Bottas leads Hamilton in rain-affected first British GP practice

Valtteri Bottas was fastest for Alfa Romeo in a rain-affected opening British Grand Prix Formula 1 practice session.

Key moments

– Track wet for most of session
– Bottas grabs top spot late on
– Stroll spin causes late red flag

Rain just before the session and a further shower just as it looked like conditions were going to dry up meant there was very little meaningful running for the majority of the hour at Silverstone.

Ferrari pair Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both had turns on top but only half the drivers set anything approaching a flying lap and most stayed in the garage waiting to see if the weather improved.

Lewis Hamilton was first to try slicks going into the final five minutes, but the first two sectors were still too wet for him to beat the intermediate times at that point.

At the same time, Bottas found more pace on his inters and was able to usurp Sainz at the head of the order with a 1m42.249s lap.

Hamilton then got up to second on slicks, half a second slower.

A few cars emerge onto the track including Lance Stroll, but the Canadian spins off into the gravel.

He's stuck. Out comes the red flag, and FP1 is brought to an end a couple of minutes early.#BritishGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/Nocss32ezW

— Formula 1 (@F1) July 1, 2022

Lance Stroll spinning his slick-shod Aston Martin into the Copse gravel brought out a red flag with a minute to go, meaning none of the 14 drivers that had by then grabbed slicks would get chance to do much with them aside from Hamilton.

The Ferraris ended up third and fourth, with Mick Schumacher fifth for Haas.

Practice 1 Results