Jenson Button was worried that spectators at Silverstone wouldn’t see much on track action in practice for the British Grand Prix on Friday, due to the apocalyptic rain that we’re being treated to in this most British of summers. Nice of him to be concerned, but ridiculous that he needs to be.

MotoGP: racing with a broken ankle

It’s tempting to unfairly compare the situation to the MotoGP at Silverstone last month. Cal Crutchlow had a nasty crash in practice, and it looked like the crowd wouldn’t have a competitive British rider to cheer on in the premier class on Sunday. He later told the BBC:

“When I was lying in the gravel all I could think was the British fans weren’t going to see me ride in my home race again.”

So, in order to give the crowd what they wanted, Crutchlow raced with a broken and dislocated ankle. That he finished in a staggering 6th place was the icing on the cake. Slightly mad, but also slightly heroic.

Formula 1: just give them some more tyres

Back to this weekend, all the Silverstone crowd want to see on Friday is cars on track. In FP1, the cars covered a total of 197 laps. As a blunt comparison, they covered 484 laps in FP1 a couple of weeks ago at the European Grand Prix in Valencia.

What does Formula 1 need to do to increase that number in the wet – to give the crowd what they want? It’s really not complicated: increase the allocation of wet and intermediate tyres.

As it stands, drivers only get four sets of intermediates and three sets of wets to last them the weekend, with an extra set of intermediates if it’s wet on Friday. Making that lot last three practice sessions, qualifying and the race sounds tricky.

Jenson Button gets it, even I get it. Does the FIA get it? Let’s hope so: then it’ll be down to the teams and drivers to just get on with it.

Photo Credit
Miss Vio – Flickr – Some rights reserved