Planet-F1

British Grand Prix Preview

Wednesday 2nd July 2008

With wet weather predicted across the GP weekend and an army of Lewis Hamilton supporters in attendance, this could be the race that the McLaren driver takes the battle back to Ferrari...

Silverstone arrives on the calendar with the World Championship battle nicely poised. Massa leads with Kubica and Raikkonen in close attendance and Lewis Hamilton just 10 points further back.

Though the British GP has been a happy stomping ground for Ferrari in the recent past (last year the McLarens couldn't touch them) there were signs from the Silverstone test that Hamilton and Kovalainen had closed a little of the performance gap.

Nigel Mansell used to say that the home support at Silverstone was worth at least a couple of tenths of a second per lap and Fernando Alonso proved in Spain (and Felipe Massa in Brazil in 2007) that the extra motivation of the crowd can work wonders, so Lewis does stand a chance.

Hamilton has been guilty of over-driving this season and trying to force the issue, when a little patience would work wonders. It may well be the time for him to take professional guidance and appoint a manager other than his father. Anthony Hamilton is the reason that Lewis has got where he is today, but just as drivers' wives and girlfriends no longer sit on the pitwall with stopwatches, so it's better that their parents leave it to less emotionally involved managerial expertise.

It was at this race last year that the row between Alonso and Hamilton deepened with Lewis suspecting that Fernando was withholding set-up information to give himself an advantage. This year the atmosphere inside the McLaren motorhome will be a lot better, particularly as Heikki Kovalainen must have had to concede that he is not going to win the Drivers' Title in 2008. (Something that the rest of us worked out by Race 4)

On Sunday Hamilton could well spoil a Ferrari 1-2, but which Ferrari driver will take ascendancy? Kimi Raikkonen looks as though he will be using up his free-engine-change voucher issued by the FIA at the beginning of the year. Team boss Stefano Domenicali has said the team would like to take the precaution after Raikkonen's French GP was almost derailed by a flailing exhaust.

Robert Kubica and the BMW team will hope to arrest the alarming slide the team endured at the French GP at Magny Cours where the Pole managed to scrape 5th place (6th if Hamilton had been where he should have been) and Heidfeld was nowhere near the points. Kubica's great advantage is that there are two Ferrari drivers taking points off each other, while in the Schumacher days it would only have been one maximising the points difference.

The problem for BMW is that Silverstone and Magny Cours are not that dissimilar tracks - the Northamptonshire circuit has a lot of high speed corners like Copse, Beckets and Stowe. For that same reason it is difficult to overtake - though in the past we've seen overtaking moves start in Vale go on through Club and finish at the exit of Abbey.

For two-times winner David Coulthard, this might be his final time in an F1 car (in a grand prix at least). Though this year's set of rookies is hardly setting the grid alight, there is always upward pressure from the junior formulae. DC's experience would make him a much sought-after tester should he hang up his GP gloves.

Which brings us to the forgotten man of F1 - Jenson Button. Honda did well in Canada after they said they'd do pants. Then they did very badly in France after they said they'd do well. For Silverstone they're a little bit more cagey, but the testing times last week didn't set anybody's timesheet alight.

Apart from focusing on the three Brits - the media this weekend will be engaged in the usual ritual of: "Silverstone: how long is it going to remain on the F1 calendar?" Given the importance of British motorsport to the economy you have to wonder why some proper investment hasn't been sorted out years ago. The Olympics will cost over £10 billion and the Government can't even find £50m to build a sports venue that will have an important legacy.

Over at Renault and Toyota, Nelson Piquet and Jarno Trulli will look to reinforce a great result in France with equally good performances in Britain. Toyota had been idling up until that point, but Trulli re-established the massively funded team as contenders. What's more they'll have the help of Batman at Silverstone with the TF108 decked out to promote the forthcoming Dark Knight movie.

Nelson Piquet still has seven "could do betters" on his report card despite finally putting one over his team-mate in the closing stages at Magny Cours - beating him at a track where he excels would be even better.

Like Honda, the Williams team will be hoping to shrug off the lethargy of the French GP at a circuit they know like no other. The team scored their first F1 win here in 1979 and the only chance they have of repeating that feat 29 years later is if it rains. With the five-day forecast predicting that it will rain at some time on Friday, Saturday and Sunday - with the most rain on Sunday, that's not such a longshot.

It could be quite a race.

FH