05/07/2024
NEWS STORY
The British Grand Prix weekend got underway at Silverstone on Friday. The team ran the Hard and Medium compounds in FP1, working through both single lap and long run work.
George ended the opening hour of practice P5 with Lewis P7, the second and third fastest runners on the Medium tyre. A threat of rain at the end of FP2 meant the team got to work quickly. After some further Medium tyre running, Lewis and George switched to the Soft compound.
With just one push lap, Lewis ended the session P6 and P10. A slightly unrepresentative picture given neither driver was satisfied with their efforts. They switched to higher fuel work on the Soft compound, with a more encouraging picture emerging. Rain arrived a few minutes before the end of the session and curtailed any further meaningful running.
Lewis Hamilton: The car felt generally good today. We're still a little bit behind the ultimate pace at the front but today was encouraging. I don't think the times are fully representative of where our speed was, but nevertheless, we know we've got work to do tonight. We will therefore do what we can to try and find more performance and hopefully that can get us a little closer to those ahead.
It is always great to be here at Silverstone. The size of the crowd seems to grow every year and it was awesome to see all their support. Hopefully we can give them something to cheer about over the rest of the weekend.
George Russell: FP1 was a strong session with the car feeling great. FP2 was a slightly more challenging hour, and we need to pick through why that was. It was much windier, and I don't think we got the tyres in the right window, so that could explain a chunk of it. The conditions are likely to change across the weekend, with more rain possible too, so we will have to be adaptive. I hope the fans didn't get too wet this afternoon; as always, it was fantastic to see their support in the grandstands.
After today's running, I'd say that the competitive picture looks similar to the past few races. McLaren and Max (Verstappen) look a step ahead and it's close between ourselves and Ferrari. We will work hard overnight to try and take a step forward and see where that leaves us tomorrow.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: We got off to a decent start with both cars in FP1. The balance around the lap was reasonably good and both drivers were relatively happy. With the first session being interrupted by a red flag, we didn't manage as much long run work as we hoped for, but it seemed that we had the car in a decent place.
For FP2, the wind picked up a little and overall, the car was a bit less stable. It's good to highlight these issues today though whilst we can still work on the setup. We've got some work planned overnight to try and understand the balance issues a bit further. We are optimistic that we can make progress and with that, we should find a bit more pace for the rest of the weekend.
Check out our Friday gallery from Silverstone here.