What happened in British GP’s sole Friday practice

Formula 1 championship leader Max Verstappen set a blistering pace to lead the only practice session before qualifying for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

---

Key moments:

> Verstappen seven tenths clear of Norris

> Mercedes’ Hamilton and Bottas third and fifth

> Perez 1.1s off Verstappen in eighth place

> Cars now in parc ferme until qualifying this evening

---

The debut of F1’s new sprint race this weekend has shuffled the usual weekend format. FP1 now acts as the sole practice session before the drivers participate in qualifying on Friday evening.

It means the drivers and teams had just 60 minutes of running to find the ideal car set-up for qualifying.

It was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who set the pace with a scintillating 1m27.035s laptime, a time that was seven-tenths faster than the next fastest driver

His closest competition was McLaren’s Lando Norris, who admitted prior to the weekend that he’s “not in perfect condition” after he was mugged at the Euro 2020 football final at Wembley.

Norris eclipsed Hamilton’s time by just 0.001s to the second spot, despite setting his fastest time on the medium tyres -whereas Verstappen and Hamilton had recorded theirs on the soft.

When told of the gap to Verstappen on the radio, Hamilton said “seven tenths, where did that come from?”

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was faster than Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas to complete the top four.

FP1 is about finding the limit, especially with qualifying to come later today!

Valtteri Bottas is pushing hard 💪#BritishGP 🇬🇧 #F1 pic.twitter.com/MXmkPFb6Qr

— Formula 1 (@F1) July 16, 2021

His team-mate Carlos Sainz spun his Ferrari on the entry into The Loop left-hander early in the session, but he recovered to post the sixth-fastest time ahead of the Aston Martin of Sebastian Vettel.

Sergio Perez struggled to match the pace of his Red Bull team-mate, with his fastest lap some 1.128s slower than Verstappen’s benchmark, although he was blocked while on course to set a better lap.

McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, who made his F1 debut at Silverstone with HRT 10 years ago, was ninth-fastest ahead of Esteban Ocon’s Alpine. Like team-mate Norris, Ricciardo didn’t use softs.

The two AlphaTauris of Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda were 11th and 12th respectively, while Lance Stroll struggled for confidence aboard his Aston in 18th place.

Slowest of the 20 drivers was George Russell, competing in his home race for the third time in his F1 career with Williams.

He cracked his left mirror by running wide at Copse on what would have been a faster lap.

Practice 1 Results