» Mercedes duo dominate opening practice

Valtteri Bottas has narrowly edged teammate Lewis Hamilton for top honours in the opening practice session of the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone, with the Mercedes-AMG duo once again proving the class of the field.

The Finn marked the announcement of his 2021 contract extension with Mercedes with the fastest overall time of 1:26.166 posted on the Soft (C4) Pirelli rubber compound. Bottas was over a second quicker than the time Max Verstappen posted in FP1 at the same circuit last week, although the Red Bull Racing driver was on harder C3 rubber at the time.

Hamilton was initially the faster of the two Mercedes drivers until Bottas’ better effort, but the gap to the rest of the field was once again significant.

Verstappen was ‘best of the rest’, over seven-tenths of a second slower than Bottas’ best lap and just five-hundredths quicker than the fourth-placed Racing Point Mercedes of stand-in driver Nico Hülkenberg. The German’s presence in the cockpit of the RP20 was announced just hours before the session in the wake of regular driver Sergio Pérez’s continued diagnosis with the COVID-19 Coronavirus.

While Racing Point has been the subject of intense scrutiny in the wake of the sanctions handed down to it by the FIA, Hülkenberg quietly got on with the job and wound up almost six-tenths of a second quicker than teammate Lance Stroll who was eighth-fastest overall.

Between the pair came the Ferrari duo of Charler Leclerc (P5) and Sebastian Vettel (P7), who were themselves split by Red Bull Racing’s Alexander Albon – the Anglo-Thai driver complaining of understeer in his Honda-powered RB16.

Completing the top-ten was Daniil Kvyat in the AlphaTauri Honda and Esteban Ocon in the Renault – their respective teammates Pierre Gasly (P11) and Daniel Ricciardo (P17) had relatively mixed sessions.

With softer rubber on offer this weekend after last weekend’s race triggered a spate of puncture on harder tyres, several teams are understandably concerned about tyre wear. Over at McLaren, this would definitely be the case, as neither Lando Norris (P12) nor Carlos Sainz Jr (P14) had the early pace the get into the top half of the timesheets.

EMIRATES FORMULA 1 70TH ANNIVERSARY GRAND PRIX 2020 – FREE PRACTICE SESSION 1
	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes-AMG F1 Team W11	1:26.166		21
2.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes-AMG F1 Team W11	1:26.304	+ 0.138	23
3.	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing RB16	1:26.893	+ 0.727	24
4.	Nico Hülkenberg	Racing Point F1 Team RP20	1:26.942	+ 0.776	25
5.	Charles Leclerc	Scuderia Ferrari SF1000	1:27.062	+ 0.896	20
6.	Alexander Albon	Red Bull Racing RB16	1:27.280	+ 1.114	22
7.	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari SF1000	1:27.498	+ 1.332	21
8.	Lance Stroll	Racing Point F1 Team RP20	1:27.539	+ 1.373	26
9.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia AlfaTauri AT01	1:27.653	+ 1.487	27
10.	Esteban Ocon	Renault F1 Team R.S.20	1:27.701	+ 1.535	23
11.	Pierre Gasly	Scuderia AlfaTauri AT01	1:27.707	+ 1.541	23
12.	Lando Norris	McLaren F1 Team MCL35	1:27.846	+ 1.680	26
13.	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team VF-20	1:27.908	+ 1.742	26
14.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	McLaren F1 Team MCL35	1:28.138	+ 1.972	28
15.	George Russell	Williams Racing FW43	1:28.170	+ 2.004	24
16.	Nicholas Latifi	Williams Racing FW43	1:28.226	+ 2.060	24
17.	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault F1 Team R.S.20	1:28.511	+ 2.345	23
18.	Kimi Räikkönen	Alfa Romeo Racing C39	1:28.655	+ 2.489	24
19.	Robert Kubica	Alfa Romeo Racing C39	1:28.960	+ 2.794	22
20.	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team VF-20	1:29.319	+ 3.153	17