Carlos Sainz lands his paw in the second free practice session of the British GP, after the useless first session conditioned by the rain. The Spaniard in the qualifying simulation reached 1’28 “942 on soft tires. Ferrari immediately seemed at ease on the fast corners of Silverstone, but the surprise of the day is certainly Lewis Hamilton who placed the Mercedes in second place. with the W13 just 163 thousandths off the top.
The seven-time world champion shot the clock with the second train of reds, when the track was in great evolution, but the leap in quality of the silver arrow with the new aerodynamic configuration is undeniable, even if the Englishman had way of complaining about the hopping at high speeds that also occurs in the corners.
The fact that Lando Norris has climbed to third place with McLaren, coming within 13 thousandths of Lewis, indicates that, perhaps, the values are not yet the right ones. It is therefore not surprising that the two contenders in the world championship are further back: Max Verstappen is fourth with a time of 1’29 “149. The round for the world champion was difficult: first he suffered an annoying noise on the bottom , then it turned out to be a break. The mechanics tried to put a carbon patch on to keep it spinning and allow it to gather information in the mini long run.
The Red Bull streamlined in the bonnet area did not impress, especially as Sergio Perez finished only seventh after having dedicated himself to running for a long time with medium tires: his 10th gap from Sainz highlights that we must not be influenced too much by performance. . And Charles Leclerc is missing from the list, only fifth at the end with a gap of four tenths from his teammate.
The Monegasque flew with the medium tire, while he seemed in difficulty with the soft: he aborted the first attempt due to a burr and then he never found the right lap, preferring to devote himself to the race simulation. In this case the values seem more truthful and Mercedes seems able to keep up with both Ferrari and Red Bull, while McLaren with Norris only managed to shoot one lap.
The Alpine with the bellies in the Ferrari version gave Fernando Alonso a smile, sixth ahead of Sergio Perez, while Esteban Ocon who worked harder for the race. Attention to George Russell: the Englishman spent a lot of time in a simulation with the hard and then lost a piece of the fund, but in the long run he found a consistency of performance that indicates a silver arrow to keep in great attention.
The top 10 is completed with Daniel Ricciardo with the second McLaren ahead of Lance Stroll with Aston Martin. The Canadian is ahead of Sebastian Vettel, 12th, but the German broke the bottom on a curb. Between the two “verdone” Valtteri Bottas got in with the Alfa Romeo which is on the sidelines of Q3.
Alexander Albon is 14th with the Williams FW44 (B): the Thai Anglo was not impressed by the position, but by the time: he trimmed over a second to his teammate Nicholas Latifi relegated to last place with the standard version of the Grove car . And that was enough to understand that they have taken the right path for development …
Guanyu Zhou with the second Alfa Romeo is 15th ahead of samurai Tsunoda with the AlphaTauri: Yuki is 16th and managed to do better than Pierre Hasly in difficulty with the AT02. Kevin Magnussen is 17th with Haas and Mick Schumacher is 19th even if only one tenth behind his teammate from Denmark.
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