The British Grand Prix 2014 was the 9th round of the 2014 F1 season, and took place at the Silverstone Circuit in Silverstone, UK, on July 6th.
Lewis Hamilton won the race after starting in the 6th position, followed by Valtteri Bottas, and Daniel Ricciardo completing the podium.
Nico Rosberg started from the pole position, but didn't manage to cross the finish line, as he experienced issues with the gearbox, and had to retire on lap 28th.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 23 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 23-31: 14 stops
The fastest pit stop was Max Chilton's, stopping the clock at 23.154 seconds during his pit stop on lap 2, while the slowest one was was Fernando Alonso's, who stopped the clock at 34.410 seconds, 11.256 seconds slower than Chilton, during his pit stop on lap 25.
These times include the time the driver spent going through the pit lane, as well as the actual time he stopped for the mechanics to work on his car.
Strategy
We saw a variety of options in terms of pit stop strategies during this race, however most drivers chose a 1 stop. Only Max Chilton, Sebastian Vettel, Daniil Kvyat, Kamui Kobayashi and Lewis Hamilton decided to try something different with a 2 stops strategy.
The race winner, Lewis Hamilton, was on a 2 stops strategy.
1 stop
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5Daniel Ricciardo
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17Nico Rosberg
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-Adrian Sutil
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10Fernando Alonso
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4Sergio Pérez
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3Pastor Maldonado
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2Kevin Magnussen
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-Jean-Éric Vergne
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1Jenson Button
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4Nico Hülkenberg
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2Jules Bianchi
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1Romain Grosjean
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12Valtteri Bottas
2 stops
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1Max Chilton
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3Sebastian Vettel
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-Daniil Kvyat
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7Kamui Kobayashi
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5Lewis Hamilton
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 1 stop strategy gained 1.33 positions on average, while those on a 2 stops strategy gained 2 positions on average.
Despite of the average possitons gained or lost, and considering a deeper analysis of the performance of each strategy, we consider the 1 stop strategy as the optimal for this race, even if Lewis Hamilton managed to win the race making 2 stops.
It is important to note that this might not always be the case for other races held at the Silverstone Circuit, as the conditions might change from year to year, in terms of wheel degradation, accidents, safety cars, etc.
Incidents
There were some incidents during the race, with 5 drivers who didn't manage to cross the finish line.
These included, Nico Rosberg, who experienced issues with the gearbox on lap 28, Marcus Ericsson, who suffered a suspension problem on lap 11, and Esteban Gutiérrez, Felipe Massa, and Kimi Räikkönen, all of whom retired dure to damage caused by a collision with other cars.
Gearbox
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Nico RosbergLap 28
Suspension
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Marcus EricssonLap 11
Collision
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Esteban GutiérrezLap 9
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Felipe MassaLap 0
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Kimi RäikkönenLap 0
Qualifying
Nico Rosberg managed to get the pole position by 1.62 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:35.766. Right next to him, completing the first line of the grid, was Sebastian Vettel.
Track evolution
As the qualifying session went on, with the track rubbering in, and the drivers testing the limits of the grip of their cars, the times per lap dropped, and 12 out of the 15 drivers that took place in Q2 were able to improve their times.
The Q3 is the time were all the remaining drivers put all their cards on the table, even those with a superior car who might have been managing their times in Q1 and Q2 push their cars to the limit in Q3. However, the conditions of the track worsened from Q2 to Q3, and none of the drivers were able to improve their Q2 times.