08/07/2016
NEWS STORY
Lewis finished both sessions on top of the time sheets. Nico ended FP1 in P2 and was forced to sit out FP2 after a water leak was discovered on his car. Both drivers ran the Medium compound tyre in the morning session, with Lewis running the Medium and Soft in the afternoon session.
Lewis Hamilton: It's been a great first day. Lots of positive steps forward with the balance of the car. It's incredibly gusty out there, which is one of the awesome challenges of this circuit. Coming through Maggots and Becketts then down through Stowe, I was actually yelling in my helmet, it's that exciting! What a great combination of corners - particularly when the wind is blowing in the right direction. Today we had a bit of a head wind and it just felt epic through there - one of the most fun rollercoaster rides you can imagine. We've still got work to do as our ultimate pace could be better. But the long run was good, so if we can keep the car in that window we'll be in a strong position.
Nico Rosberg: I had a good morning session. It looks like we are quickest out there and that it will be a good battle between me and Lewis. It's a shame that I wasn´t able to have a run in the afternoon - but I'm sure we can fix the problems by tomorrow morning. I will see what Lewis learned today and try to adapt this for tomorrow and Sunday. It's great to see that there are so many passionate fans out there and I know a lot of team members from the factories are here too, so I hope they have a fantastic weekend and we can put on a good show for them.
Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical): It's great to be back at Silverstone in front of so many enthusiastic fans - including many from Brackley and Brixworth who get to see their hard work in action out on track today. We ran through a very good programme in FP1 on the medium tyre without any issues. Unfortunately, however, it became clear shortly before FP2 began that there was a water leak on Nico's car. We were optimistic of a quick fix initially but, after further checks, we opted against running the risk of losing an engine from the pool. We will be looking into that overnight to understand what happened and our apologies to Nico for losing him some important running time this afternoon. On Lewis' side we managed a very strong programme on the medium and soft tyre, on both high and low fuel, gathering all the information we needed for the race on Sunday. We have plenty of work to do this evening but we're looking forward to what should be a closely contested battle over the weekend.
Check out our Friday gallery, here.