Verstappen Tops British GP First Practice Ahead of Pérez and Albon

Max Verstappen led the way in the first practice session for the British Grand Prix, setting the fastest lap time ahead of his Oracle Red Bull Racing teammate Sergio Pérez and Williams Racing’s Alex Albon.

Verstappen, the reigning double world champion, emerged as the fastest driver, clocking a time of 1:28.600s on the soft compound tyres. Pérez, who ended his three-race podium drought in the previous race at the Red Bull Ring, is looking to get back into form after not making it into Q3 for the last four race weekends. He started the weekend well and finished second behind Verstappen, but he was almost five-tenths back from his teammate

The session marked a welcome return to ideal conditions at the iconic Silverstone Circuit, with clear skies and enthusiastic fans filling the grandstands and grass banks, after an action-packed wet weekend in Austria last week.

The drivers and teams had a busy hour on the track, as they familiarized themselves with the fast and flowing layout after a year away and tested Pirelli’s new tyre construction aimed at enhancing durability across all dry compounds.

Red Bull remains the target this weekend with Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, McLaren F1 Team and Aston Martin Armaco F1 Team all bringing upgrades to help bring them closer to the front. Williams also brought their own set of new parts and made an impressive start to the weekend, with Albon securing third place, ahead of Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc.

BWT Alpine F1 Team also demonstrated promising early pace, with Esteban Ocon finishing between Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. in the other Ferrari. Lando Norris ensured McLaren’s presence in the top ten following his strong performance in Austria.

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who was running the same upgrades as Norris, completed the top ten. However, Piastri encountered issues towards the end of the session, with McLaren reporting a hydraulic leak in his chrome-liveried MCL60.

Lewis Hamilton claimed twelfth place after running on medium and hard tyres with no running on the softs, just behind Nyck de Vries in the leading Scuderia AlphaTauri. George Russell settled for fourteenth place, trailing Pierre Gasly in the other Alpine.

Valtteri Bottas secured fifteenth place for Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake, followed by Yuki Tsunoda and Logan Sargeant in the second AlphaTauri and Williams cars. Zhou Guanyu and the Haas F1 Team drivers Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg rounded out the bottom positions.