Bottas enjoying 'positive start' to British GP weekend

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Fresh from claiming pole position and his second Formula 1 race victory last weekend in Austria, Valtteri Bottas is on top form again this week ahead o the British Grand Prix.

The Finn topped the timesheets in both of Friday's free practice sessions. In the process, he set new track record times for Silverstone on both occasions.

"We've started the weekend really well," he beamed. "In the first session, the balance was not too far away, so a positive start.

"There is still work to do to get the car more driveable and to be able to trust it more in the high-speed corners" he added. "But overall I think it was a good start for the weekend.

"We just need to work as normal, try and make improvements for tomorrow."

The much faster pace at Silverstone had been expected, because of changes to technical regulations made over the winter.

Bottas continues to narrowly set the pace in FP2

"I'm impressed by the new cars on this track with its high-speed corners," Bottas said. "They're so much quicker than before.

"You feel more G in the corners. There's a greater effect on your body, quite a big step up from last year. But luckily I'm well prepared for that.

"I'm definitely enjoying it and had a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

"We've had a really promising start to the weekend," agreed Mercedes' technical director James Allison.

"Both cars worked well on the three different tyre compounds, as well as showing good pace on both low and high fuel.

"We worked through our programme successfully. Now our focus turns to making sure we're in the best possible place to compete on Saturday and Sunday."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.