Sergey Sirotkin: Title hopes still alive despite Silverstone troubles

Dear Motorsport.com readers,

Having taken my first pole and my first win in GP2 at Silverstone last year, I expected to have another strong run at the track in 2016, but a missed weighbridge and tyre dramas meant I didn't get much of a shot at it.

Our pace merited good points, but we didn't get any, and I am now 39 points off the championship lead. But that's how racing is sometimes, and all we can do is push on.

This time, we didn't have the kind of one-lap pace we had in Spielberg, but we were definitely one of the three quickest cars on track. It was all solid in practice, but we got a bit lost in qualifying early on, lost a bit of pace. Still, it should've been enough for a top-three spot, maybe even second.

But, as usual, on the crucial push lap, it all went wrong. First, we got some traffic from a Racing Engineering car, but that didn't even matter as it was soon followed by a red flag.

That was very unfortunate – we saw that our changes from earlier in the session helped quite a bit, and I thought this lap could be very good. It was turning out very well.

After the red flag, the tyres were no longer in condition. We tried with another lap, but couldn't even improve what we had previously. Still, that would've been good enough for P5.

Weighbridge

Instead, I was disqualified from the session for having missed a call to the weighbridge during the red flag period, meaning I was now to start Saturday's race from the pitlane.

I won't say that it was debatable or anything, I did break the rule, but in terms of simple logic it wasn't a clear cut case. We looked at the replay post-session and, I should say, I don't know a single driver who would've turned in for the weighbridge in that particular occasion.

It was a red flag, lots of red lights - and the particular red light that should flash when you're being called in for weighing, it was flashing pretty late. I was instead looking at the marshal, I slowed up, I saw nobody waving at me, so I figured I wasn't needed and I went straight on.

Usually, someone waves you in from the fastlane, they wave and you come in. This time, only when I went past, the marshal turned and he waved his hands, as if to signal 'where are you going'. But I was gone already.

But the rules are rules. Formally, I broke the rules. But I don't know anybody who would've done differently.

It's been a complicated season from the rules' point of view. For example, in Baku, a pair of cars were let off for passing before the safety car line because the restart was all over the place.

I understand and accept that completely. But it would be nice if I could have the same benefit of a doubt – here or in Austria, when I did everything correctly, only to be penalised by the rulebook. But it's not up to me. It is what it is.

Tyre issues

It's very hard to start from the pitlane at Silverstone, with the twisty pitlane exit that goes uphill.

Usually, the first corners at a track are slow - so when you head out after a pitlane start, you arrive right at the back of the pack as they brake.

Here, they're all on the throttle - so when I exited, I was something like 20 seconds adrift after the first lap, and on cold tyres.

Then I ran into debris on the second lap, I thought I had damaged the left-rear wheel, thought I had a puncture for the next couple of laps. I told the team about it, we were planning to come in as I was losing something like four seconds during each lap. But it didn't fall apart, it sort of stabilised so I figured, let's try to hold on until the stop.

And then it got better. In a couple of laps, it was gone and I started to push again. Post-race, we reckoned the issue had to do with damage to the outer layer of the tyre, which was giving me no grip until that layer was worn out. So that was another 10 seconds gone.

The stop wasn't ideal, not that it mattered in that situation. I headed out, the speed was okay, but it wasn't quite what we would've liked. On Sunday, however, we made changes – simple balance adjustments that helped with tyre wear and laptime – and it worked very well.

I got a good start in the sprint race, passing something like eight cars on the first lap – but then I got a right-rear puncture and I spun.

I flatspotted the other three tyres and damaged them further as I crawled to the pits. The tyre set at that point was not in good condition – the right-rear that they put on instead of the punctured tyre had something like 140-150km on it.

And yet the pace after that was good. I reeled in the leader by about five seconds overall, was sometimes almost a second per lap quicker. It was very good, all the damage and vibrations aside.

Tough luck

It's a bit tough to find the correct words to describe the season so far. Some of it has been hard to believe – it seems that, every time when it matters most, something goes against us. And it's happening over and over again, and it's a difficult situation, but we are carrying on.

Our title chances aren't so great after all that's happened, but it's been a chaotic season for everyone so they're not gone. We'll keep trying.

Heading into Budapest, the asphalt there is the same as in Red Bull Ring, so that should give us some pointers - but then again, nothing is easy to call this season. Still, it's encouraging that, even when everything is going poorly for us, we're at least fifth-quickest.

And when it's going well, we're basically quickest of all. So, in Hungary, it'll be somewhere in-between.