Lance Stroll, Racing Point, Silverstone, 2020

Stroll quickest as Albon crash disrupts session

2020 British Grand Prix second practice

Posted on

| Written by

Racing Point ended a hectic 24 hours on top of the times as Friday practice came to an close.

The team, which hurried to find a short-notice replacement for Sergio Perez after he tested positive for Covid-19, saw the sister car of Lance Stroll head the times in second practice.

Stroll’s presence at the top owed something to the disruption to the session caused by a heavy crash for Alexander Albon. The Red Bull driver’s car snapped sideways at Stowe and spun backwards into a barrier, damaging the rear and the front-left corner. Albon climbed out uninjured, but the impact was heavy enough that the Medical Car was sent to the scene, and the session was briefly red-flagged.

Albon crashed on his second flying lap on soft tyres. His team mate, Max Verstappen, had already been forced to abandon his qualifying simulation after he caught a slow Romain Grosjean in the middle of the Maggotts-Beckets complex.

Other drivers had to abandon their flying laps when the red flags came out. That left Stroll on top ahead of Albon, followed by Valtteri Bottas and Charles Leclerc.

The Ferrari looked like a handful, however. Sebastian Vettel was at least able to set laps in his repaired car having sat out most of first practice, but ended the day in 18th place. He had a few off-track moments on the way, and had to pit to have a loose part extracted from his footwell.

Carlos Sainz Jnr took sixth place behind Lewis Hamilton, followed by Perez’s replacement Nico Hulkenberg, continued his steady improvement in seventh place.

The top 10 was completed by Pierre Gasly, Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen, meaning eight different cars finished in the first half of time times sheet.

Nicholas Latifi ended the session at the bottom of the times, and spun his Williams in the final minutes.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
118Lance StrollRacing Point-Mercedes1’27.27429
223Alexander AlbonRed Bull-Honda1’27.3640.09013
377Valtteri BottasMercedes1’27.4310.15730
416Charles LeclercFerrari1’27.5700.29630
544Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’27.5810.30727
655Carlos Sainz JnrMcLaren-Renault1’27.8200.54635
727Nico HulkenbergRacing Point-Mercedes1’27.9100.63628
810Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri-Honda1’27.9970.72331
93Daniel RicciardoRenault1’28.1120.83830
107Kimi RaikkonenAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’28.1590.88535
114Lando NorrisMcLaren-Renault1’28.1690.89526
1231Esteban OconRenault1’28.2190.94535
1399Antonio GiovinazziAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’28.2560.98231
1433Max VerstappenRed Bull-Honda1’28.3901.11623
1526Daniil KvyatAlphaTauri-Honda1’28.4261.15229
168Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari1’28.5641.29027
1763George RussellWilliams-Mercedes1’28.7711.49726
185Sebastian VettelFerrari1’28.8601.58623
1920Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1’28.8981.62427
206Nicholas LatifiWilliams-Mercedes1’29.9582.68435

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Second practice visual gaps

Lance Stroll – 1’27.274

+0.090 Alexander Albon – 1’27.364

+0.157 Valtteri Bottas – 1’27.431

+0.296 Charles Leclerc – 1’27.570

+0.307 Lewis Hamilton – 1’27.581

+0.546 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’27.820

+0.636 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’27.910

+0.723 Pierre Gasly – 1’27.997

+0.838 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’28.112

+0.885 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’28.159

+0.895 Lando Norris – 1’28.169

+0.945 Esteban Ocon – 1’28.219

+0.982 Antonio Giovinazzi – 1’28.256

+1.116 Max Verstappen – 1’28.390

+1.152 Daniil Kvyat – 1’28.426

+1.290 Romain Grosjean – 1’28.564

+1.497 George Russell – 1’28.771

+1.586 Sebastian Vettel – 1’28.860

+1.624 Kevin Magnussen – 1’28.898

+2.684 Nicholas Latifi – 1’29.958

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

2020 British Grand Prix

Browse all 2020 British Grand Prix articles

Author information

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...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

24 comments on “Stroll quickest as Albon crash disrupts session”

  1. what happened to alfa romeo? suddenly gained more than a second? I’m happy for that, but I’m missing something

    1. Jose Lopes da Silva
      31st July 2020, 17:56

      Raikkonen is a Silverstone specialist. Is was usually faster than Vettel here.

      1. Indeed. I wish him well this weekend.

      2. Which proves how bad vet is, Gio is woeful and a tenth behind lol

  2. I hope Williams charge heavy amount of money to the Latifis.

  3. Not too bad of a job by Hülkenberg. If he continues to reduce the gap every session, he might be on Strolls pace come Sunday. But a podium is probably out of his reach.

    1. But a podium is probably out of his reach.

      lets hope so.. if he sees one he has the habit of ruining his own race.
      A pity btw one of the most sympathetic drivers in the field.

    2. I think he might have a better chance for the second race, being able to spend a week in the simulator will probably help him a ton too

    3. I’m also a bit worried that he chokes again. In case he suddenly runs top 3 during race, his race engineer should simply tell him he’s in 5th or something.

  4. Why (or how) is Grosjean still in F1, I wonder….

    1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
      31st July 2020, 18:01

      Are you basing this on what he did in practice? HAAS are awful at telling their drivers of approaching traffic.

      They have actually said in the past that that they don’t warn their drivers of approaching traffic which I think is a joke. This is noticeable in the race too as it is Grosjean and Magnussen that get in the way far more than other drivers. But this is heavily down to poor communication in the team.

      I don’t want to do a long list again, But Grosjean over the past season and a half has looked better than Magnussen despite what the results show. But many just seem to be against him rather than Magnussen. Both deserve more credit than they get. It is the team and how things work there that I think is a mess.

      1. @thegianthogweed – I don’t know, nothing they’ve done over the past year has seemed like they outperformed the car. But I would agree that they have suffered a lot of unreliability, and that makes it very difficult to judge.

        Apologies if my two disagreements in two days appear targeted, they are not.

        @fer-no65 – I’m not sure what you are pointing to specifically here. But generally, I think he’s had enough time and should probably go.

      2. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
        31st July 2020, 19:50

        @hobo

        I never thought that you intended to be against me twice. No issues there!

        Watching them both very closely last season, I think both of them had their moments that showed they still are pretty capable drivers. Magnussen always seems to start his season well and Grosjean had several solid races towards the end of last year. Brazil was seriously under rated. A podium was in sight due to the circumstances as he was on the same strategy as Sainz and he was ahead at the restart then had an MGU-K failure. With all the chaos that went on, 4th will have almost certainly been his lowest result that race, which was certainly outstanding. I think people don’t remember Grosjean’s performances last year simply because he looked to be terrible – based on his points. Many also seem to be triggered to point out any tiny negative of Grosjean’s season because of that spin he had in the pit lane in Britain. This was silly, but let it go – it was just practice. Since then especially, people seem to focus on seeing the tiny negatives and just don’t see that a lot of the time, he’s actually been reasonable given how poor the car is.

        He had 7 retirements last year which really made him look worse than he was. Many seemed determined to think that he must have been responsible for virtually all of them, when the only one he can share any of the blame was in Britain. I think most just think back to his 2018 season (which was terrible – I rated him as the worst driver on the grid in the mid season driver rankings) and base everything off that as he hasn’t really had much in the way of luck to visually show his decent performances. I’ve noticed quite a few, but others don’t seem to have. His luck over the past year and a half has possibly been the worst of any driver in the hybrid era. Obviously, and sort of understandable, people don’t have much sympathy for him. But if you look at his performances and read some of Haas’s reports on their races, it does look tough driving for them. The car just is so inconsistent and I think both drivers better than their results suggest a lot of the time. A lot of problems for drivers outside of the points in lower teams just don’t seem to be discussed – meaning that a lot of people just assume is is all down to the drivers being rubbish.

        I think they have both shown (when looking in more detail) that they are both good enough to still be on the grid.

    2. I hope Grosjean was given some sort of official reprimand for his behaviour on the track. He ruins someone else’s test session, and then says he did it deliberately. I’m sure Guenther doesn’t need this adding to the stress he’s already got. The last thing he wants is an angry Christian Horner on the phone. What’s he going to say when Gene Haas rings up for an update?

      1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
        31st July 2020, 22:00

        @drycrust

        How much more obvious could it be that that was a sarcastic comment? ….. He made a mistake but Verstappen made far to big a deal of it by staying along side for well over 10 seconds which was pointless. What was done had been done. I think the over reaction by verstappen triggered Grosjean’s silly comment. It was one lap and you have an hour and a half. It didn’t cost verstappen a huge amount as it was just a single lap which doesn’t count for anything as it is just practice. Verstappen himself has done significantly worse than this in practice before which was actually considered dangerous and he was reprimanded for it. Grosjean could have done a better job at getting out the way, but Haas apparently don’t tell their drives about drivers on fast runs which baffles me. But Verstappen didn’t need to create the amount of fuss he did. You yourself are somewhat over reacting if you imply it ruined Verstappen’s session.

        1. Thanks for the critique. I had wondered if there was a bit of “history” behind Romain’s action. So I probably was making more of it than I should have too.

  5. Ferrari and merc ran super small rear wings, silverstone is turning into monza. the g meter on that 1st sector is ridiculous, hulk must be aching.
    I don’t get all the Sainz talk, in hindsight rb should have not used him as a bargaining chip, on the other hand, Hulk and max trounced sainz. normal q day both had .2/.3 on carlos and on race pace over a pitstop. Albon to my eyes seems to be as competitive as sainz was, staggering deficit to max but I believe Alex can do better.

    1. Jose Lopes da Silva
      31st July 2020, 22:33

      Maybe Silverstone is returning to pre-1991 configuration, yeah.

  6. So I take it from FP2 that last year’s Merc has better balance around Silverstone than the W11. Comeon Toto and James, I suggest you wheel out the W10 so we can have somewhat of a spec series for the top 4.

  7. About 2 seconds off last years qualifying pace so either teams aren’t at full speed yet or the hot weather meant the tyres weren’t working as well.

  8. I read on f1 website that high track temp in FP2 made the track more slippery, can someone explain why this happens, science behind it?

    1. @asaumya higher track temp means higher tyre temp which leads to more graining and thus more sliding.

      1. @paulk thanks … got it

Comments are closed.