British GP: Sainz leads Hamilton & Norris in busy Practice 2

Carlos Sainz led Lewis Hamilton in an intriguing Practice 2 at the British Grand Prix.

As the showers that limited running in the first session cleared, drivers got straight down to work with many testing upgrades brought by their teams for this weekend.

When the focus switched to the initial lower fuel runs though, gaining an understanding of the pecking order proved very tricky as drivers struggled with tyre temperature and the windy conditions making off-track excursions a common theme during the hour.

Lando Norris was among the first to do his soft tyre lap and went quickest ahead of the two Ferraris who set the early pace.

Sainz then pipped his former teammate into P1 before improving again to set the benchmark time of 1m28.942s.

Lewis Hamilton did two warm-up laps on his run and would jump upto second despite reporting bouncing in his Mercedes.

Norris held on to third in an encouraging result for McLaren, while Max Verstappen sat two-tenths off the pace in fourth.

Charles Leclerc bailed on his first flying lap and was almost half a second down on his second attempt in fifth, ahead of Fernando Alonso in sixth for Alpine.

A small problem with Red Bull’s new engine cover delayed Sergio Perez who was seventh. George Russell was another to set his best time on a second flying lap in eighth.

Birthday boy Daniel Ricciardo was seven-tenths slower than teammate Norris in ninth as Lance Stroll completed the top 10 for Silverstone-based Aston Martin, one second exactly slower than Sainz.

Lower down, Valtteri Bottas went from P1 in FP1 to P11 in FP2. Alex Albon ran a strong 14th in his heavily revised Williams with new sidepods.

AlphaTauri struggled with Yuki Tsunoda 16th and Pierre Gasly complained of no grip at all in 18th.

Haas slipped towards the back in 17th and 19th with Nicholas Latifi seven-tenths off the back of the field in 20th.

The top 10 from Practice 2 can be seen below: