The Mercedes duo led the way in the first practice session of the 2018 Formula 1 British GP at Silverstone with Lewis Hamilton ahead of Valtteri Bottas.
It was fairly a sedate run for the top teams in the one and a half hour FP1 session at Silverstone with Hamilton leading the field after his time of 1m27.487s from teammate Bottas (1m27.854s) by 0.367s margin.
The teams are using the thinner tread tyres for this weekend which the Mercedes likes. Hamilton though didn’t feel good straightaway as he needed more time to settle in on the bumpy Silverstone circuit.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel (1m27.998s) was third ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo (1m28.144s) – who was sandwiched by the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen (1m28.218s). The Finn had an uncharacteristic spin on the Turn 7-8 run-off.
The only driver from the top team to not run the soft tyres was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in sixth, whose session ended few minutes early after he faced with a gearbox problem. He was forced to stop at the main straight as a result.
Even though the best of the rest honours went to Haas’ Romain Grosjean, but the Frenchman’s session came to an early end after he crashed out at Turn 1. The Haas driver got caught up with the DRS activation and spun across the gravel to hit the barrier.
He also became the first casualty of the debated DRS zone at Turn 1. Force India had a good day in their ‘home’ grand prix with Sergio Perez (1m29.812s) in eighth ahead of Esteban Ocon (1m29.815s) – the two only 0.003s apart.
Williams’ Lance Stroll (1m29.878s) rounded off a mighty session for the Grove-based outfit in 10th with Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson (1m29.942s) doing good in 11th from Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly (1m30.004s) and Ericsson’s teammate Charles Leclerc (1m30.027s).
Haas’ Kevin Magnussen (1m30.065s) led McLaren’s Fernando Alonso (1m30.322s) in 14th after the duo were involved in a scuffle on track for which Magnussen has been asked to report to the stewards.
The Spaniard later on had an off-moment at the same corner as Raikkonen. He left it late to improve from last to 15th. Meanwhile, it wasn’t the best of the starts for Renault as Carlos Sainz (1m30.358s) was only 16th.
Teammate Nico Hulkenberg (1m30.701s) was further down in 18th behind McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne (1m30.416s). Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley (1m30.749s) was 19th from Williams’ Sergey Sirotkin (1m31.017s), after the Russian’s early moment in the final corner.
