast-tracking yet another engine upgrade to Silverstone, with Yusuke Hasegawa telling Motorsport.com's Jonathan Noble how he doesn't "want to wait."
With Hasegawa satisfied with the performance of the energy-recovery systems, improving the outright power produced by the internal-combustion engine is now the priority. Yet could Honda's eagerness for rapid improvements be counterproductive?
If this does prove to be Button's last Silverstone race, a retirement with a Honda-related issue would be a fitting way to end.
Sauber Will Hit Back in Back-of-the-Grid Battle with Manor
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Now the pressure really is on at Sauber.
Competing with a car that has received minimal tender loving care since it was unveiled in winter testing, it hardly mattered that the team scored no points in the opening eight races in 2016 as long as their back-of-the-grid rivals didn't either.
The 12th-placed finishes achieved by Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr in Bahrain, Spain and Azerbaijan were enough to keep them clinging on to that all-important 10th spot in the constructors' standings.
But following Pascal Wehrlein's logic-defying drive to 10th in the Austrian GP, the scoreboard at the foot of the constructors' championship now reads one-nil to Manor.
And just like two years ago, Sauber—part of F1's furniture for so long—are at risk of being embarrassed by a team with just a couple of points finishes in six years.
The good news, at least, is that now is the time Sauber's season will truly begin, with Autosport (h/t Eurosport) reporting a "solution" has been found to their financial problems, giving the team the green light for a range of upgrades to be made to the C35 chassis.
New front and rear wings are planned to arrive in Hungary, but the first change will be under the skin as Sauber finally use Ferrari's revised turbocharger—first introduced at the Canadian GP—at Silverstone.
The increase in horsepower will be more than welcome at the high-speed circuit and, after being denied a solid top-10 finish in last year's British GP when the pit wall panicked in the pouring rain, Ericsson will register Sauber's first point of 2016.
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