British GP: Hope for Lewis Hamilton as he leads a British 1-2 in FP1

Lewis Hamilton gave his fans something to cheer about as he topped Friday’s opening practice for the British Grand Prix ahead of his fellow Brit, Lando Norris.

The nine-time British Grand Prix winner clocked a 1:26.892 to beat Norris by 0.023s with Oscar Piastri third fastest.

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New-look liveries, softer Pirelli tyres, and brand new drivers took to the track for the opening practice session at the British Grand Prix, as Arvid Lindblad made his Formula 1 debut, hopping into the RB21 in place of Yuki Tsunoda, and Paul Aron was in action for Sauber having been loaned out for two FP1 sessions by Alpine.

The session got underway with Esteban Ocon leading out the field, a wave from Lewis Hamilton to the fans as many of them saw him in person in red for the first time, and a 1:32.7 from Gabriel Bortoleto as the opening gambit.

Lando Norris took over with a 1:28.6, the McLaren driver half a second up on Lewis Hamilton while Fernando Alonso, running Aston Martin’s upgrade in a comparison test with Lance Stroll on the old spec, was third fastest.

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As the drivers got into their respective FP1 programmes, Pierre Gasly in the Alpine had a major twitch into the final corner that sent him off the track and Max Verstappen, running Red Bull’s new floor, found a bit of traffic in the form of, yes, George Russell.

His race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase told him: “Reason why there’s no gaps shown at the moment is because our GPS software has gone down.”

Gasly followed up his off with a spin at Stowe, telling Alpine: “Absolutely lost it.”

20 minutes into the hour-long session, Russell was P1, 0.06s up on Oscar Piastri before Liam Lawson fired in a 1:27.6 to take over at the top only to be overhauled by his team-mate Isack Hadjar, Charles Leclerc splitting the team-mates.

Carlos Sainz had a moment on the kerbs at Copse and returned to the Williams garage with his car up on jacks as his mechanics examined his floor. The Williams team-mates, Alex Albon and Sainz, were at the bottom of the timesheet as the team focused on race simulation.

Down in ninth place, Verstappen complained about his RB21’s handling. “I don’t know, it just doesn’t turn at low speed and then in high speed, it’s either big snaps [or] piles of oversteer,” he said. And then promptly jumped up to third place, a tenth off the pace, on his soft tyre run.

As more drivers swapped to the soft Pirellis, now the C6 compound tyre, Leclerc went quickest with a 1:27.0, putting him almost two-tenths up on Piastri and Norris.

Aron had a moment in the traffic as he got in Albon’s way, reporting: “My bad, there’s a big mess here in traffic.” His team-mate, at least for this session, Bortoleto had a huge spin through and out of Copse corner, his tyres wrecked.

With 20 minutes remaining, Leclerc was P1 by seven-hundredths ahead of Russell, and Piastri a further tenth down on the Mercedes driver.

Hamilton in 12th had done a run only to find traffic, his race engineer Riccardo Adami telling him: “It was a good lap up to there [encountering traffic].” The Briton bounced back by taking P1 off his team-mate with a 1:26.8 on his second flying lap, the McLaren drivers up to second and third.

Swapping to race sims for the final stint, Hamilton held onto P1 in an encouraging start to his British Grand Prix weekend. He also finished his session with an overtake on Russell into Stowe as the Ferrari powered past the Mercedes.

Lindblad finished his first FP1 in 14th place, half a second down on Verstappen, while Aron was 17th, the faster of the two Saubers with Bortoleto down in 20th as the only driver not to complete a soft tyre run.

FP1 times at the British Grand Prix

1 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 1:26.892
2 Lando Norris McLaren +0.023
3 Oscar Piastri McLaren +0.150
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari +0.203
5 George Russell Mercedes +0.271
6 Isack Hadjar Racing Bulls +0.325
7 Alexander Albon Williams +0.412
8 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls +0.459
9 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes +0.475
10 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing +0.540
11 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin +0.786
12 Lance Stroll Aston Martin +0.952
13 Carlos Sainz Williams +1.017
14 Arvid Lindblad Red Bull Racing +1.066
15 Esteban Ocon Haas F1 Team +1.165
16 Franco Colapinto Alpine +1.194
17 Paul Aron Kick Sauber +1.250
18 Oliver Bearman Haas F1 Team +1.255
19 Pierre Gasly Alpin +1.440
20 Gabriel Bortoleto Kick Sauber +1.505

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