Tyre pressures at Silverstone National

The Silverstone National loop, drawn bold on the venue's mapped tarmac; the loop's measured length agrees with the layout's published lap length. Track outline © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

How hard a circuit works each corner of the car shows up as tread temperature, and temperature is what sets pressure. GripCalc carries corner heating figures for Silverstone National as a starting point: how much hotter each tyre runs over the session's base temperature, from the layout's mix of corners and load. They pre-fill the calculator when you pick the circuit, and your own pyrometer readings refine them from the first session.

ESTIMATED — class-based starting values over an 85°C session base, derived from this layout's type (direction, speed profile, load), and shared with circuits of similar character rather than measured here. Not gospel: enter your own pyrometer figures after a session and they take precedence.

Silverstone National, on paper

OSM — the sections mappers have named on this venue's tarmac: National Pit Straight · Hamilton Straight · Club · Brooklands · Wellington Straight · Luffield · Copse · Woodcote · Chapel Curve · Maggotts · Hangar Straight · Aintree · Farm Curve · The Loop · Stowe · Vale · Village · Abbey · Ice Hill · Kick Plate · Becketts · Limestone Curves

Lengths are measured from the OpenStreetMap geometry drawn above, on the loop verified against this layout’s published lap length; the longest straight is derived from the same line and is approximate. Section names are the venue's, and can belong to any of its layouts.

What Silverstone National asks of a tyre

Silverstone National measures 2.60 km on the map, run clockwise, with 8 corners counted along that line, 6 of them right-handers. A corner every 325 m gives the tyre a steady rhythm of work, enough to build temperature without running away with it. It is a short lap, so those corners come round again and again within a session — heat accumulates lap on lap, and going out with pressures that were right at the start is the classic way to finish a session several psi over target. With the corners weighted that way the left-hand tyres do the work and barely rest: expect them hotter and higher in pressure than the right, and read the two sides separately rather than as an axle.

DERIVED — length, corner count, hands and straight measured from the mapped lap drawn above. Corner counting is a judgement (a double apex can be read as one corner or two), so treat these as this line's reading of the circuit, not a series' official figures.

The National circuit is short, fast and simple: Copse at full commitment, the Maggotts entry, then Becketts cut short into the Wellington straight and the Brooklands and Luffield complex. Luffield's long right-hander leans on the left front for a long time each lap, and with a short lap that adds up quickly.

A 992 GT3 on Cup 2 R at Silverstone National

Published hot target 30.5 / 32.0 psi at 92°C tread, on a 15°C morning, with the corner figures above: cold set 21.5 / 21.5 front, 22.6 / 22.6 rear. A different car, tyre or morning moves every number, which is what the calculator is for.

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