British GP: Verstappen leads Red Bull 1-2 in FP1 – Albon third

Max Verstappen picked up at Silverstone where he left off in Austria last weekend, the Red Bull driver topping Friday's opening session at the British Grand Prix.

Verstappen was almost half a second ahead of teammate Sergio Perez, while a remarkable flyer by Alex Albon placed the Williams driver third.

Behind the top three, Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso clocked in fourth just ahead of the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc while Alpine's Esteban Ocon closed out the top six.

• British Grand Prix Free Practice 1 - Results

Drivers took to the track under clear blue skies and no chance of rain, with the air temperature at 23°C and rising, while there was a healthy attendance for this weekend's opening day of running.

Williams' Alex Albon led the field when the light went green at the end of the pitlane, with aero devices and installations laps the norm at the outset.

But the field's early leisurely pace was short lived, especially for Verstappen who was on it straight away, the Dutchman already running at that point a second clear of his rivals despite using a set of hard tyres.

A flurry of fast laps followed thereafter, but there was no demoting Verstappen. Several drivers, including the Red Bull charger, reported a significant lack of grip.

"It's like driving on ice", quipped the Dutchman while Hamilton also noted that grip was at a premium.

There appeared to be complication for Logan Sargeant in the Williams camp, the American remaining consigned to his garage in the opening 20 minutes of the session.

Meanwhile, Leclerc was only able to reduce the gap to Verstappen to 0.774s, the Monegasque edging Perez, Sainz and AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda.

Pressing on, Perez – also running on the hard tyre – slot into second, just 0.167s behind the leading Red Bull.

It was a tardy start for Sargeant but the young American's first flyer was good enough for a remarkable third, although one might suspect that the Williams was running a very light fuel load.

As FP1 entered its second half, Sainz bolted on a set of softs and duly went quickest, outpacing Verstappen by half a second. Leclerc followed suit on the softs, clocking in just 0.061s behind his teammate.

A soft-shod Gasly also leapfrogged Verstappen to join the top-three, but proving Alpine's racy pace, Ocon jumped to the front, only to be dispatched by Leclerc who lowered the benchmark time to 1m29.280s.

Meanwhile, Russell reported steering issues on his Mercedes, which is not exactly what a driver wants around Silverstone's fast sweeps.

With 15 minutes to go, Red Bull's contenders finally rejoined the action on the soft rubber. But Perez remained third, half a tenth down on Leclerc. However, Verstappen comprehensively thrashed the session's best by 0.444s.

After lingering towards the bottom of the timesheets, Alonso's best flyer was good enough for P2, but the Spaniard was immediately pushed down to third by Albon who himself was demoted by Perez who re-established a 1-2 for Red Bull.

The weekend's first frenetic came to an end with no further changes among the leaders, Albon, Alonso, Leclerc and Ocon completing the top six behind the unassailable bulls.

Further behind, Sainz, Norris, Stroll and Piastri rounded off the first half of the field.

It was a low-key entry into the race weekend for Mercedes, with Hamilton and Russell concluding FP1 respectively P12 and P14.

Nyck de Vries' P11 position in the running order was noteworthy, the Dutchman outpacing Tsunoda by a comfortable four tenths of a second, which hopefully bodes well for the AlphaTauri driver.

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