F1 | FP1 | British GP | Hamilton starts home weekend on top - Motorsport

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Round 12 of the 2025 FIA F1 Championship heads to the iconic Silverstone circuit for FP1 of the F1 British GP, view the full report and results below. The first session will showcase 2 junior drivers in their first F1 Practice sessions.

Free Practice 1 will feature Arvid Lindblad, the Campos Racing and Red Bull Junior in Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull and Paul Aron, the Alpine reserve driver jumping into the Sauber of Nico Hulkenburg. Sauber only need to give up 2 FP1 sessions to a rookie driver, as Gabriel Bortoleto is the rookie at the wheel of the other car. Alpine have loaned Aron to Sauber for the FP1 sessions, including today at Silverstone and the Hungaroring later this year.

Silverstone will also host Lewis Hamilton for his home Grand Prix, where he was victorious last year after his emotional race win. The seven time world champion won a record-breaking ninth victory at the venue. It will also be his first home race since moving to Ferrari.

Key details on Silverstone

Silverstone has always maintained it essential charm of being one of the fastest tracks on the F1 calendar. It features iconic corners like Maggotts, Becketts and Abbey, which are some of the biggest challenges for racing drivers anywhere in the world. There is 2 DRS detection zones, across the 5.891km circuit, which hosted its first Grand Prix back in 1950. Verstappen holds the current fastest lap time with a 1:27.097, posted back in 2020.

It’s a green light at the F1 British GP for FP1

Williams and Aston Martin were the only teams at first to send their drivers out at Silverstone on hard tyres, with the remainder of the teams running mediums at the start of the session.

Russell started off with a strong 1:28.570, with both Norris and Piastri following respectively in P2 and P3. Gasly lost the rear of his car into Copse, running wide and over the kerb, with an additional of flat-spots across all tyres.

As times continued to ramp up, last years race winner Hamilton displayed a 1:28.380, 0.190 seconds ahead of Russell. Piastri made an impression by wedging himself between the two drivers, with a 1:28.419, +0.039 seconds behind Hamilton.

Norris was next to follow again on a flying lap, setting the quickest time with a 1:27.991, but Russell was quick to knock him off the top, improving on his time by a measly 0.020 seconds.

Gasly had another spin on track, running slightly wide and spinning an entire 360 at Copse, and leaving his medium tyres with flat spots.

Both Racing Bulls cars were running in P4 and P7, highlighting the team’s continued progress and the drivers’ strong performances behind the wheel in FP1 at the F1 British GP.

Stroll also ran wide on track, needing to rejoin after his off course encounter.

20 minutes down on FP1

Both rookie drivers, Lindblad and Aron, were running in P15 and P16 respectively, 1.134 seconds behind Russell’s new improved time, 1:27.702.

Lawson crossed the line next, setting a time of 1:27.676, 0.026 seconds ahead of Russell and 0.085 ahead of Piastri.

With track evolution picking up, lap times continued to tumble. Hadjar was the next to go quickest, setting a 1:27.502 to move 0.174 seconds ahead of Lawson’s earlier benchmark. Leclerc then slotted himself between the two with a 1:27.565, taking P2 at that stage of the session.

Sainz ran wide over the kerb at Copse, avoiding spinning the Williams, to which they checked the floor of the car. Williams were running a race day simulation and not attempting to go for any performance runs in the first half of the session, with an attempt to iron out previous reliability issues noted at earlier races.

Halfway through FP1

Many drivers headed out on fresh sets of medium tyres, to continue to get an understand of the vehicles performances. Both Aston’s traded their hard tyres for soft, to which most of the grid followed, minus Aron, Ocon and Lindblad at that point. Williams continued to run hard tyres, to continue with their race day simulations for the F1 British GP.

Leclerc was next to top the times, with a 1:27.095. Russell followed 1 tenth behind, with Piastri rounding out the top 3. Albon set out on a flying lap and came across traffic from Aron, but the rookie driver was also caught out by Hamilton and Lindblad around him.

Bortoleto was the next driver caught out at Copse, going onto the kerb sideways. Not only did he damage his floor, but also mowed the lawn near the kerb on the encounter. He managed to get the car back on track and continue in th session.

Ocon reported back that it felt that his brake pedal had cracked on his last lap brought back into the pits to check for any issues. It appeared he was having electrical issues within the car, and the engineers were eager to fix it.

20 minutes on the clock

Hamilton set the fastest time, highlighting why the Ferrari driver has won at Silverstone on 9 occasions now.

Williams only swapped Albon’s hard tyres to softs, with Sainz continuing to run the hard compound. With the change, Albon then moved from P19 (due to race simulations) up to P7, highlighting the pace within the FW47.

With only 10 minutes left of the session, it was only Russell and Verstappen on track with the medium compound, with the rest of the grid running fresh softs. More cars made the change from the soft compound to mediums, with 8 cars now running the medium compound.

Sainz finally made the move to softs with 10 minutes left of FP1 in the F1 British GP. He moved his car from P20 to P14, showing a slight increase in pace, but still appeared to have some concerns with the car as he asked for feedback.

Lindblad was in P13, about a second off the pace and half a second behind teammate Verstappen. Aron sat in P17, ahead of Bortoleto after his previous off track encounter.

It was clear that Mclaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Racing Bulls had the pace in FP1 at the F1 British GP. Verstappen sat down in P10, behind both Racing Bulls cars. Hamilton topped the timing with a 1:26.892, followed by Norris 0.023 seconds behind in P2 and Piastri 0.150 in P3.