'Pace looked good' for Stroll in Friday practice

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Aston Martin's Lance Stroll was feeling happy with the state of the world after finishing Friday's practice day at Silverstone in sixth place, putting him ahead of his team mate Fernando Alonso for once.

Stroll completed nine laps more than Alonso during the day, despite having to pit unexpectedly when his rear view mirror suddenly came loose.

Overall it had been a good day for the Canadian, who is a big fan of Silverstone and looking forward to heading into the British GP this weekend. “It’s been great to get out on track at Silverstone today; there’s no place quite like it.

"The pace looked good so I’m feeling positive," he said, despite an incident in which his finger was struck by a loose piece of gravel.

"We made a few set-up changes after FP1 and the AMR23 was feeling stronger for the second session," he continued. "There are still a few bits to work through tonight.

Read also: Verstappen top again in British GP FP2 from Sainz and Albon

"We’ll see what tomorrow brings as it looks like the temperature will drop and there could be some rain in the area," he noted. "We could be in for an interesting qualifying!”

The team has brought a number of upgrades this weekend, and Alonso was busy trying out the new components and had little time for qualifying simulations, meaning he ended the day tenth quickest.

"We tested a few things in both sessions and there is more for us to analyse tonight," he explained. "It was very windy today which made it quite tricky, but the car felt good.

Like his team mate, Alonso had one eye on what the weather will bring on Saturday which is supposed to be cooler with the potential for thunderstorms across much of southern England.

"The weather looks like it could change tomorrow, so let’s see what conditions we are facing," he commented.

This week has seen the long-awaited opening of Aston Martin's new headquarters right next door to the Silverstone circuit, making this very much a home race for the team.

"It’s good to be back at Silverstone and racing just across the road from our AMR Technology Campus," he said. "This circuit always provides a lot of adrenaline for us in F1 cars."

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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.