Lando Norris has started his home British Grand Prix weekend on the front foot, not only leading Friday practice but also blitzing teammate and title leader Oscar Piastri over a single lap.
But the Briton can’t be completely comfortable at the top of the time sheet.
Ferrari, having upgraded its car in Austria last weekend, was genuinely fast throughout Friday, with Lewis Hamilton topping FP1 and Charles Leclerc second-quickest to Norris at the end of the day.
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And with conditions set to deteriorate from Saturday to Sunday, Mercedes is hoping it will come into play for pole and the race.
McLaren starts with the advantage, but it’s not the safe lead it enjoyed in Austria.
WHAT’S BEHIND PIASTRI’S BIG GAP TO NORRIS?
The biggest question ahead of the British Grand Prix weekend was whether Norris could finally generate some momentum for himself after his imperious performance in Austria.
Friday in Silverstone suggested he’s ready to kick on.
While the extent of McLaren’s advantage is uncertain, his lead over teammate Piastri was significant, at 0.47 seconds.
It was more than twice his 0.222-second advantage over second-placed Leclerc, and even Hamilton, 0.301 seconds off the pace, slotted between the McLaren teammates.
The hefty margin came from three key moments around the track.
The first was on the brakes for Village, turn 3, where Norris is later on the brakes and gains around 0.1 seconds, though a worse exit from the Loop, turn 4, means Piastri makes almost all that back down the Wellington Straight.
But it’s into the next sequence of corners that Norris takes a decisive lead. He’s later on the brakes into both Brooklands and Luffield, carrying almost 10 kilometres per hour more speed to the apex of the long right-hander. Piastri is a little earlier on the throttle, but he loses another 0.2 seconds through this section.
Piastri gains about 0.1 seconds back with less of a lift through Copse, but he’s less efficient through Maggotts and Becketts, where Norris is earlier on the throttle through Chapel to give himself a massive speed advantage down the Hangar Straight, costing Piastri another 0.2 seconds.
Norris deals the final blow at the Vale chicane, where he’s better on the brakes to put himself almost half a second clear.
“The soft was a very strong lap,” Norris acknowledged. “Still some trickiness out there. It wasn’t like to flowed as easily as I would have liked, but still it was a strong lap to do in FP2.”
Piastri was unperturbed by the margin, however.
“A good first day, I think,” he said. “I think we looked all right.
“The FP2 the soft tyre was a little bit messy for me, but I think the potential is definitely there, and the long-runs look pretty solid as well.
“I think if I can piece things together, we’ll be very competitive, but it just was not a great lap, and with these tyres around here you pretty much get one shot, so my second attempt was pretty decent considering the tyres, so I’m pretty relaxed.”
For what it’s worth, Piastri improved his final sector by 0.1 seconds with his second lap on used softs, reducing his theoretical best lap by 0.1 seconds — which still wouldn’t have been enough to move him into the top three.
The Australian is confident, but he’ll have to put it all together in final practice.
PIT TALK PODCAST: Is Lando Norris back in the championship fight, and how will Oscar Piastri respond in Silverstone? Listen to Pit Talk below.
FERRARI IS GENUINELY IN THE POLE BATTLE
Piastri’s deficit was one of two big surprises on Friday. Ferrari’s pace was the other.
Hamilton topped FP1, and though he fell behind both Norris and teammate Leclerc by the end of the day, just 0.3 seconds separated the three cars.
Leclerc was only 0.222 seconds adrift, and telemetry suggests that’s easily accounted for in slow corners — exiting the Loop and exiting Luffield.
In fact Ferrari is faster than McLaren through the fast corners — Leclerc gains around 1.5 seconds on Norris through Maggotts and Becketts.
Crucially he achieves this without appearing to carry more downforce; Ferrari is a match for McLaren down the straights.
“The day was good,” Leclerc said. “We’ve been pretty strong so far. It’s positive.”
More promising still is that Ferrari’s race pace continued to look strong.
“I think we still need to find some pace in qualifying — McLaren is once again probably the car to beat at the moment — but in race pace I was happy,” Leclerc continued. “I’m finding my way.
“In the race I’m really happy with where we are. I think we are very strong in the race. We’ve got to do a step forward in qualifying.”
The result meant the paddock caught a rare sighting of an upbeat Hamilton after Friday practice, with the Briton particularly pleased to see Ferrari keep in touch with McLaren and move ahead of Red Bull Racing despite bringing no new part to this weekend.
“It was a really good day,” he said. “It’s amazing to be out on track in a Ferrari here at Silverstone, It’s pretty incredible.
“Red Bull and McLaren had an upgrade, so for us to be in the mix still given they’ve had a step today is really positive.
“I’m progressing a lot now with the car. I’m much more comfortable knowing where it needs to be. I think by FP2 we still weren’t where we needed to be, so we definitely struggled a little bit more, but we know the changes that we need to make for the next session.”
It had the Briton — a record nine-time Silverstone winner on a 12-race home podium streak — thinking big about his result.
“I definitely feel that we can dream of having a strong weekend for sure,” he said. “Executing and putting it all together and extracting it is another thing.
“I’ll prepare myself the best I can to make sure we get the best result. I think tomorrow there’s rain potentially coming and also on Sunday as well, so we’ve just got to try our hardest to make sure we’re ready for that.”
It left McLaren wary of its prospect for qualifying and the race.
“I think we have a bit of work to do, to be honest,” Norris said. “It looks maybe a bit too good today.”
Bottas set to replace Colapinto? | 01:10
VERSTAPPEN STRUGGLES AS HORNER FENDS OFF CONTRACT QUESTIONS
Despite having brought upgrades to both Austria and now the UK, Red Bull Racing seems further off the mark than it has been, particularly over a single lap.
As is now customary, Max Verstappen complained over team radio of an inconsistent and unhappy balance, with his car understeering through the slow corners but snapping through the high-speed turns.
His FP2 lap put him 0.498 seconds off the pace with a car that was clearly carrying much less downforce than those ahead of him, it being much faster down the straights but notably slower through the slow corners in particular.
There’s less to differentiate cars through the high-speed corners in the ground-effect era because they inherently produce so much downforce when travelling at speed. Wing levels are more influential on slow-speed performance and drag down the straights.
Verstappen was more competitive during the long-run simulations, but the Dutchman was pessimistic that his car was genuinely in the mix.
“For me personally it was quite a bad day,” he said. “I just no balance in the car. It’s very difficult corner to corner as well, so quite a poor day for us in general.
“We have maybe a few [ideas] that we’ll look at, but I think overall we’re just lacking a bit of performance.”
It’s not great timing for Red Bull Racing’s struggles to be highlighted given the ongoing speculation over Verstappen’s talks with Mercedes over a potential switch.
If Verstappen were to choose to leave the team, its struggles to develop the car in the last two seasons would be thought to be key to his decision-making.
Much like last year, it seems upgrades to this car make it only more difficult to drive, with even the prodigious Verstappen pushed to his limit.
It’s worth noting that Yuki Tsunoda, still not with the same car specification as his teammate, was 1.164 seconds off the pace.
Speaking earlier in the day, Horner acknowledged the importance of succession planning given Verstappen’s critical importance to the team’s performance.
“Max is a key part of our team and has been for pretty much 10 years now,” he said. “The intention is to keep that going.
“But one day, whether it’s the year after or the year after, there will be a day that there is no more Max.
“You always have to have that in mind, that the team always has to keep looking and investing in the future.
“Hopefully that won’t be for several years to come, but you never know, so you’re always investing in young talent.
“One thing for sure in this business is nothing stands still.”
Horner couldn’t say categorically that his star driver would continue racing for his team next season.
“With any driver’s contract there is an element of a performance mechanism, and of course that exists within Max’s contract,” he said. “His intention is that he will be there and driving for us in 2026.
“I think the most important thing is the clarity that exists between Max and the team, and that’s very clear.”
‘Oh s***, he’s on me!’ | 00:58
WHAT’S THE WEATHER DOING?
This is a crucially important question not just for the British fans, for whom summer appears to have abated this weekend, but also for Mercedes, which is reliant on the forecast for performance.
Despite the blimp of a warm-weather victory in Canada, the high-speed Silverstone circuit demonstrated Mercedes’s performance problems in the heat remain unresolved.
FP2 started with the track at around 40°C. Although that’s around 10°C cooler than in the race in Canada, the Silverstone layout is far more punishing of the tyres, pumping energy into them around the high-speed sweeps in a way the chicane-dominated Canada simply doesn’t.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli was the team’s fastest driver but lapped 0.567 seconds off the pace, and Mercedes’s long-run performance was similarly uninspiring.
But George Russell was hopeful that the forecast for cooler and potentially even damp conditions could bring his team back into the picture.
“We’re hoping for the rest of the weekend it cools down,” he said. “It’s a little bit frustrating for us that every single week we race at the mercy of the weather.
“We need to improve that, especially now we’re entering the summer months. We’re doing everything we can to improve it.
“I think our fortunes will turn slightly for the rest of the weekend and it will come towards us, but as I said, we can’t be at the mercy of the weather, and we are right now.”
“Ferrari have really turned it up the last couple of races,” he acknowledged. “They’ve been strong on race pace all season, really, but have been having bad qualifyings.
“Now that we’re entering summer, everyone’s overheating a little bit more and we’ve probably taken a step backwards and they’ve taken a step forwards purely because of the temperature.
“That’s probably not great for them for some reasons but it’s definitely not great for us for other reasons too.
“If it’s wet in qualifying, I’d definitely be excited for that.”