Lando Norris set the pace for McLaren in first practice for Formula 1’s 2024 British Grand Prix, while the pace of team-mate Oscar Piastri and Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin kept Max Verstappen out of the top three.
But this early competitive picture around Silverstone was skewed completely by a tyre offset.
It’s not unusual for McLaren to run out of sequence with the other top F1 teams, and that’s what happened here as Norris and Piastri were the only frontrunners to use the softest (C3) Pirelli tyre in FP1.
That ranking was as follows:
SOFT TYRE ORDER
1 Norris 1m27.420s
2 Stroll 1m27.554s
3 Piastri 1m27.631s
4 Alonso 1m27.794s
5 Ocon 1m27.974s
6 Hulkenberg 1m28.082s
7 Bottas 1m28.254s
8 Ricciardo 1m28.477s
9 Bearman 1m28.536s
10 Zhou 1m28.590s
11 Albon 1m28.649s
12 Doohan 1m28.735s
13 Colapinto 1m29.078s
This tells us very little except that Aston Martin’s upgraded front wing seems to be working quite well straight out of the box, and that the Haas is straight into the thick of the upper-midfield fight with Alpine even before Nico Hulkenberg takes the benefit of the substantial upgrade the team has brought to this race.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the RB is again not working brilliantly on a high-speed track, nor is the Williams - which tends to still be quite wind-sensitive.
Mercedes looking strong?
The running on the hard and medium compounds perhaps gives us a slightly better read on things, as these compounds were used by Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari.
The hard tyre ranking is affected by the fact that tyre was generally used early on in the session when the track was improving at its fastest rate, but it was also the only tyre used by each of the top four teams.
The most notable thing in this phase was how quickly and consistently the two Mercedes were up to speed, underlining the team’s feeling it is relatively more competitive early in a weekend when the track is lacking grip and conditions are cooler (only 22C track temperature here).
Both were lapping faster than Verstappen’s Red Bull and only eclipsed by a later (though impressive) lap (on a slightly faster track) by Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari.
The McLarens were both a little off the pace in this phase too, although the caveat here is that Lando Norris was a bit late out and didn’t do many laps on the hard.
HARD TYRE ORDER
1 Sainz 1m27.925s
2 Hamilton 1m28.043s
3 Russell 1m28.046s
4 Verstappen 1m28.370s
5 Piastri 1m28.469s
6 Alonso 1m28.558s
7 Leclerc 1m28.616s
8 Norris 1m28.770s
9 Ocon 1m28.982s
10 Ricciardo 1m29.160s
11 Albon 1m29.245s
Hitting a limit on the medium
When Verstappen, the Mercedes drivers and the Ferrari drivers all fitted the medium compound, it was noticeable they all struggled to find much of a gain, even compared to their own baseline runs on that tyre.
MEDIUM TYRE ORDER
1 Verstappen 1m27.729s
2 Russell 1m27.738s
3 Hamilton 1m27.858s
4 Leclerc 1m27.903s
5 Sainz 1m28.067s
6 Stroll 1m28.426s
Verstappen did two laps within 0.05s of each other, while George Russell shaved off less than 0.04s between his first and second fliers on that tyre. Lewis Hamilton went slower on his second effort, as did Charles Leclerc, while Sainz actually failed to improve on the earlier lap he set on the hard tyre.
The gap between Stroll’s Aston and the others on this tyre is perhaps more representative of the car’s true pace than his headline time on the soft.
How the four rookies got on
Four rookies ran in this session: 2025 Haas signing Ollie Bearman replaced Kevin Magussen at Haas, Jack Doohan took over Pierre Gasly’s Alpine, Isack Hadjar drove Sergio Perez’s Red Bull and Franco Colapinto took over Logan Sargeant’s Williams.
Bearman started with consecutive laps on the hard tyre in the upgraded Haas and his pace compared decently to Nico Hulkenberg, who was on mediums.
Oh no, Yuki!