The 2026 Formula 1 season continues at pace this weekend with the British Grand Prix, marking Round 9 on the calendar.
With the Sprint format in play, Free Practice 1 and Sprint Qualifying will take place on Friday, July 3, followed by the Sprint and Qualifying on Saturday, July 4, and the Grand Prix itself on Sunday, July 5.
Vital statistics
First Grand Prix – 1950
Track Length – 5.891km
Lap record – 1m 27.097s, Max Verstappen, Red Bull, 2020
Most pole positions – Lewis Hamilton (7)
Most wins – Lewis Hamilton (9)
Trivia – Silverstone hosted the inaugural Formula 1 World Championship round some 76 years ago on May 13, 1950
Pole run to Turn 1 braking point – 239 metres
Overtakes completed in 2025 – 58
Safety Car probability – 78%*
Virtual Safety Car probability – 22%*
Pit stop time loss – 20 seconds (includes 2.5s stop)
*From the previous nine races in Great Britain
The driver’s verdict
Jolyon Palmer, former Renault F1 driver: Silverstone is another drivers’ favourite with fast, flowing sequences and some of the best corners in the world. Copse, Maggots and Becketts are where you feel g-force on your body that is pretty rare in Formula 1.
Copse is a big challenge even though there’s run-off – you go so quick that if anything goes wrong there, you’ll be lucky if you get off lightly. And then the change of direction through Maggots and Becketts is a lot of fun.
Slowing it down through the final part of that is the key to make sure you get the exit onto the Hangar Straight as well – it’s about finding a rhythm through those sweeping parts. All of this puts a lot of strain on the front-left tyre and we’ve seen some issues here in the past.
Abbey is the one that is flat-out, but if you’re tucked in behind someone in race conditions it can be on the edge. Overtaking is also very possible with the new loop that’s not very new anymore – Turn 3 if you fancy a lunge, Turn 6 as well.
Maybe the hardest corner on the circuit is Brooklands, a big braking zone where it’s easy to just trail a bit of brake into the apex and snatch a wheel there. It’s so good as an overtaking area but also an easy area to make a little mistake.
Tyre and strategy insight
“The selection for the weekend consists of the hardest compounds in the range,” Pirelli’s weekend preview reads. “C1, C2 and C3 have been chosen due to the high severity of the circuit, which causes tyre degradation.
“The accelerations reached in some sections exceed 5g, similar to what is seen at Suzuka and Spa. The front axle is the most stressed, with the left-front tyre particularly prone to wear due to the predominance of right-hand corners.
“The track surface is not abrasive and has relatively low roughness. It already offers a good level of grip thanks to the continuous use of the circuit throughout the year for both two- and four-wheel competitions.
“Taking all factors into account, we expect teams to attempt to complete Sunday’s race with a one-stop strategy, using the two compounds with greater grip, C2 and C3. The latter is the only option that has shown some light graining in past years, while C1 and C2 have proved to be more mechanically consistent. The white-hard tyre is very likely to be used in FP1, as this year the weekend features a Sprint format.
“Wet tyres may also come into play in Britain. For two consecutive years, it has rained on Sunday, leading drivers to use the Cinturato intermediate tyres. The British weather is famously unpredictable, and even in summer, showers are not uncommon.”
Current form
The picture in the Drivers’ Championship standings took another interesting turn last time out in Austria, with George Russell’s victory seeing him move back into P2 ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton.
Kimi Antonelli’s lead has also been cut to 40 points. The Italian put in a good recovery drive in Sunday’s race, chasing down Max Verstappen until the very end before just missing out on P2 – but he will also be keen to learn from the weekend, with a mistake in Qualifying costing him a potential place on the front row of the grid.
In terms of the three teams behind Mercedes, the pecking order was again shaken up at the Red Bull Ring – namely by the home team, Verstappen having delivered a strong performance in the upgraded RB22. Can Red Bull carry that form through to the British Grand Prix?
McLaren, meanwhile, appeared somewhat off the pace of their rivals but took the positives from the fact that they finished ahead of one Ferrari in Sunday’s race.
Speaking of the Scuderia, it was a tricky outing for the Italian squad just two weeks on from Hamilton’s victory in Barcelona – leaving Charles Leclerc to admit that there was “a lot of work to do” ahead of Silverstone. Can they get back on track at Hamilton’s home event?
In the midfield fight, Racing Bulls continued their impressive run by claiming a third consecutive double points finish, meaning that they now sit just 13 points away from fifth-placed Alpine in the Teams’ Championship. Audi, meanwhile, just missed out on a top-10 result and will be hoping to finally add to their tally this weekend at Silverstone, the scene of Nico Hulkenberg’s memorable maiden podium 12 months ago.
Iconic moment
Ahead of this year’s British Grand Prix, we’re taking you back some 18 years to the 2008 event and Lewis Hamilton’s sublime first home win.
Hamilton ended a tricky Qualifying session down in fourth, behind Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, Red Bull’s Mark Webber and pole-sitting McLaren team mate Heikki Kovalainen, leaving him with work to do on race day.
However, a blistering getaway from a damp grid saw him jump to second by Turn 1 and, after an initial scrap with Kovalainen through the first few corners, the lead was his in a matter of laps.
From there, it was quite simply the Hamilton show, with the youngster storming into the distance and expertly managing further downpours to finish more than a minute clear of his nearest rival, and having lapped everyone up to P4.
Relive the memorable performance in the video player below…
