2025 British GP Raceday Preview

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2025 British GP Raceday preview. He fired in a 9.00 winner in qualifying with Max Verstappen taking pole, hopefully there’s more of the same to come this afternoon.    

2025 British GP Raceday Update

It was nice to bag the 9.00 Verstappen for pole bet yesterday, but the three other bets lost to leave us with a modest 1.80 profit.

Our ante post selections are Norris to win @ 3.00, now a 5.00 shot, Hamilton to finish on the podium @ 3.75, now 2.25, Alonso to finish top 6 @ 5.00. now 2.75 and Hulkenberg to finish in the points @ 3.25, now a 9.00 chance.

Only the Hulkenberg bet looks dead in the water, but I said that last week when he started last, and he finished ninth, so you never know!

2025 British GP Raceday Weather

It is typical British GP weather. We had the F4 race, which was dry, and now the F3 race which is wet, very wet. It is the worst kind of weather for punting. Showery. It might be wet, it might be dry, it could be a mix of both. It was the same last year and when the rain came mid race it mixed things up due mostly to poor strategy by McLaren, who dropped the ball with both drivers and handed the win to Hamilton.

For what it is worth, looking at the various weather forecasts, there is agreement that that the worst of the weather will be confined to the morning with the showery spells petering out before the start of the race at 3.00 pm local time. The degree of cloud cover is a point of contention. Some have it cloudy all day, others with a fair amount of sunshine. We have seen from the running this weekend that in cloudy conditions the track will be around 25 degrees, in the sunshine 40 degrees.

Sunny conditions will mean higher tyre degradation, and more for some than others. Any rain will hurt the low downforce set up on the Red Bull, but it looks like they may have guessed right, and they will get a dry race with the chance of any rain being set at 20%.  But I will return to the weather at the end of the update, as close to race start as possible.

Team-by-Team

Red Bull

Give him a fast, difficult track and Verstappen will rise to the occasion. That’s why he is the best and why Mercedes are so desperate to sign him. He is also running a lower downforce set up than most which means he is very fast on the straights, but slower in the corners.

That is a good race setup as you don’t overtake in the corners, but there is always the risk that the car will slide a bit more in the corners and tyres start to degrade more rapidly. And if it did get damp at any point or the track cooled down noticeably, he could struggle. Verstappen’s long run pace on Friday was the best, but of course, they have changed the car’s set up since then.

Max Fav

Verstappen is the 2.75 favourite. He started from pole in Japan and won, in Saudi and finished second and started on pole in Miami and finished fourth. He doesn’t have the fastest car, but he was able to make it faster over a flying lap. It will be much harder to do it over 52 laps and one or two pit stops.

The pole position driver has won five of the last ten races here, with four won from second place and one from fourth. In totality, the pole sitter at Silverstone has won twenty two of the fifty nine F1 races. In 2025, eight of the pole sitters have won the GP.

Tsunoda was hit with a power unit glitch in Q2 and starts from eleventh. For once he looks a decent prospect for a points finish.

McLaren

Only fastest in one of the four sessions so far and they do not have a dominant car this weekend. The more sun the better for McLaren. That said, they are far from out of it in any conditions. In some respects, having a rival from a different team to beat is a bit easier than racing H2H with your teammate.

The driver starting second has won half of the last eight races here, which bodes well for Piastri. Of the three races in 2025 not won from pole, it was Piastri who won them all, two from second on the grid.

For Norris, the last winner from third was way back in 2011 and all three of his wins this season have been form pole position. The McLaren’s long run pace was competitive, and they are still going to be hard to beat, but it is Piastri who looks more likely to get it done.

Tyre management is always an issue at Silverstone and that is an area which the McLaren excels at. The more sunshine the better for McLaren

Mercedes

It is hard to assess Mercedes. Russell qualified fourth, his best position in any of the four timed sessions. It could be that he absolutely nailed it and almost outperformed the car (which is impossible of course). Doing that over 52 laps will be very hard to replicate.

The Mercedes is the most weather sensitive of all the cars and they will be hoping that it remains cloudy. If the sun comes out it will be bad news for Russell. He also has two very fast Ferraris behind him with better race pace.

In the last six years the driver starting from fourth has finished on the podium five times. I would be surprised if that record was improved on, but he is 4.33 to do so.

Antonelli starts from tenth place after his three-place grid penalty. He has only scored in one of the last five races and just getting it home in the points will be a result. He was complaining of instability with the rear of the car, which doesn’t bode well with all the long, fast corners here.

Ferrari

It was a very disappointing qualifying session for Ferrari. It was also very strange. Hamilton was nearly out in Q1, then they were super quick in Q2 and off the pace in Q3. I expected at least one on the front row and starting fifth and sixth is poor.

Their race pace is usually better than their qualifying pace, but while they should be able to get past Russell, there are three very fast cars ahead of him. In 2022 Lewis Hamilton became the first driver to finish on the podium having started fifth at Silverstone since 2010. It is a difficult task from where he starts.

When Leclerc has started outside of the front two rows, he has struggled to make up places. Only in Barcelona was he able to make it to the podium from outside the front two rows. In the last five years, the driver staring sixth has finished sixth (the other two were 5th).

Ferrari’s long run pace on Friday saw them being fast, but not for long. They seemed to lose tyre performance quite quickly. But of course, that was Friday when it was 40-degree track temperatures.

The other teams are talking up Ferrari’s chances, but I will stick with just our ante post bet on a Hamilton podium. 3.75 is a decent price but the 2.25 available now looks very short to me.

Aston Martin

Alonso starts from seventh after the penalties for Bearman and Antonelli, so his grid position flatters him somewhat. The car has a substantial upgrade but unlike their last one, this one is more like the old Aston upgrades, i.e. hard to notice.

Alonso had not been in the top ten in any practice sessions, and he describes the upgrade as making a small improvement. He has been able to improve on his grid position for the last three races, but a lot of that has been due to attrition. Stroll was out in Q1…. again.

We are on Alonso for a top six finish, and to get that he will need more attrition from the cars ahead. Fingers crossed for that one. Alonso is pinning his hopes on getting some rain, which is not a good sign.

Alpine

Once again, Gasly pops up in Q3 in a car that doesn’t have any chance over a race distance. Silverstone is just about the polar opposite for a track that would suit the Alpine, but over a single lap, Gasly has the ability to make it look like a half decent car.

His problem is that their weak energy recovery system means he will be down on power in the race, and Silverstone is a power circuit. Gasly and Alpine would be best suited to a wet race where pace is not the issue, and they might get just that, so I will not dismiss Gasly as easily as usual.

Colapinto crashed out in Q1 and starts last. Surely his days are numbered?

Williams

Hugely disappointing in qualifying. Albon looked good for Q3 but ended up in fourteenth. Sainz ended up outqualifying him, ending up ninth on the grid after the grid penalties were applied to Bearman and Antonelli.

The team cocked up in Q2, putting on new tyres when the red flags came out after Colapinto’s off. That left them on used tyres for their second run and that cost them. Things are just not going well at Williams.

Sainz is out of position in ninth place. He was never better than twelfth in practice and very much second best to Albon. The cooler weather should at least help with their cooling issues. Albon has the potential to make progress in the race, but with three consecutive DNFs and a team that are tripping themselves up too often, it takes guts to back him.

Racing Bulls

Another team that was very disappointing in qualifying. They had a great weekend in Austria and looked to be carrying on with that form in practice, but a mistake from Lawson put him out in Q1 and Hadjar was out in Q2. He starts from twelfth and he may struggle with his race pace. He also has a few faster cars behind him.

Haas

Brought a much-needed upgrade this weekend and Bearman was getting the most out of it after a very ordinary Friday. He was P6 in FP3 and qualified eighth. Sadly, he had a major brain fade under the red flag and went hell for leather down the pitlane and crashed. The pit lane is part of the racetrack, and the red flags apply there too.

That was not his first red flag infringement, and I do wonder if he got dropped on his head as a child. His ten-place grid penalty drops him all the way back to eighteenth. He does make up a lot of places in the races and it will be interesting to see now far up the order he can go.

Ocon has not shown any great pace all weekend, but his party piece, as it is for both Haas drivers, is race pace. He has finished in the points in three of the last four races. He started fifteenth in Canada and seventeenth in Austria and finished ninth and tenth respectively.

Ocon has not been as happy with the upgrades as Bearman and he believes that they need high degradation conditions for him to thrive. Bearman says that they have a very good race car, so he is the happier of the two.

Sauber

It is Sod’s Law that as soon as I go two points on Hulkenberg, the car goes to hell. Yes, qualifying is not their strength, but nineteenth is three places down on his average. Both cars have been slow and Bortoleto has had two big incidents.

In his last three races, Hulkenberg has started on average on 16.3 but managed to finish in the points in all three. I am not optimistic that he can do it a fourth time. Hulkenberg says the car is not suited to the track nor the windy conditions. The team are praying for rain, which is not a good sign.

2025 British GP Raceday Summary

We look set for a great race. The top six on the grid all fancy their chances of a good result and all have looked quick at various times.

The weather will play its part. This time last year I was trying to predict the weather as much as the result …and got the weather wrong, but did find the winner, which is more important.

Having watched the support races, we had the F3 race stopped because of the heavy rain and the F2 race was full wets all the way. The chance of rain for 3pm is now 40%, up from 20% a few hours ago.

The rain is due to stop around 1.45 with another splash of rain around 2.30, stopping literally a few minutes before the start of the race. There is a fair chance of a shower in the first 30 minutes of the race and that should be that.

Heavy Rain

The rain that has fallen was heavy, great big blobs of rain that soaked the track very quickly. Yesterday there were a few spits of rain but the rain today has been the kind that you only get in the summer. It looks like the wet weather tyres are going to be required, for the early stage of the race at least.

Looking at the radar, it does look like the really heavy rain has passed and anything else that arrives will be lighter, which is a good thing. I doubt they would have started the race in the kind of conditions that hit the track earlier. The rain that is around now should be OK for inters and hopefully a standing start. There are a few big cells on the radar, and we could yet get hit with a cloudburst.

Bad News For Max

That is not good news for Max Verstappen. He is running with a much lower downforce set up than the other leading cars and on a cool, wet track, he will struggle.

In the wet, the McLaren should be faster than the Red Bull, so much more grip in the corners and they should make mincemeat of Verstappen if it is wet.

Obviously a wet, drying, wet, drying sort of race can mix things up and these conditions are not always great for punting, but hopefully it runs to some sort of form. I have four more bets for race day.

I think Piastri makes the most sense for the win today. Starting second has been a good place to be in recent years, the McLaren should be good in the wet and he does tend to convert his second places starts into wins.

2025 British GP Raceday Tip: 1 point Oscar Piastri to win @ 3.25 with Livescorebet

At a very tasty price, I have to go for Ocon to finish in the points. He has had five top 10s in 2025 and three in the last four. The Haas has been a much better race car than a qualifier.

The upgraded package was exploited by Bearman more than Ocon yesterday, but hopefully he can get into a rhythm over the race distance and move up the order once again. His odds are simply too big not to have a go.

2025 British GP Raceday Tip: 1 point Esteban Ocon to finish in the points @ 7.00 with Betfair, Pokerstars

I will have a go at opposing Verstappen, which is always risky, but given his set up choice, and the weather, he could struggle. His set up would have been good for a dry race and I suspect that is what Red Bull were expecting, the weather forecast was for the rain to have passed by lunchtime, but it is not an exact science, and it does look like we will get at least some wet running.

With clouds and rain, the track will be cool and that moves things towards Mercedes. Russell was just interviewed on TV and said that the track temperature right now was perfect for their car, but he would prefer less rain.

So long as we do get some wet running and enough cloud cover to keep the track cool, Russell can go well, while any wet running and cooler conditions are not going to suit a low downforce set up. A battle between two drivers perhaps fighting for the same seat in 2026 adds an extra dash of spice.

2025 British GP Raceday Tip: 1 point George Russell to beat Max Verstappen @ 3.95 with Livescorebet

The final bet is a group bet with Ladbrokes. Group 4 has Bearman as the 2.50 favourite, Nico Hulkenberg at 2.80, Lance Stroll 3.20 and Colapinto 8.50. Bearman was in a different formula compared to the other three yesterday and he is only down at the back of grid because he is an idiot.

So long as he doesn’t have another brain fart, he has the pace to be making his way up the order, not something that can be said about the others. Maybe Lance Stroll could thrive in the wet, but even then, he is likely to be slower than the Haas.

2025 British GP Raceday Tip: 1 point Oliver Bearman to win Group 4 @ 2.50 with Ladbrokes

-JamesPunt