Hopes of a homegrown winner of this weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone would appear to rest solely on the shoulders of Lewis Hamilton.
Even then, Hamilton is only an 8-1 shot behind obvious favourites Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso, appreciating himself his odds of doubling up on his sole triumph in 2008 are not all that rosy.
For the 28-year-old, much will depend on the notorious performance of his Mercedes on this year’s Pirelli tyres.
As a high-speed circuit, Silverstone is similar in some respects to Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya where Brackley-based Mercedes locked out the front row for the Spanish Grand Prix.
However, due to severe tyre wear Hamilton finished a miserable 12th, with team-mate Nico Rosberg sixth.
The now controversial tyre test with Pirelli followed, along with two slower tracks in Monaco, where Rosberg triumphed, and Canada, where Mercedes showed signs of improvement with regard to degradation.
Hamilton knows, though, this weekend represents the acid test because whilst another all-Mercedes front-row is on the cards, the race could again be a different matter.
“We took a lot from the race in Barcelona,” said Hamilton.
“The team came back and it had a lot of work to do to understand what went wrong, and then we went to a couple of tracks that didn’t seem to be too difficult on tyres.
“So I think this weekend will be a really good test to determine how we’ve done.
“We will find out if it is the high-speed corners that are giving us the trouble, then that will really pinpoint the issues.
“But between each corner you do have a good straight afterwards, so hopefully the cooling down of the tyres will happen and maybe we won’t be in such a bad place.
“I am looking forward to seeing what the car can do. I think it will go really well, but again for the race, I don’t know how it will turn out.
“I hope we are starting to understand the tyres and hopefully we will be able to do a better job.”
Similarly, McLaren’s Jenson Button can also only hope for improvement with his car that gave him a headache in Canada three weeks ago such was the abysmal ride.
McLaren have this week carried out straight-line testing at Idiada in Spain in a bid to cure some of their woes which has left them lying in a miserable sixth in the constructors’ championship.
Button said: “The important thing is we get everything out of what we have and we come away and think ‘As a team we did everything we could to put on a good show for the British fans’.
“Whether that’s finishing fifth or seventh or, I don’t know where, as long as we finish the race and feel we got everything out of it then we should be happy with our achievements this weekend.”
Friday’s first practice, meanwhile, will now feature five Britons as Force India’s simulator driver James Rossiter is to replace Adrian Sutil.
It will be Rossiter’s debut practice outing, joining team-mate Paul Di Resta on track, along with Hamilton, Button and Marussia’s Max Chilton.