Max Verstappen hit the front of the timings at the first practice session for the 2023 British GP, continuing his run of dominance this season. Sergio Perez followed behind in P2, nearly half-a-second back, and the surprise of the session was Alexander Albon, in the Williams, who set a lap good enough for third, just four hundreths back from Perez.
Photo Credit: Oracle Red Bull Racing
Sunny, blue skies met the drivers as they headed out for the first practice session of the 2023 British Grand Prix.
With many teams sporting upgrade packages ahead of the race, the drivers queued up at the end of the pit lane waiting for the green light, with aerodynamic rakes and sensors installed as they look for data gathering.
One of three of the home favorite drivers, George Russell was the first to set a lap time in the session, with a 1:33.471 on the hard tyres, which was quickly beaten by his fellow Briton Lewis Hamilton, with the times ever changing as teams and drivers got their eye into the historic circuit.
Despite setting the fastest time of the session early on of a 1:30.443, Max Verstappen reported to have “zero grip” in his RB19, and that it was getting “worse and worse” as the laps went on.
A driver very much under pressure for seat on the 2024 grid, Nyck de Vries had a not ideal start to FP1, running wide into Luffield and spinning his AlphaTauri into the grass. The Dutchman was able to get back on track without any major problems.
After a quarter of the session gone, the classified order of the top 10 was: Verstappen, Stroll, Leclerc, Sainz, Tsunoda, Hamilton, Magnussen, Russell, Gasly and Norris. At this point, many drivers were yet to set any sort of representative laps, including Sergio Perez, Fernando Alonso, the two Williams cars of Albon and Sargeant, Oscar Piastri and Zhou Guanyu.
After improving his time again to a 1:29.863, Verstappen continued to complain about a lack of grip, saying it was like “driving on ice”. Lewis Hamilton echoed his thoughts over on the Mercedes team radio, reporting “no grip”. Esteban Ocon also reported a lack of grip in his Alpine, going as far as saying it was a “disaster”.
After missing out on the early part of the session, Sergio Perez set his first competitive laps of the weekend nearly halfway through the session, getting his Red Bull up to third place, just over 0.8s back from his team-mate.
Logan Sargeant was another of the drivers who didn’t feature on track early on, but the American corrected that with a lap on the soft compound tyres, getting his Williams up to a lofty third place, just over four-and-a-half tenths off Verstappen.
Carlos Sainz moved onto the soft tyres in his Ferrari with 30 minutes remaining on the clock, getting up to first with a time of a 1:29.357, moving him just over half-a-second clear of Max Verstappen’s earlier time.
As the session reached its halfway mark, the classified order of the top 10 was: Sainz, Verstappen, Perez, Sargeant, Leclerc, Stroll, Zhou, Tsunoda, Albon and Hamilton.
Lewis Hamilton set a lap good enough for sixth on the medium tyres, just under a second behind Sainz, but reported “really bad” bouncing in his Mercedes.
Charles Leclerc followed his team-mate in going to the soft tyres, and set a lap just 0.06s slower than the Spaniard to go P2 with 25 minutes remaining on the clock.
Pierre Gasly was the next to set a competitive time on the soft tyres. Whilst the Frenchman was able to almost match Sainz’s best time over the first two sectors, he lost out with oversteer on the final sector, and ended up nearly 0.5s off the best time. His team-mate Esteban Ocon, however, hooked up a lap in his Alpine to go fastest overall, with a time of a 1:29.318 getting him to the top.
But the Frenchman was quickly usurped by Leclerc, who improved his time again to a 1:29.280 and returned to the front.
George Russell reported to have some “big vibrations” on the steering wheel of his W14 through the high-speed sections of Maggotts and Becketts, but the team didn’t call the Briton to the pits immediately, indicating it wasn’t a severe issue.
With just 15 minutes of the session remaining, the classified order of the top 10 was: Leclerc, Ocon, Sainz, De Vries, Gasly, Verstappen, Russell, Perez, Bottas, Tsunoda.
With the soft tyres fitted, Sergio Perez put a lap good enough for only third place in his Red Bull, the Mexican went 0.053s slower than Leclerc’s earlier benchmark.
Whilst Perez wasn’t able to better the Ferrari, his team-mate Verstappen smashed the field with a storming lap of a 1:28.836, putting a distance of nearly four-and-a-half tenths of a second between himself and the Monegasque.
A notable absence from the top places on the first three quarters of the session, the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso jumped up to second place, with a 1:29.268, but was quickly replaced by Alex Albon in the Williams, who put his FW45 up to P2 with a very impressive lap of a 1:29.089 putting him just a quarter of a second behind Verstappen.
Sergio Perez made it a Red Bull 1-2 with just five minutes of the session remaining, setting a time good enough to be just 0.212s slower than the Dutchman, who would go on to further improve his time to a 1:28.600, putting nearly 0.5s between himself and the Mexican.
The final classified order of the top 10 was: Verstappen, Perez, Albon, Alonso, Leclerc, Ocon, Sainz, Norris, Stroll and Piastri.
Source: F1
