Ferrari Bringing Big Upgrades for Silverstone

Published 07/04/2018, 12:43 PM EDT

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Ferrari have responded to Mercedes’ updates for Austria with their own ones for the upcoming British Grand Prix. They have decided to install a new floor to their SF71H 2018 spec car.

The tech crew at Ferrari have been working on the new design for quite a while now and have decided to implement it at the high-speed corners at Silverstone, which will help the car approach them better.

It is set to be tested for the first time at the Friday practice sessions and if deemed satisfactory, will be used for the remainder of the weekend. Though Mercedes suffered a double non-finish, their update had worked well-enough for them to secure a 1-2 on Saturday in Austria.

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The other reason that Ferrari have pushed through the new floor is also to counter the thinner tread of Pirelli tyres, which seemed to be the strong suit of Mercedes when tried at Spain and France.

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Silverstone is notorious for being a track with unusual track temperatures and any measure which can help with better car balance is set to help them perform better.

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Tyre strategies are one of the methods to get ahead of opponents but if they are at a level as high as Austria, then those are not viable anymore. Red Bull boss, Christian Horner had the same concern.

“Last year we had Kimi and Sebastian blow their tyres. So they have introduced this new construction of tyre for the new surface races and that has suited Mercedes really well.”

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“Barcelona and Paul Ricard both ironically the two tracks where they have had wins at. You can see why Toto has been campaigning to keep this tyre for the rest of the year.”

“I think Mercedes will be very strong at Silverstone, but the temperatures if this heat wave continues, we see that these tyres are very sensitive to heat. That could be a really interesting variable thrown into the mix”, Horner said.

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Written by:

Rahul Venkat

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