In a result we have come to expect, Max Verstappen topped the timesheets in Friday’s second practice session at a sunny but blustery Silverstone, while another great performance from Alex Albon saw him pip the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez to third fastest, behind Carlos Sainz, while Mercedes had to watch as their engine customers outperformed them and neither Mercedes was inside the top ten.
The Thai driver admitted that despite the significant upgrade package they had brought, he and the team were still surprised at their pace on Friday afternoon in a somewhat odd showing of single lap pace for the team:
“It’s strange, because without sounding too pessimistic, it doesn’t feel great out there for us, but it clearly must feel worse for the others….We’ve also had this upgrade package, which from what we’ve seen, has been a bit better for high-speed corners than low speed, and really Canada and Austria were kind of low-speed tracks, so hopefully, maybe it is partly due to that……But like I said, it’s a bit of a question mark. And honestly, our long-run pace was also pretty strong considering we were on the hard tyre.”
Albon’s teammate; Logan Sargent managed a 5th fastest time , no doubt giving encouragement to the rookie whose season thus far has been filled perhaps with more downs than ups, though he felt that maybe some teams were holding back a little on their pace:
“I think we were just making the best out of a difficult situation with conditions. And honestly, it’s hard to believe that a lot of people don’t have a lot in their pocket, so I’m not sure….”
While some Mercedes-powered cars had something to smile about following FP2, the works drivers didn’t have a lot of positives to take away from Friday afternoon, with a frustrated George Russell finishing up 12th fastest and Lewis Hamilton 15th. Russell seemed perplexed at the difference in performance across the medium and soft tyre compounds:
“Definitely not our finest Friday, I think conditions will be different tomorrow. We need to try to get to the bottom of it because the pace in FP1 was looking reasonably good on the medium tyre but we took the soft in FP2 and we were nowhere.”
The young Brit concluded “we need to dig into the data and see what we can do for tomorrow”.
Hamilton’s love for his home race shone through, even if the session wasn’t his or the team’s best:
“Very windy, it’s often windy here at Silverstone, which helps it become the best track in the world I think its just the characteristics that you have – tailwind, crosswind…it’s pretty phenomenal. I don’t mind it, its definitely made it a little bit inconsistent but I think everyone was the same. Car wise, everyone was battling the same thing the majority of the time. It’s a tough car to drive and no matter what we do with setup it continues to be a tough car to drive but I think on a single lap we didn’t feel any improvement between tyres which shoes somethings wrong, we’re missing something and then on the long run it didn’t seem to be too bad to that’s a positive at least.”
Like his teammate, he also struggled on the softer compound Pirelli tyre saying:
“It didn’t feel particularly great if I’m honest but it must have felt worse for others because they potentially weren’t as quick or I don’t know..had more deg. The last part of my run was starting to be more consistent for whatever reason, it could be wind it could be balance or me getting used to the balance. This track is really about trying to weigh those scales all the way round and making compromises here and there. It’s such a fine edge on the balance… It’s such a big balance window, it’s like back and forth it’s never just like here and you can just drive it. Its like from one end to the other end on the spectrum from braking to turn in to mid to exit on every corner…it’s a good battle.”
It was mixed feelings over at Ferrari, as despite a strong showing from Sainz marginally off the pace of Verstappen over a single lap, the Spaniard had his doubts regarding their race pace, as has been the Scuderia’s Achilles’ heel this season and Charles Leclerc did not make it on track for FP2.
Sainz joined his counterparts in the paddock in commenting on the windy being a huge factor on track saying “It was quite a tricky day out there with the wind” and went on to question the race pace of the Ferrari:
“We actually did a pretty good step forward from FP1 to FP2, trying different set-ups, trying different directions to go to try and improve the car in these conditions. It looked like it worked, but still our race pace doesn’t look great, and we will need to keep working on it.
He did however look forward to qualifying and was not deterred by the potential for a rain on Saturday:
“I think Red Bull are still favourites, but we could be good. The race is going to be more tricky, but quali depends also on the conditions, if it’s wet, not wet. I think it’s going to be good fun and a typical British Saturday here.”
Charles Leclerc didn’t have the opportunity to set a time in FP2 after electrical gremlins ruled him out of the session but with the problem found, and fixed, he was now focused on Saturday and beyond:
“It shouldn’t have any influence on our weekend apart from, obviously, the lack of kilometres and laps in FP2. That’s a bit unfortunate, because that’s where we normally prepare the race, and Sunday seems to be dry, so we’ll go a little bit into the unknown there, but tomorrow should be very different with rain around.”
Red Bull’s Perez, who was 4th fastest in FP2 commented on the learning experience on the new Pirelli tyre introduced for this weekend:
“Yeah I think it’s been a very interesting day, trying the new compound, new construction and basically learning from them has been very interesting so.. I think it’s gonna be a long night trying to figure out where is the best to operate these tyres.”
Overall, the Mexican driver was pleased with how the car had progressed:
“I think the car is feeling good, we made some good progress from FP1 onto FP2 so I’m pleased with it, hopefully tomorrow we can make another step and fight for pole that will be ideal.”
Runaway championship leader Verstappen remained his typically cool and understated self after his clean sweep on Friday, topping the timesheets in FP2 with a time of 1:28.078:
“I think it was quite a good day for us, following a bit the track. Bit slippery at the beginning but also I think that was due to the high pressure we were running in the tyres but that was the same for everyone. I think overall the car has been performing really well so really happy with that, the performance has been strong in both sessions so we could complete our programme, long runs look good aswell so, really positive.”
