Formula 1 · Practice Report

Hamilton Sets Silverstone Alight as Ferrari Leads the Only Practice Session

With no second or third practice to fall back on this Sprint weekend, Lewis Hamilton made the single hour of running at Silverstone count — and gave the home crowd exactly the start they wanted.

There was only ever going to be one hour of practice before Silverstone’s cars were locked into parc ferme conditions for the rest of the Sprint weekend, and Lewis Hamilton made sure it was an hour worth remembering. The Ferrari driver topped FP1 with a 1:29.260, a late lap on the soft C3 tyre that pushed him 0.213 seconds clear of championship leader Kimi Antonelli and gave the home crowd precisely the headline they’d travelled for. On a circuit where he already holds nine wins and seven poles, it was one more reminder that Hamilton’s relationship with this track hasn’t dimmed with age.

A late lap that flipped the session

For much of the hour, it was Antonelli setting the tone. The Mercedes rookie produced what looked at the time like the standout lap of the session, moving nearly half a second clear of teammate George Russell and giving little indication that anyone would find more. Hamilton had that answer ready. Switching to the C3 compound late in the session, he extracted more from corner exits than anyone else on track, turning a tidy lap into a decisive one.

Antonelli had briefly appeared to have produced the standout lap of FP1, going nearly half a second clear of Russell, only for Hamilton to respond with a cleaner and more experienced lap on the C3 tyre. — F1-Fansite, British GP FP1 report

Charles Leclerc backed his teammate up in third, though the margin told a slightly less comfortable story for Ferrari’s other side of the garage — the Monegasque ended up 0.599 seconds off Hamilton’s benchmark, still enough to put two Ferraris inside the top three heading into Sprint Qualifying, but with a clear target now set for him to chase.

A rough hour for McLaren, a quiet one for Red Bull

Oscar Piastri produced the session’s clearest flashpoint, losing the rear of his McLaren through the high-speed Becketts complex and sliding into the run-off. He avoided the barriers, but not the consequences — the moment wrecked the tyre set he’d been on and left him without a truly representative read on the car’s pace, even as he classified fifth on the timesheet. Lando Norris fared little better in sentiment if not in incident, ending up seventh and over a second off Hamilton’s time.

We’re a long way behind. — Lando Norris, on McLaren’s position after a difficult Austrian GP the previous weekend

McLaren team principal Zak Brown acknowledged afterwards that the drivers weren’t yet happy with the car’s balance, though he expressed confidence that more performance is still to arrive over the coming races. Red Bull’s session, meanwhile, raised its own quieter question. Max Verstappen ended up sixth, closer to the front than in recent rounds but not close enough to suggest the upgraded RB22’s strong Austrian form has fully carried over to Silverstone’s faster, more aerodynamically demanding layout. Further back, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar showed early promise in the midfield before reporting the car felt “not super nice” at the rear, a complaint that dropped him well outside the session’s early pace-setters by the end of the hour.

Why this practice session mattered more than usual

On a normal weekend, a single practice session wouldn’t carry much weight. But Silverstone’s Sprint format means FP1 was the only opportunity teams had to fine-tune a car before it goes into parc ferme for the remainder of the weekend — no FP2, no FP3, and no further set-up changes before Sprint Qualifying gets underway later on Friday. That compressed timeline turns even small mistakes, like Piastri’s moment at Becketts, into a costlier proposition than they’d be on a conventional weekend.

• Pirelli brought the C1, C2 and C3 compounds to Silverstone, with the soft C3 used for the fastest laps of the session.
• Mercedes has won seven of the first eight Grands Prix in 2026 and remains the team to beat on raw season form.
• Last year’s quickest FP1 lap time at Silverstone was a 1:26.892, set by Hamilton in the Ferrari SF-25 — a useful marker of how much slower 2026’s cars are running here.
• Russell now heads into Sprint Qualifying chasing both Hamilton’s Ferrari and his own teammate, while still hunting a first home Grand Prix win.

None of this settles anything — FP1 rarely does. But with parc ferme now in effect and Sprint Qualifying looming, Ferrari heads into the next session with genuine momentum, Mercedes with a shade of doubt it didn’t have an hour earlier, and Silverstone’s famously demanding layout still to deliver its harshest verdict yet on how the 2026 generation of cars actually performs when it matters.