Max Verstappen certainly established himself as the early favourite with a dominant first practice at the British Grand Prix.
With only one hour of running before qualifying later on Friday, the Dutchman sent a big message to his rivals leading Lewis Hamilton by almost eight-tenths of a second.
However, the Red Bull driver’s seemingly imperious pace was quelled by Lando Norris taking second for McLaren on the medium tyre compared to Verstappen on soft.
F1 cars on the track at the team’s home race, packed grandstands and sunshine. ?#BritishGP ?? pic.twitter.com/mg6MaDleZ2
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) July 16, 2021
The Briton’s lap also put him 0.001s ahead of Hamilton’s Mercedes on the supposedly slower compound.
Ferrari had a solid session with Charles Leclerc fourth and Carlos Sainz, despite a spin exiting Village, sixth, either side of Valtteri Bottas in fifth.
Sebastian Vettel gave Silverstone-based Aston Martin a boost in seventh, with Sergio Perez 1.1s slower than teammate Verstappen in P8 in the second Red Bull.
Daniel Ricciardo was ninth and Esteban Ocon, who has a new chassis and more for this weekend, appearing to have regained confidence in 10th.
Pierre Gasly led teammate Yuki Tsunoda as AlphaTauri sat just outside the top 10 in P11 and P12, while Antonio Giovinazzi took 13th for Alfa Romeo.
Fernando Alonso was 14th ahead of former Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen in 15th.
Nicholas Latifi was the lead Williams in 16th, while George Russell had a difficult session and had a lap time deleted for track limits as he was slowest overall.
Mick Schumacher was 17th as Lance Stroll admitted to simply lacking confidence in his Aston Martin in 18th, just ahead of Nikita Mazepin.
All drivers had a smooth session managing over 20 laps, which was essential with so little running before parc ferme comes into effect for qualifying.
Now we get into the new part of the Sprint Qualifying format, with a regular qualifying session to determine the grid for the 17-lap dash that awaits on Saturday.
But for now, it doesn’t seem to matter what the format is as Max Verstappen remains on top, with even Hamilton wondering how he’ll catch him up.
Full results from Practice can be seen below:
What are your early impressions from Silverstone? ?
Here’s how the first practice session played out ⬇️#BritishGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/IwMx8ZvmUA
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 16, 2021