With the forecast predicting one of the hottest British Grands Prix in recent memory, managing tyre degradation is going to be key to strategy at SIlverstone. Pirelli believes a one-stop is possible if tyre temperatures can be kept under control, but let them spiral upwards and a two-stop comes into play.
The hard compound tyre is unlikely to feature in the race unless there is an early Safety Car, meaning all drivers will look to spend the race on soft and medium. Over one lap, the soft tyre offers a performance advantage of aorund a second, but when managing pace in the race that is likely to be cut to around 0.4s. In terms of degradation, the soft tyre was losing a tenth of a second of performance per lap compared to the mediums, meaning there could be a relatively early crossover in performance between the two tyres.
That early crossover creates the potential for undercut strategies, whereby the driver behind pits earlier than the car in front in the hope of setting quicker lap times than his rival when in clear air and on fresh rubber. That will be a viable strategy for Valtteri Bottas in fourth, and given the performance gap to the Red Bulls behind (believed to be around 0.4s per lap in the race) he may even risk a two-stop to try to coax the Ferraris into an early stop too.
But Mercedes will have to be careful as all the signs from Friday practice suggest Ferrari has the faster can on race pace. The Ferraris experienced some tyre issues in free practice, but in Austria they had superior tyre life compared to Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes, which could be a big advantage if its replicated in Silverstone. Ultimately, leading from the front will offer the best opportunity for Hamilton to win as tyre management is much easier when you have clear air ahead of you.
Toto Wolff explains: "You could see that with the lead Red Bull car in Austria, Max [Verstappen] was managing his pace and had no problems with the tyres, and Daniel [Ricciardo] -- the same car -- attacking and trying to make it past Kimi [Raikkonen] had heavy blistering on an identical car. Everything is easier if you control the pace from the front."
The pit stop window for a one-stop strategy is expected to be between laps 16 and 19, while a pit stop around lap 12 to either softs or mediums will indicate a two-stop.