Free Practice: 12.00 – 12.45Qualifying session: 15.55 – 16.25
SaturdayFeature Race: 14.40 – 15.45 (29 laps)
SundaySprint Race: 09.25 – 10.15 (21 laps)
Jordan King – Racing Engineering “Silverstone is a high speed circuit and it’s quite physical on your neck as you get a lot of G-Force. It’s a fast flowing circuit with straights and stops so the demands are a bit different in the car. It is very much one long corner into another long corner so the tyres can be affected. But from a driver point of view, the neck is the most important thing that can affect you. Last year, we struggled more with the lateral energy loading.
“Tyre degradation is quite low because with high-speed, you don’t have to worry about that so much. But as the weather is usually variable in England, you never know what could happen… If it’s cold, that could cause more problems with the tyres because we will struggle to get them into temperature. But then if it’s really sunny with high temperatures, the tyres will be too hot.
“Last year was my first time racing at the British track and I always like when people come to support you. It’s my home race so I will have a lot of family, friends and sponsors who will be there, and the crowd is always massive. It’s always a nice feeling to know that there are people there who are actually supporting you even if they don’t know you so well… Hopefully, I will pocket another win. If there’s one win that matters to me, it’s my home race!”
The StakesThe busy month of July opened last week in Spielberg: on the twisty Austrian track, the GP2 drivers delivered great battles in both races. While Antonio Giovinazzi was quickest in free practice, it was Sergey Sirotkin who grabbed pole position. The action-packed Feature Race saw Mitch Evans lead Pertamina Campos Racing 1-2 in the final stages for a surprise win ahead of Raffaele Marciello in P3.More drama followed on Sunday, with a star behind the safety car on a very wet track. Jordan King mastered the tricky conditions from reverse pole to claim a maiden GP2 win ahead of countrymen Oliver Rowland and Alex Lynn.Needless to say that the three Brits will be looking for a repeat this weekend at Silverstone in front of their home crowd. But they will not be the only ones who will fight for glory, starting with the new Series leader Marciello. The Italian’s consistency since the start of the 2016 campaign has been impressive: he’s finished all races in the points bar Baku Sprint Race. He’s been chasing after a first win this year and will surely try again this week in order to extend his lead over his closest rivals. With only 21 points covering the top ten drivers in the standings, the battle of the eleventh GP2 Series title is one of the most intense we’ve ever seen.The fifth round of the 2016 season takes place this week at Silverstone, one of the most demanding track of this year’s calendar. The British track is one of the circuits that take the most lateral energy out of the tyres. The asphalt offers high levels of grip, which works the surface of the tyre even harder. This is why Pirelli have nominated Hard and Soft compounds for this event.
Season Stats28 Number of points Mitch Evans scored in Round 4 (27 – Feature Race, 1 – Sprint Race) 11 Jordan King is the eleventh English driver to win a race in GP2 Series' history (before him, were Carroll, Hamilton, Conway, Bird, Calado, Palmer, Chilton, Lancaster, Quaife-Hobbs and Lynn)21 Number of points covering the top three in the teams’ standings (RUSSIAN TIME – 120 points, Racing Engineering – 100 points, PREMA Racing – 99 points)3 Highest number of podiums achieved by a driver (Raffaele Marciello and Pierre Gasly) Noteworthy
Nobuharu Matsushita returns to the competition at the wheel of car #1RUSSIAN TIME are the only team to have scored points in every single race so far.Series leader Raffaele Marciello leads in the teams’ standings with 66 points.Mitch Evans has jumped from tenth to second in the drivers’ standings after he scored a total of 28 points last week in Spielberg.Racing Engineering have moved up from third to second in teams’ standings with 100 points, 20 points behind RUSSIAN TIME and 1 point ahead of PREMA Racing.There have been 7 different race winners in the 2016 season so far (Nobuharu Matsushita, Norman Nato, Jordan King, Alex Lynn, Mitch Evans, Artem Markelov, Antonio Giovinazzi).
