Ferrari is threatening an upset at its bogey circuit

The British Grand Prix was Ferrari's weakest race of the season in terms of outright speed in 2017 and '16, and with Mercedes making steps with the introduction of its phase 2.1 engine at Paul Ricard two weeks ago, then deploying a major car upgrade in Austria last weekend, that wasn't expected to change this weekend.

Yet Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel set the pace in FP2 outright and on adjusted long-run times during Friday practice at Silverstone - although in cooler temperatures Lewis Hamilton set the fastest overall lap of the day in the morning session.

As Ferrari generally doesn't perform at its best on Friday, this suggests it possibly has the pace to take pole position and win at what is its bogey circuit. Or at least be in contention at a track where it has struggled in recent times.

In Austria, Mercedes set the pace while Ferrari had its least competitive weekend since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix - lapping 0.529% behind Mercedes and 0.313% slower than its own average. That suggested Mercedes had made a clear step with its aerodynamic upgrades and moved the goalposts.

At Silverstone today, Mercedes and Ferrari set best laps that were near as makes no difference the same margin ahead of their seasonal average. Mercedes was 0.167% better than its usual performance, Ferrari 0.154%. Given these are relative figures, this suggests Ferrari's floor upgrade may have made up the losses it suffered from the Mercedes Austria upgrade as both teams are in much the same place compared to each other.

It also suggests Ferrari's new parts have produced a tangible performance gain. The car has a new floor, and if you are trying to make the whole underfloor work better then the outside of the floor is crucial.

Ferrari has three slots in its modified version. These take the vortices generated by the front wing endplates (clockwise on the left side, anticlockwise on the right side) that spiral back and uses them to pull air out from under the car through the slots.

If they are rotating as you want consistently it can make a massive difference to the performance of the underfloor in terms of the downforce you have. This could explain why Ferrari looks stronger.

We don't know what fuel loads people carried. Watching trackside during the first session the Ferrari looked lazy, which points to more fuel.

The other thing that changed was the temperature rose between FP1 and FP2. So I do wonder if the Ferrari works the tyres a bit better in those conditions. After all, Mercedes seemed in reasonable shape this morning - with Hamilton setting the fastest overall lap of the day before Vettel set the pace in FP2, then got a rude awakening.

Raw pace

1 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m27.487s*
2 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m27.552s
3 Red Bull (Ricciardo) 1m28.144s*
4 McLaren (Alonso), 1m29.306s
5 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m29.354s
6 Force India (Ocon), 1m29.467s
7 Sauber (Leclerc), 1m29.557s
8 Toro Rosso (Gasly), 1m29.831s
9 Haas (Grosjean), 1m29.352s*
10 Williams (Stroll), 1m29.878s*
*set in FP1

On long-run pace, Ferrari had a slight edge. That's based on comparing eight-lap runs on the soft-compound Pirellis for Ferrari and Mercedes, with anomalous slow ones eliminated. Daniel Ricciardo completed a shorter long run on softs, but was around a second off on average, which does not appear representative of the pace of the Red Bull.

Long-run pace

1 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m33.130s
2 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m33.222s
3 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m34.188s
4 Red Bull (Ricciardo), 1m34.242s
5 Haas (Magnussen), 1m34.454s
6 Sauber (Leclerc), 1m34.477s
7 Force India (Perez), 1m34.548s
8 McLaren (Alonso), 1m34.996s
9 Toro Rosso (Hartley), 1m35.165s
10 Williams (Sirotkin), 1m35.601s

Over the season, the general trend has been for Ferrari to come to the track less well-prepared than Mercedes to begin with and then close the gap. That's either because it runs higher fuel and doesn't get too excited, or because of the progress that's made overnight.

Often it is because of the progress made. After winning in Canada last month, Vettel said Friday practice had been a "disaster" for Ferrari, but it all turned round for qualifying and the race. If Ferrari's trend for improvement continues during this weekend, then it looks in very good shape.

Ferrari is in decent shape to nab pole if it has a clean run, albeit only by a small margin

Looking at the cars, Ferrari is running less downforce than Mercedes. Ferrari is decent on straightline speed, although looking at the main speed trap on the Hangar Straight on each driver's fastest lap in the afternoon session, Vettel was maybe 2km/h down on the Mercedes drivers. But that's not a big deficit and if Ferrari starts up front, it should have the straightline speed to stay there.

Red Bull, which didn't have the pace on a circuit where power is important, was running a split level of downforce. Max Verstappen was running a similar level visually to the Ferraris, while Ricciardo was running quite a bit less.

So at the end of Friday, I'd say Ferrari is in decent shape to nab pole if it has a clean run, albeit only by a small margin. Then it will have a good race car for Sunday and can win. Considering its recent history at Silverstone, that would be a superb performance.

Trackside impressions

The first DRS zone now includes Turn 1, the fast Abbey right-hander, so it was interesting to watch there during the morning session to see who was able to get through the corner with it open.

Max Verstappen did so on his first time through, and the Red Bulls were the only cars able to do so. When the DRS is open, you have less rear downforce so the aerodynamic centre of pressure is shifted forward. It may also effect how the diffuser works all of which will influence rear stability and grip levels.

From the first time through, the Red Bulls were grinding the outside of the front wing and the leading edge of the floor on the track. It's a surprise they don't get damage to the skidblocks doing this lap after lap, but there seems to be no problem.

Romain Grosjean's crash shows what happens when you get things wrong. He turned in, then just before the apex the rear snapped away and put him into a high-speed spin into the wall. He reported over the radio that he failed to close the DRS before that point, as he was one of a number of drivers keeping it open for turn in then closing it once into the corner to get the necessary rear stability.

When it did go, it went instantly and there was nothing Grosjean could do about it, showing what can go wrong. Considering keeping it open briefly is probably only worth a few thousandths, it's risky but that could be enough to make the difference between making Q3 or not and a place or even two on the grid.

If you can go flat through Abbey with DRS open in qualifying, it's certainly worth it. But you have to be careful you don't get too obsessed with it as you don't want to compromise the balance around the rest of the lap. Pirelli has also suggested you pay a price with the tyres because of the sliding caused through here, so that's also a potential downside.

Even so, it was interesting to see Ferrari and Mercedes not using the DRS through here in the first session. I'm pretty sure they were just concentrating on getting the best out of the car for the rest of the circuit knowing that on new tyres and low fuel they will be able to do if they need to.

Ricciardo suggested having the DRS open might be worth a 0.15-0.2s, but I have no idea why it would be worth that much - especially because to have the balance to make that work you might lose time elsewhere

I will also be very surprised if anyone will keep it open through Abbey in the race. Following another car close enough to pull off an overtake into Turn 3 means you will need to be right on their tail and that's difficult enough even in less demanding corners.

As you would expect, the Mercedes looks well-planted and stable, but the drivers still have to work at it. On a couple of occasions, if they turned in a fraction late the car moved around quite significantly, so it's not a walk in the park.

The Ferrari doesn't seem to ride the bumps quite as well, but maybe that's because it was running heavier on fuel. Initially, the car looked too pointy on turn in and the rear was moving around.

The Red Bull looked the best car at riding the bumps. It's difficult to compare as it's the only car that had the DRS open every lap but it looked very stable, very comfortable.

Ricciardo suggested on Thursday running with the DRS open might be worth a 0.15-0.2s, but I have no idea why it would be worth that much. Doubly so given that to have the balance to make that work you might be losing time elsewhere.

I'm sure in simulation you can run it through there open and it's not a problem - but with a bump you will have problems. And despite it being resurfaced, the drivers complained that the circuit is still very bumpy.

Looking further back, the Renault drivers had to use all the entry kerb to get into the corner. That can disturb the car a bit but later on Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz Jr tidied things up a bit and stayed on the black stuff.

Grosjean didn't get the DRS closed as he planned to and things went wrong with the car swapping ends. That shows how critical it can be and that where you close the DRS is important. Some close it earlier and reopen it and it depends on the car and the car's balance.

Vettel said on Thursday that the teams with more downforce - because they have more bank balance - can get an advantage out of that.

Having the DRS available through Abbey is a bit of a damp squib, given it won't help overtaking, and it would be sensible and responsible for the FIA to take away the use of it because we don't want accidents. As Grosjean showed, you can reach the barrier and damage the chassis.

That's probably £300,000 worth, and could be more. It's irresponsible to allow that to happen when there's no real gain. There might be a bit in lap time, but you won't see any more passing because of it.