Hamilton looks to get on terms with Bottas as Mercedes lead the way

A new track surface, a sprinkling of rain and blustery winds led to two error-strewn practice sessions at Silverstone on Friday.

The outcome was a mixed picture: Mercedes led the way, but one driver was happier than the other; Ferrari had good single-lap pace but their race pace is a worry; and Red Bull may be closer to their rivals than the headline times suggest.

At Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton admitted his team mate Valtteri Bottas grasped the car’s potential more quickly.

“We currently look like we’ve got good pace and particularly long-run pace looks good,” he said. “But I really struggled today if I’m really honest, I didn’t have the car beneath me. I was struggling with the rear end you saw me go off multiple times.

“Valtteri’s a lot more comfortable in the car for whatever reason. So we’re going to dig deep tonight and try to figure that out whatever that is. Of course not ruling it out or anything like that.”

We’ve seen this pattern before recently: Bottas hitting the ground running on day one, then Hamilton coming back at him on Saturday when the serious lapping begins. Tellingly, in Austria Bottas referred to past occasions when Hamilton had adopted his set-ups; nothing untoward about that of course, in fact quite normal when teams experiment with different configurations on Fridays, but it’s a sign these Friday-to-Saturday switcharounds have not escaped his attention.

In Austria Bottas became unstuck on the preparation lap for his final Q3 run – a lesson he will surely have learned from. Silverstone’s many straights will make having a slipstream in qualifying important, so we can expect more brinkmanship and last-corner shenanigans in the final minutes of Q3 on Saturday.

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Ferrari’s one-lap pace looked decent – potentially even in with a shout of taking on the Mercedes. But they were especially hard on their front tyres, which could prove limiting in the race. The cooler conditions forecast on Sunday may help them.

Red Bull’s drivers could not have contrasted more starkly in their assessments of how Friday had gone. Pierre Gasly called it his best Friday of the year; Max Verstappen described it as his worst. But the latter acknowledged he could see plenty of room for improvement in his lap time, indicating the RB15 could be in the thick of it again, particularly if its race stints are as competitive as they were in Austria.

Behind them, McLaren again seem to have made the largest year-on-year step of any team, indicating they are candidates to lead the midfield once more.

Longest stint comparison – second practice

This chart shows all the drivers’ lap times (in seconds) during their longest unbroken stint. Very slow laps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan, right-click to reset:

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Combined practice times

Pos	Driver	Car	FP1	FP2	Total laps
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1’27.629	1’26.732	53
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’28.122	1’26.801	60
3	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’28.253	1’26.929	50
4	Pierre Gasly	Red Bull-Honda	1’27.173	1’27.249	55
5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1’28.304	1’27.180	50
6	Lando Norris	McLaren-Renault	1’29.170	1’27.546	60
7	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda	1’28.009	1’27.562	52
8	Carlos Sainz Jnr	McLaren-Renault	1’29.162	1’27.987	69
9	Alexander Albon	Toro Rosso-Honda	1’29.093	1’27.997	63
10	Sergio Perez	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’29.453	1’28.002	58
11	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso-Honda	1’29.500	1’28.008	61
12	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’30.605	1’28.059	53
13	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’30.747	1’28.126	44
14	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	1’29.031	1’28.128	41
15	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1’28.803	1’28.217	54
16	Lance Stroll	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’29.657	1’28.240	61
17	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’30.099	1’28.294	51
18	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	1’30.811	1’28.794	47
19	Robert Kubica	Williams-Mercedes	1’32.121	1’29.935	63
20	George Russell	Williams-Mercedes	1’30.741	1’30.514	36

Teams’ progress vs 2018

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