2024 British Grand Prix: Preview

Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber will step into true motorsport history as the championship heads to one of the most legendary races on the calendar – the British Grand Prix in Silverstone. As the venue for the first ever Formula One world championship race in 1950, Silverstone is the perfect location to end a busy European triple-header: the team, however, won’t be focusing on the history, but on the present, as Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu aim for a good result to get us into the final stretch of the first half of the season.

Team Quotes

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: “The final race of the European triple-header is an occasion to bounce back and try to make a step forward at a crucial time in the season. A succession of races like this has benefits: racing every week allows you to remain in the zone and carry over learnings from one event to the next. We have collected lots of data between Barcelona and Spielberg: Silverstone will offer a completely different layout, but there will be elements for which the experience of the past two races will prove handy. We will need to maximise our time on track, squeezing everything out of every session, and then execute everything perfectly in both Qualifying and the Race. We are more than ever determined to make a step forward this weekend and get back in the fight we have been in earlier this season.”

Valtteri Bottas (Car 77): “Silverstone is always a special occasion: it’s a classic track and, even in its current layout, it retains all the elements that made it special over the years. It’s fast, it’s technical and it’s still a track where the driver can make a difference; it also offers overtaking opportunities, so there could be a lot of fun to be had. Of course, we want to make a bit of a step and close the gap with those ahead of us: if we make the most of the practice sessions and put the car in the right setup window, we can be in the mix and have some meaningful battles with the cars in front of us.”

Zhou Guanyu (Car 24): “I am looking forward to this race: driving in Silverstone is always fun, it’s one of those tracks, like Spa or Suzuka, that seems designed to push the limits of what our cars can achieve. There are some corners, like Copse or the Maggotts-Becketts combination, that are just unreal from within the cockpit, especially in qualifying; it’s also a good place for racing in general, with many corners that can offer opportunities for close battles. Approaching this weekend, we know what we need to work on to gain some performance: it’ll be crucial to get the car in the perfect conditions early on, so that we can finetune the setup in the following sessions and extract every little bit of performance from it. The margins are still very small and, if we do get to the 100% of our potential, we can be in the mix.”