British Grand Prix: Free Practice One Results

What happened in the first practice session of the weekend ahead of the British Grand Prix?

Darius Needham 4 min read

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An early Red Flag and multiple teams looking competitive so far this weekend defined Free Practice One at the British Grand Prix.

British Grand Prix, Free Practice One
The drivers filtering out of the pit-lane ready to head out onto the track for FP1. Credit: Zak Mauger via Getty Images

Lando Norris topped the timesheets in FP1 at the British Grand Prix with a 1:27.420. Lance Stroll would go over a tenth slower to go second fastest in the hour. Oscar Piastri would complete the top three.

Heading into the weekend

Last time out in Formula 1, George Russell was able to take advantage of Max Verstappen’s and Norris’ coming together to secure his second victory in F1 at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Verstappen was dominating the race until he pitted for the second time and had a slower stop than we are usually accustomed to seeing from the Red Bull team. This brought Norris back into the fight in the later stages of the race.

However, the Dutchman’s aggressive tactics on lap 64 of the grand prix saw him collide with the McLaren driver at Turn 3 which led to both drivers suffering a puncture. Norris would retire from the race as Verstappen would come across the line in P5.

Building into the British Grand Prix this weekend, all the talk has centred around that collision between both Verstappen and Norris at the Red Bull Ring.

Team Principal Christian Horner stated that the current world champion is “not going to change” is racing style. Whereas Norris has spoken about the incident saying that he “wouldn’t change” what he did in Austria.

the Milton Keynes team have brought upgrades this weekend. Moreover, with it looking very likely that it will be a battle between Red Bull and McLaren for victory at Silverstone, can the team in papaya comeback with a win at their home grand prix.

More driver changes!

In other news, Oliver Bearman has been announced as a Haas driver for 2025 after signing a multi-year contract with the team. Bearman impressed earlier in the season at Saudi Arabia Grand Prix when stepping in for Carlos Sainz on his F1 debut, finishing P7 and scoring six points in the process.

Bearman has also competed in multiple FP1 sessions for Haas. The British driver will be taking part in first practice at Silverstone alongside some of his Formula 2 rivals including Franco Colapinto for Williams, Jack Doohan for Alpine and Isack Hadjar who replaces Sergio Perez in the RB20.

First Practice underway at the British Grand Prix

As the drivers began to filter out of the pit-lane onto the track for the start of FP1, Stroll reported an issue to his team stating that his brake pedal was too long. Bearman was the first man to set a lap, but was soon followed a number of drivers.

Five minutes into the session, Verstappen would go quickest on the hard compound tyre with a 1:29.906. Esteban Ocon put in a relatively decent time going over half a second behind the Dutchman.

As the drivers started to get more used to the track, Lewis Hamilton would go fastest with a 1:29.035. His team-mate would soon go over a tenth of a second quicker to top the times with a 1:28.888.

Yuki Tsunoda would bring out a Red Flag in the first 10 minutes of the session after beaching the car in the gravel at Luffield, meaning that his session was over.

Back underway in FP1 after the Red Flag

After a five minute wait to clear the Tsunoda’s car off the track, the action got back underway in Free Practice One. Russell would extend his advantage at the top of the leaderboard with a 1:28.156. Verstappen would go over two tenths slower than last weekend’s race winner.

A third of the way through the session and out of the four F2 drivers competing in the session, Bearman was currently doing the best in the Haas as he would go fifth fastest on a set of soft tyres.

Russell would continue to go faster and find more time as he set another fastest lap with a 1:28.046. Minutes later, Hamilton would go three thousandths of a second quicker with a 1:28.043 to move himself to the top of the times.

Midway point in the session

As we approached the halfway mark in the session, we would have a new leader in FP1 as Carlos Sainz would go fastest with a 1:27.925. As more teams started to put the softer range of tyres on, Verstappen would go back to the top of the leaderboard with a 1:27.764 on the mediums.

Russell would find himself only ten thousandths of a second behind the current world champion with slightly less than 25 minutes to go in the first practice session of the weekend.

With 20 minutes to go, Doohan was back on track after waiting in the garage for a period of time due to having an issue with his car that the team were able to fix. Oscar Piastri would then go fastest on the soft tyre with a 1:27.631.

With just over 10 minutes to go, Norris would go to the top of the times for the first time in the session with a 1:27.420. Stroll would move himself up to second in the leaderboard, going over a tenth slower than the McLaren driver.

The closing stages at Silverstone

Entering into the closing stages of Free Practice One, there was some rain that started to appear as it was predicted before the session that there would be a 60% chance of rain during the hour.

Piastri would then pull into the pit-lane entrance very slowly as he reported a hydraulic issue to the team. However, he had stopped at the pit entry as he was unable to make it back. His team were able to push his car back to the McLaren garage with a few minutes to go in the session.

As FP1 came to a close, the drivers that were still on track were not improving on their times. At the end of first practice, Norris would top the times as he nearly took a spin on track late on. Stroll and Piastri would complete the top three.

Final Results

Next up at the British Grand Prix is Free Practice Two.

Feature Image Credit: (Photo by Glenn Dunbar/LAT Images)

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