#BritishGP FP1: @LandoNorris tops time-sheets ahead of @lance_stroll. #F1

Norris British GP FP1 – Home favourite Lando Norris topped the opening practice session, which featured an early red flag at the British GP ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri who rounded out the top three.

Norris posted the session-topping benchmark with a 1:27.420 on the C3 red side-walled softer tyre and was 0.134 seconds quicker than Stroll whilst Piastri was a further 0.211 seconds off his team-mate in third.

Youngsters Oliver Bearman (in place of Kevin Magnussen), Isack Hadjar (in place of Sergio Perez) and Jack Doohan (in place of Pierre Gasly) were all taking part in opening practice for Haas, Red Bull and Alpine respectively.

In cooler conditions at Silverstone, albeit with the disappearance of the early morning rain, the track surface looked to be somewhat difficult in the early phase of proceedings as grip was at premium levels.

The early tours were 90 seconds long, before championship leader Max Verstappen registered a 1:29.906 on the C1 white-marked harder compound.

Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton, an eight-time British GP winner, made a big jump with a 1:29.035, before his team-mate George Russell found a 1:28.888 effort to move to the top of the pile.

RB’s Yuki Tsunoda brought out an early red flag as the opening ten minutes of proceedings drew to a close after the Japanese driver lost grip at Luffield, spinning to send the VCARB01 into the gravel trap.

This prompted an eight minute wait for the VCARB01 racer to be cleared from the gravel and the action to resume.

Russell again set the pace posting a 1:28.156 on the hards and improved to a 1:28.046 shortly after, but his team-mate Hamilton responded to go 0.003 seconds quicker at the top of the classification.

The two Silver Arrows were demoted by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who set a 1:27.925 on the cusp of the session’s first half hour. This coincided with the switch to the C2 yellow-branded mediums amongst a handful of frontrunning drivers.

Russell and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc pushed to move to the head of the times, before Verstappen pipped Russell by a very narrow 0.001 seconds on the medium rubber. The Dutchman found a small gain over Russell to extend his gap by an extra few hundredths, before Russell replied to restore the original gap.

Piastri then sent his Mercedes-powered MCL38 racer to the top on the C3 softs but was then over-lapped by team-mate Norris by two-tenths on the same tyre.

Piastri’s misery came to the surface when his MCL38 came to a halt on his way to the pits, after suffering a hydraulic problem. This forced the momentary closure of the pit-lane entry, as The Australian’s McLaren was collected.

Stroll placed his AMR24 racer in-between the two McLaren’s in the classification, 0.134 seconds behind session-topper Norris and 0.211 seconds in-front of Piastri.

Verstappen had the quickest medium tyre effort, beating Russell to fourth as Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and the other F1 W15 Silver Arrow of Hamilton took sixth and seventh respectively.

Ferrari duo Leclerc and Sainz took eighth and ninth as Alpine’s Esteban Ocon completed the top ten whilst MoneyGram Haas F1 Team’s Nico Hulkenberg finished FP1 outside the top ten in 11^th.

Sauber duo Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu ended Free Practice 1 in 12^th and 15^th respectively as RB’s Daniel Ricciardo and Haas’s reserve Bearman sandwiched in-between in 13^th and 14^th.

Williams’ Alexander Albon and Colapinto were 16^th and 18^th as Doohan split the pairing in 17^th.

The aforementioned Tsunoda and Hadjar brought up the rear.

You can see the full Formula 1 Qatar Airways British Grand Prix 2024 Free Practice 1 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2024/races/1240/great-britain/practice-1.html

@HaasF1Team sign @OllieBearman on multi-year deal. #F1 #F1DriverMarket

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