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| Silverstone
- Great Britain |
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| British
Grand Prix - 20 July 2003 |
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| Race
Distance : |
308.356km
/ 191.604m |
| Number
of Laps : |
60 |
| Lap
Distance : |
5.141km
/ 3.194m |
| Lap
Record : |
M.
Hakkinen 1.24.405 |
| Qualifying
: |
13:00
- Jul 6/2002 |
| Race
: |
14:00
- Jul 7/2002 |
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| From
the grid, cars pull away and the
straight allows speeds of 175 mph
to be reached on the approach to
Copse. This right-hand corner is
blind but, at 140 mph, very fast,
so fast in fact that drivers don't
normally brake - just change down
a gear. Switching back up, cars
thunder on towards Maggots at 175
mph and shift down twice as they
wave their way first through
Maggotts and then Becketts - as
the track wiggles left-right,
left-right, slowing down to 100
mph before Chapel ends the series
of left-right bends and is
accelerated through, coming out at
155 mph in 6th gear. |
| The
Hanger Straight is the fastest
part of the circuit, at 185 mph in
top gear, before braking hard into
Stowe, a right-hand turn that can
be taken in 4th gear and speeds of
105 mph maintained. Vale is a
quick straight in which the cars
go through at something like 160
mph with a 2nd-gear, sharp left
into Club, a right-hand corner
taken at 50 mph and then
accelerated through and the cars
swing back on themselves at 130
mph. Both Vale and Club present
good overtaking opportunities, not
least because they are tricky to
negotiate and understeer comes
into play. Up through two gears
into 6th and 170 mph towards
Abbey, a 3rd-gear, 75 mph corner
which flips into Farm at 100 mph
and up to 160 mph along Farm
Straight. |
| Bridge
marks the entrance to the
'Complex', a section of the track
containing bends at Priory,
Brooklands and Luffield. The
corners at Bridge and Priory are
fast, entering the first at 150
mph and exiting the second at 100
mph. Priory, along with Brooklands,
steer the car through 180 degrees.
Brooklands, along with Luffield,
again turn the car around and are
both negotiated in 2nd gear at
between 50-80 mph. Luffield used
to be two corners called Luffield
1 and Luffield 2 prior to 1996. On
exit, it's a quick dash through
Woodcote at 165 mph and a smooth
turn to the right before hitting
the Start-Finish straight at 175
mph. At the start of 1998
Silverstone re-named the sequence
of corners from Priory to Luffield
as 'The Grandstand' and intends to
install more grandstand steating
in this area. |
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