Is Silverstone a make or break race for 2012?

[CHT]

In 2011, several teams were saying that the outcome of silverstone race will decide if they will continue to pursue the championship race for the current season or switch their focus for the next year. However for this year, no team have speak about it till now. Perhaps it is due to the unknown element of the tyres.

Considering the gap that RBR has achieved at Valencia (excluding Vettel DNF) do you think that we can expect some front running team to throw in the towel after Silverstone IF RBR would to finish both cars on the podium in a "normal" race.

[Nando]

The reason for that is Red Bull. Everyone saw them take off like they were in a different class.
Everyone is waiting to see if that will hold up in Silverstone. If it does then every team should be vary of a potential domination from RBR, again..

However if they won´t take pole in Silverstone and won´t win the race then the championship all of a sudden is wide open again.
This is however not counting any other potential teams taking the title flag and start running with it.

[Hangaku]

The gap that you speak of is only as good as the last race. There is no way of saying that the same gap will exist at the next race. That combined with the fact that Red Bull are hardly running away with anything this year (all the front runners are very evenly matched), means that Silverstone is just another race.

Teams like to talk races up to pique interest for the sake of sponsors, etc. especially in the UK. I don't believe that even last year that Silverstone would have been the turning point of the season - it's all marketing.

[PNSD]

BMW denied Kubica a chance at the title, opting to focus on 2009. Given how that season panned out toward the end, I would say it was something of a HUGE mistake to do that.

Based on how the season has run so far, it would be completely stupid to decide on a course of action based on Valencia, and then Silverstone.

Besides that, the whole is moot IMO.

The season is too close to not continue to push 100%. If Ferrari stop developing, and put more efforts for 2013 then you will no doubt see Mclaren, Lotus, Williams, Sauber and Force India pass them. Likewise the same goes for all the teams. It's perhaps more crucial for Sauber, Williams and FI to continue because of the WCC stake.

[Jackuar]

As I mentioned in the race thread, I think chances of having a second repeat winner for the year are more... No matter the season is highly unpredictable and open, still, the big boys ought to have figured out the optimal winning strategy by now... And even if not a make-or-break race, I guess we'll atleast start to see some "settling down" of the pecking order... MRF (McLaren, Redbull, Ferrari ) starting to get more consistent... Occasionally someone else might spring a surprise up (Lotus having the best chance of that) but I'd say, from here on, we'll start seeing the real segregation - top teams moving forward and middle teams settling at their places... JMHO...