By Alan Baldwin
SILVERSTONE, England (Reuters) – McLaren’s Lando Norris started his home British Grand Prix weekend in style on Friday with the top time in first practice while Red Bull rival Max Verstappen was fourth on the timesheets.
Norris lapped the Silverstone circuit with a best time of one minute 27.420 seconds on softs, 0.134 faster than Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was third and 0.211 off the pace, suffering from a late hydraulics issue, with last year’s winner and triple Formula One champion Verstappen 0.309 slower than Norris but on the medium tyres.
The Dutch driver is 81 points clear of closest rival Norris after 11 of 24 races, with the pair fighting an increasingly tight battle on the track even if the championship gap is significant.
Mercedes’ George Russell, gifted the win in Austria last weekend after Norris and Verstappen collided while fighting for the lead, was fifth with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso sixth on an overcast but dry afternoon.
Seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton, winner a record eight times in Britain, was seventh fastest ahead of the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz with Esteban Ocon 10th for Renault-owned Alpine.
The session was halted early on when RB’s Yuki Tsunoda had a slow-speed spin into the gravel.
Argentine Franco Colapinto (Williams), Isack Hadjar (Red Bull), Oliver Bearman (Haas) and Jack Doohan (Alpine) took part in first practice as young drivers building up their F1 experience.
Bearman, announced on Thursday as a 2025 Haas driver, was fastest of the F2 group in 14th with Doohan 17th, Colapinto 18th and Hadjar 20th.
Norris had to brake hurriedly to avoid hitting the back of Hadjar’s dawdling car at the end of the session.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Alison Williams)
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