Charles Leclerc P5, Carlos Sainz P7 – Silverstone first practice session report

It was a glorious day here at Silverstone and the grandstands were filling up with a sell-out crowd over the next few days and a terrific atmosphere expected.

Max Verstappen arrives with an 81-point lead at the top of the Drivers’ Championship after winning the last five Grands Prix, but Silverstone has not been the happiest of hunting grounds for Red Bull over the years so could their winning run in 2023 come to an end this weekend?

In addition to the usual F1 action this weekend, filming for F1-inspired movie starring Brad Pitt and produced by Lewis Hamilton, has begun at Silverstone.

The first images of the car Pitt, who will play the main character, will drive in were revealed on Thursday.

As part of the filming at Silverstone, the fictional team Apex GP, for whom Pitt will drive in the movie, have been given a garage in the Silverstone pit lane between the garages belonging to Ferrari and Hamilton’s Mercedes team. Photos of the garage emerged on Wednesday, before the first images of the Apex car on the track were released on Thursday morning. Pitt, whose character name Sonny Hayes was revealed by the labelling outside the Apex garage, was not driving the car in the images released but is expected to later in the weekend.

Pirelli are debuting a new tougher specification of tyre this weekend to cope with “extraordinary” advances in car performance.

The previous specification used in the first nine races of the season were created using a projection of expected performance levels provided by teams before the season. However, far higher than expected downforce levels have prompted a change, and after the new tyres were tested during practice in Spain they will now be raced this weekend.

Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection! Click here to enter the F1 online Store and shop securely! And also get your F1 tickets for every race with VIP hospitality and unparalleled insider access. Click here for the best offers to support Charles and Carlos from the track!

As a result, expect plenty of running in this opening practice session as teams build up an understanding of how the new rubber works on their cars.

Asked whether the new compound will help or hinder teams, Charles Leclerc said: “I’m not sure yet. I’m not sure. I think, again, during the free practices it’s going to be very important to assess that, to see how much of a difference it is in terms of tyre degradation, if we need to fine tune the car to these new constructions. And then we’ll see. But we don’t know yet whether it’s going to be a benefit or a weakness.

The green light was on and away we went for the first free practice session of the weekend at Silverstone. It was Alex Albon first out of the pit lane, leading a queue of cars onto the track. Some aero testing was going on on the Red Bull at the start of this session, as Lance Stroll said he he had to “limp home” which suggested an electrical issue. He was on an out lap at that moment and didn’t appear to be coming into the garage.

After seven minutes, it was Max Verstappen on top with a 1:30.443 on the hard tyres. Lewis Hamilton slotted into second at 0.979 off the pace also on the hard tyres. With 44 mins to go in FP1, here came Ferrari on the mediums as last year’s British GP winner Carlos Sainz went second and Charles Leclerc fourth. Big test for Ferrari this weekend to see if their upgrades work around the high speeds of Silverstone.

Sergio Perez spent most of the opening 20 minutes inside the garage but was finally out on track. He went 14th with his first proper flying lap. Interestingly Alex Albon, Fernando Alonso, Oscar Piastri, Logan Sargeant and Zhou Guanyu had not set a time in the first 25 minutes. Very unusual to not be getting some mileage in.

With 36 minutes to go from the first free practice session for the British Grand Prix, Max Verstappen was in front, 0.774 ahead of Charles Leclerc, then come Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz, Tsunoda, Stroll, Hamilton, Bottas, Gasly and Ocon. Very difficult to say who will be Red Bull’s closest challengers at the moment.

Carlos Sainz moved to the softs and jumped to the top of the time sheets by half a second. Just 0.061s split the Ferrari drivers on the softs as his Monegasque teammate went second, but at this stage, the Red Bulls were yet to run the mediums or softs yet. George Russell jumped into fourth on the mediums and was 0.622s behind Carlos, but Pierre Gasly pushed the Mercedes driver down a spot with a handy lap to go third on the softs.

Esteban Ocon was fastest for about a minute as Charles Leclerc found more time to go into first place, despite being on those soft tyres for a long time now. But soon Max Verstappen was back on top as he took one tenth out of the Monegasque in the first sector, another two tenths in the middle sector and one tenth in the final sector. It wasn’t a tidy lap with a few wriggles in the slower corners, but it still put the Dutchman fastest by 0.444s. And it was back to a Red Bull 1-2 as Sergio Perez was second, just ahead of Alex Albon by a few hundredths of a second. Our top five at this stage was Verstappen, Perez, Albon, Alonso, Leclerc with five minutes to go. Verstappen moved the benchmark time to a 1:28.600, which put him 0.448 ahead of Perez. It was a very unusual session with drivers able to go faster after multiple laps and the order was very mixed.

Nobody improved in the final couple of minutes so it remained a Red Bull one-two for the opening practice session at Silverstone. Alex Albon and Williams were the big shock so far in third, with Aston Martin, McLaren and Ferrari close behind. Work to do for Mercedes as Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished the session in 12th and 14th, but did not use the medium tyres.

Results from Friday practice at the British Grand Prix, Round 10 of the F1 2023 world championship.

FP1
POS	DRIVER	NAT.	TEAM	TIME
1	Max Verstappen	NED	Red Bull	1m28.600s
2	Sergio Perez	MEX	Red Bull	1m29.048s
3	Alex Albon	THA	Williams	1m29.089s
4	Fernando Alonso	ESP	Aston Martin	1m29.268s
5	Charles Leclerc	MON	Ferrari	1m29.280s
6	Esteban Ocon	FRA	Alpine	1m29.319s
7	Carlos Sainz	ESP	Ferrari	1m29.357s
8	Lando Norris	GBR	McLaren	1m29.441s
9	Lance Stroll	CAN	Aston Martin	1m29.471s
10	Oscar Piastri	AUS	McLaren	1m29.658s
11	Nyck de Vries	NED	AlphaTauri	1m29.691s
12	Lewis Hamilton	GBR	Mercedes	1m29.768s
13	Pierre Gasly	FRA	Alpine	1m29.828s
14	George Russell	GBR	Mercedes	1m29.874s
15	Valtteri Bottas	FIN	Alfa Romeo	1m30.090s
16	Yuki Tsunoda	JPN	AlphaTauri	1m30.092s
17	Logan Sargeant	USA	Williams	1m30.124s
18	Zhou Guanyu	CHN	Alfa Romeo	1m30.321s
19	Kevin Magnussen	DEN	Haas	1m30.385s
20	Nico Hulkenberg	GER	Haas	1m30.591s