Great Britain – EL1: Bottas ahead of Hamilton on wet track

Silverstone obliges, it was in the pouring rain that Free Practice 1 of the British Grand Prix began. THE Mercedes were the first on the track despite a wet road. Charles Leclerc was nevertheless the first to sign a timed lap, in 1:43.801, on intermediate tires. With only two sets of rain tires allocated for this weekend, the different teams favored the inter for their pilots.

Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) improved his Monegasque teammate's time to 1:42.967. With 35 minutes to go, more than half of the drivers had not yet completed a single flying lap, Max Verstappen (Red Bull), Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) or Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri) vacant even for various occupations outside their tub. Teams with numerous developments, such as Mercedes or Williams, were thus unable to test their new products during this aborted first hour of driving.

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Valtteri Bottas came to interpose his Alfa Romeo between the two Scuderia cars, with a lap in 1:43.437. Lewis Hamilton finally came out of the pits with twelve minutes to go. Also in intermediates, the Briton only set the seventh time in 1:49.476. On a drying track, the seven-time world champion was finally the first to try Slick tires.

While Bottas improved Sainz's mark with a 1:42.249 on intermediate tires, a large majority of the drivers finally came out on soft tires for the final minutes. Hamilton moved up to second place, while Lance stroll (Aston Martin) made a mistake in sector 2 and triggered a red flag for a premature end to the session. Carlos Sainz completed the podium for this session behind Bottas and Hamilton. Leclerc, Mick Schumacher (Haas), Guanyu-Zhou (Alfa Romeo), Kevin Magnussen (Haas), Stroll, Yuki tsunoda (AlphaTauri) and Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin) completed the top 10. No other driver set a time.

While the chance of rain was 60% for this session, they are only 40% for the second scheduled for this Friday. With better conditions, drivers may have more opportunities to take to the track. To do this, meet at 17 p.m. French time for the second Free Practice session of the British Grand Prix.

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