07/08/2020
NEWS STORY
Valtteri set the pace in the morning session, with Lewis 0.138s back in P2. The positions were reversed in the afternoon, as Lewis topped the timesheets with Valtteri 0.176s shy in second.
The team focused on tyre performance on both short and long runs in the hot conditions and ran a number of test items.
Lewis Hamilton: It's been a good start to the weekend. We brought a lot of learnings over from last week and with just a few small adjustments to the set-up we've been able to fine-tune the car and make some progress, which is positive. Both the Soft and Medium tyres feel very similar out there and there's not a huge amount of time between them. We saw some overheating with the tyres, so they are going to take some nursing to get the best out of them. It was great to take the win here last weekend, but I know just how strong Valtteri is and as we saw last weekend, absolutely anything can happen in F1.
Valtteri Bottas: We learned a lot last week, so the starting set-up today was good. The car felt more comfortable than in the race or in qualifying, so the balance already feels pretty much there. We focused a lot on the tyres today and there doesn't seem to be a lot between the Medium and the Soft when it comes to single lap pace. The Soft is struggling with the high-speed corners, especially in these hot temperatures and if you're running on higher fuel. We'll look tonight at all the options and make sure we get the plan right for qualifying. It should be good fun tomorrow.
Andrew Shovlin: It looks like everyone ran an unusual programme today in terms of tyres but we're all trying to get enough of the medium and hard into our qualifying and race allocation. The soft is a tricky tyre, it's working quite nicely on a single lap but on a long run it's not lasting long. We expect most teams will try to avoid that tyre in the race. The medium seems more durable and it's not much slower compared to the soft on a single lap. We've got a fair understanding of the track from last week, so we were able to use some of the running in free practice to sign off a few development parts and do some experiments. It's been pretty hot today but our pace looks reasonable for a Friday on both short and long runs which is useful as the hot weather looks like it will carry into Saturday and Sunday.
Check out our Friday gallery from Silverstone, here.