Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Silverstone, 2020

Mercedes sweep all three practice sessions, Norris third for McLaren

2020 70th Anniversary Grand Prix third practice

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Mercedes completed a clean sweep of all three practice sessions as Lewis Hamilton set the quickest time ahead of qualifying on Saturday morning.

Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas concentrated their efforts throughout the session on the fragile soft tyres. Hamilton posted a best lap of 1’26.621 which left him a tenth of a second ahead of his team mate.

Max Verstappen, who also exclusively used the soft tyres, was frustrated by traffic on his last flying run, which confined him to seventh-fastest. Lando Norris, however, used his only run on anything other than the soft tyres so far this weekend to set the third-quickest time. His lap on mediums left him half a second shy of Hamilton.

There was almost nothing to choose between the Racing Point pair. Nico Hulkenberg was fourth fastest as he continued to acclimatise to the RP20 in his second weekend with the team. Lance Stroll was just seven-thousandths of a second slower, the pair having both used softs.

Ferrari were the only team to sample all three tyre compounds during the session. Charles Leclerc took sixth, but Sebastian Vettel continued to labour down in 13th, the pair having both taken new power units since yesterday.

Alexander Albon was within two hundredths of a second of Verstappen, while Esteban Ocon completed the top 10.

Aside from McLaren and Ferrari, Haas were the only team to run a tyre other than the soft, giving Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen a chance to sample the hard rubber.

With track temperature reaching 40C in another warm session, none of the drivers improved their best lap times from second practice.

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Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
144Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’26.62115
277Valtteri BottasMercedes1’26.7840.16316
34Lando NorrisMcLaren-Renault1’27.2020.58120
427Nico HulkenbergRacing Point-Mercedes1’27.2560.63516
518Lance StrollRacing Point-Mercedes1’27.2630.64215
616Charles LeclercFerrari1’27.3280.70718
733Max VerstappenRed Bull-Honda1’27.4550.83412
823Alexander AlbonRed Bull-Honda1’27.4740.85315
931Esteban OconRenault1’27.4960.87515
1055Carlos Sainz JnrMcLaren-Renault1’27.6271.00622
1110Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri-Honda1’27.6591.03815
1226Daniil KvyatAlphaTauri-Honda1’27.7541.13318
135Sebastian VettelFerrari1’27.8111.19020
143Daniel RicciardoRenault1’27.8151.19412
158Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari1’28.0761.45515
166Nicholas LatifiWilliams-Mercedes1’28.1251.50414
1763George RussellWilliams-Mercedes1’28.3491.72817
1899Antonio GiovinazziAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’28.4681.84713
197Kimi RaikkonenAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’28.5381.91712
2020Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1’28.7632.14216

Third practice visual gaps

Lewis Hamilton – 1’26.621

+0.163 Valtteri Bottas – 1’26.784

+0.581 Lando Norris – 1’27.202

+0.635 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’27.256

+0.642 Lance Stroll – 1’27.263

+0.707 Charles Leclerc – 1’27.328

+0.834 Max Verstappen – 1’27.455

+0.853 Alexander Albon – 1’27.474

+0.875 Esteban Ocon – 1’27.496

+1.006 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’27.627

+1.038 Pierre Gasly – 1’27.659

+1.133 Daniil Kvyat – 1’27.754

+1.190 Sebastian Vettel – 1’27.811

+1.194 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’27.815

+1.455 Romain Grosjean – 1’28.076

+1.504 Nicholas Latifi – 1’28.125

+1.728 George Russell – 1’28.349

+1.847 Antonio Giovinazzi – 1’28.468

+1.917 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’28.538

+2.142 Kevin Magnussen – 1’28.763

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

PosDriverCarFP1FP2FP3Fri/Sat diffTotal laps
1Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’26.3041’25.6061’26.621+1.01559
2Valtteri BottasMercedes1’26.1661’25.7821’26.784+1.00258
3Daniel RicciardoRenault1’28.5111’26.4211’27.815+1.39463
4Max VerstappenRed Bull-Honda1’26.8931’26.4371’27.455+1.01850
5Lance StrollRacing Point-Mercedes1’27.5391’26.5011’27.263+0.76264
6Nico HulkenbergRacing Point-Mercedes1’26.9421’26.7461’27.256+0.5166
7Charles LeclercFerrari1’27.0621’26.8121’27.328+0.51669
8Lando NorrisMcLaren-Renault1’27.8461’26.8671’27.202+0.33571
9Carlos Sainz JnrMcLaren-Renault1’28.1381’26.9181’27.627+0.70973
10Esteban OconRenault1’27.7011’26.9281’27.496+0.56862
11Alexander AlbonRed Bull-Honda1’27.2801’26.9601’27.474+0.51461
12Daniil KvyatAlphaTauri-Honda1’27.6531’27.0021’27.754+0.75277
13Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri-Honda1’27.7071’27.1281’27.659+0.53169
14Sebastian VettelFerrari1’27.4981’27.1981’27.811+0.61370
15Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari1’27.9081’27.2941’28.076+0.78268
16George RussellWilliams-Mercedes1’28.1701’27.3201’28.349+1.02971
17Kimi RaikkonenAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’28.6551’27.5351’28.538+1.00365
18Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1’29.3191’27.5821’28.763+1.18161
19Nicholas LatifiWilliams-Mercedes1’28.2261’27.6831’28.125+0.44269
20Antonio GiovinazziAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’27.9551’28.468+0.51339
21Robert KubicaAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’28.96022

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2020 70th Anniversary Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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6 comments on “Mercedes sweep all three practice sessions, Norris third for McLaren”

  1. So the interesting part of qualifying and the race will stay 3rd downwards then?

    1. The interesting part of this GP is the battle off the track.

    2. Glad someones noticed. The cry has been get rid of the Mercs to make the show more interesting, but instead of two close at the front at least fighting it out in qualifying and the occasional race, we would have one driver clearly on his own in qualifying and the race. Max is a lock in for third, and at least given the right circumstances; rain, etc. we know he is capable of fighting those at the front.

      1. I kinda get the feeling Red Bull are starting to slide backwards towards the midfield more than they’re moving forwards to Mercedes. Barring any unforseen circumstances, it’s a Merc 1-2, such is their advantage. It’s a shame though in many ways as everyone else behind them seem quite bunched up.

      2. Yes, like I said on another page, I think there’d be more competition without mercedes, at this point force india is closer to red bull than red bull is to merc. Ferrari also is at times competitive, even this year.

        1. And so is mclaren, however they and ferrari aren’t as consistent as red bull and force india; renault also improved this year.

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