Silverstone completely different with new cars - Hamilton

Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Lewis Hamilton has won his home grand prix at Silverstone a record nine times By Andrew Benson F1 Correspondent at Silverstone Published 2 July 2026, 17:33 BST Updated 2 hours ago Lewis Hamilton says Silverstone will be "a completely different circuit" with this year's new cars. The British Grand Prix track is renowned as one of most demanding for drivers because of its sequence of challenging high-speed corners. But the lack of braking points means the cars will be energy starved this year, so will be running with not much more than half the engines' full power at key points of the track. Hamilton said: "The fact we have long straights, it's an unprecedented weekend in terms of the power deployment. All the drivers have been talking in the drivers' chat about how poor the power is going to be." The Ferrari driver said the cars will be recovering energy through Copse and Becketts, the two most challenging high-speed corners. Because batteries will run out before the end of some high-speed sections, the cars will be running with only the power from their internal combustion engines. The engines this year have a near 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power, with 350kW (470bhp) from electricity and a little over 400kW from the engine. Norris 'happy I have the pain of this year for the glory of last' Published 11 hours ago How to follow British Grand Prix on the BBC Published 3 hours ago What is the format for F1 sprint races in 2026? Published 3 days ago Hamilton said: "If you look at the speed traces, we start losing deployment going into Copse. Normally the engine is screaming going into there and you are holding on for dear life. This year most likely we will be downshifting from seventh to sixth to keep the revs higher. It will be a long straight from Nine (Copse) and (to) 10 (Maggotts) with no deployment. "Maggots and Becketts will not feel the same, because you have to lift and coast through there for a period of time. "So it's a completely different track. Maybe we will still get to enjoy it where you're not power-limited, but the best parts of the track are Copse and Becketts and Stowe and in those parts the power is just dropping. Hopefully they can rectify it for next year." He added that Ferrari's deficit to Mercedes could be "twice as big" as it was in the Austrian Grand Prix last weekend as a consequence of the nature of the track. A number of drivers made similar comments to Hamilton. Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso said: "With no deployment at all, we cannot forget that this year we have significantly less power than last year and less power than F2. That is the case when you cut the deployment. So, yeah, (a) challenge." But Mercedes driver George Russell, the winner in Austria, said it could have a beneficial effect on the racing action. "We know we're going to have some tracks where the straight-line speeds are going to be far quicker than last year and some tracks are go