Lando Norris topped a drizzly first practice at the British Grand Prix from Lance Stroll.
Norris set the benchmark at 1m27.420s with a late lap on soft tires, pipping Aston Martin’s Stroll to top spot by 0.134s. It wasn’t a perfect first session for McLaren’s home race, however as Oscar Piastri retired from the session in the final 10 minutes with a suspected hydraulics failure.
The Australian was third in the order and 0.211s adrift of his leading teammate when he suffered the issue on a flying lap. He attempted to roll back to his garage, but his car ran out of momentum in the pit lane entry, forcing a temporary closure of pit lane for marshals to push the car back to its rightful place.
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McLaren has brought a series of car upgrades to Silverstone, including an engine cover, rear wing and a series of beam wings to play with. Norris, however, started the session with an old-specification front wing and equipped with aero rakes on his front suspension to verify the upgrades brought to the car last weekend in Austria before committing to its latest update package.
Title leader Max Verstappen — equipped with a new floor this weekend — finished the session fourth and 0.309s adrift, but the Dutchman never used the soft tire, with his fastest time coming on a set of mediums. George Russell in fourth likewise eschewed the fastest compound in favor of the medium and lapped an impressive 0.009s behind Verstappen.
Fernando Alonso wielded his upgraded Aston Martin to sixth ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz within 0.5s, the latter three all on medium tires.
Esteban Ocon was Alpine’s quickest drivers in 10th ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo down to 13th.
Oliver Bearman, announced earlier this week as a full-time driver for Haas in 2025, was 14th quickest in his third of sixth FP1 appearances with the American team, this week coming at the expense of Kevin Magnussen. The Ferrari-backed Englishman was 1.1s off the pace and 0.5s behind Hulkenberg in the sister car.
Zhou Guanyu was 15th for Sauber ahead of Alex Albon for Williams in 16th as the last of the full-time drivers to see the checkered flag in the session.
Jack Doohan mostly made up for his lost FP1 in rained-out Canada by completing 22 laps of Silverstone, the Alpine reserve driver standing in for potential 2025 teammate Pierre Gasly, though the Australian lost some time to garage work on a suspected left-rear rear brake issue. Doohan was 1.3s off the pace and 0.8s behind Ocon.
Formula 2 race winner Franco Colapinto took Logan Sargeant’s Williams car to 18th, the Argentine 1.7s off the pace and 0.4s behind Albon.
Isack Hadjar had a messy 15-lap outing substituting for Sergio Perez at Red Bull Racing. The French F2 title contender was caught dawdling on the racing line through the rapid left-sweeping Farm bend after Abbey when he was caught by a rapid Norris on a flying lap. The McLaren driver had to hit the brakes, locking up and running off the track to avoid an accident.
Hadjar signaled an apology to Norris as the orange car sped past. The incident will be investigated after the session. He ended the session 1.9s off the pace and 1.5s behind Verstappen in the sister car.
Yuki Tsunoda ended the session last after completing just five laps before spinning off the road at Luffield only nine minutes into the hour. His car was beached in the stones, required a seven-minute red flag to collect and leaving him down on track time.
