Bottas outpaces Hamilton in practice, Hulkenberg fourth

Valtteri Bottas ended the first 70th Anniversary Grand Prix free practice session fastest at Silverstone for Mercedes.

Bottas, who tumbled down the order from second in last weekend’s British Grand Prix in dramatic style with a late puncture, set a time of 1m26.166s to end the morning running fastest, beating team-mate Lewis Hamilton by a tenth of a second.

Hamilton was ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who completed the top three runners with a time 0.727s off the leader’s pace, having been the first car to set a timed lap earlier in the morning.

Nico Hulkenberg – who is once again deputising for Sergio Perez following the Mexican’s second positive COVID-19 result – impressed by finishing fourth fastest for Racing Point.

The session was largely overshadowed by the outcome of Renault’s protest against Racing Point and the subsequent points deduction and fine issued for the Silverstone-based team’s Mercedes-inspired brake ducts.

Charles Leclerc was fifth, with Red Bull’s Alex Albon slotting in between the other Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel.

Lance Stroll was eighth, ahead of Daniil Kvyat for AlphaTauri and Esteban Ocon for Renault who completed the top 10.

Pierre Gasly ended the session 11th ahead of Lando Norris and Romain Grosjean in 12th and 13th respectively.

The other McLaren of Carlos Sainz Jr was 14th, with the two Williams of George Russell and Nicholas Latifi following in 15th and 16th.

Daniel Ricciardo finished somewhat out of position for Renault in 17th, beating both Alfa Romeos – with Robert Kubica stepping in for Antonio Giovinazzi.

Kevin Magnussen completed the order for Haas, having set a total of 17 laps.

Teams largely focused on running the soft tyre during the session, as they gathered data on the change in compound for this weekend compared to the first Silverstone race last week.

Practice 1 Results