Esteban Gutierrez just missed out on his first points of the season in Austria by less than a second, but the Mexican now goes to one of his favourite tracks this weekend to put himself onto the scoreboard.
The Haas F1 Team driver now has a trio of eleventh place finishes in 2016, but he is looking forward to getting out on track this weekend at Silverstone, a circuit he has won races in before during his career in junior formulae.
Gutierrez expects his team to have some issues finding the balance of the car this weekend being their first time racing at the circuit, especially as drivers will need to protect their tyres around the high-speed British Grand Prix circuit.
“Silverstone is one of my favourite tracks because it has a lot of fast and flowing corners, and it’s really one of the best tracks to drive in the wet,” said Gutierrez. “I’ve had great memories there. I’ve won many races there, so I’m really looking forward to coming back and getting the maximum from myself and the car.
“You have plenty of fast corners and you have a lot of medium-long straights – not extremely long but more straights than usual. It’s quite a fast circuit in general.
“Silverstone is a pretty particular track that has a lot of fast corners and just a few slow-speed corners. You try to put more emphasis into the car for high-speed corners, and protecting the tires with the aero balance is important. As a new team, it’s always a challenge to get there for the first time.
“It’s important to have as much downforce as possible at Silverstone. Even though it’s a pretty fast track, you have a lot of corners and you want downforce, especially when it’s raining. If you have a lot of changeable conditions, you really want to make sure you have as much downforce as possible.
“I think it’s a matter of Silverstone being a track that offers different track conditions. Very often, it’s raining or just changing conditions, so it can put a lot of variability into the results. But it’s also quite demanding for the tires, and if you ask too much of the tires, it’ll change your strategy, and that can play a role in the results.”
