70th anniversary, FP1: Bottas tops first practice at Silverstone 

Mercedes Valtteri Bottas went quickest in the first practice session ahead of Sunday’s FIA Formula 1 70thAnniversary Grand Prix, beating team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just over a tenth of a second at Silverstone.

After last weekend’s British Grand Prix, tyre manufacturer Pirelli has brought a softer tyre selection for this second race at the Northamptonshire Circuit and as such all drivers prioritised running on the red-banded soft tyre during a 90-minute session in which track temperatures hit 45˚C.

Bottas set a time a best time of 1:26.166s on the soft compound and that saw him finish 0.138s ahead of last weekend’s race winner Hamilton. Third place in the session went to Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen, though the Dutch driver finished more than seven tenths of a second adrift of Botta’s table topper.

With Sergio Pérez returning another positive COVID-19 test, Nico Hülkenberg once again took over the Mexican’s seat at Racing Point and after finding his feet last weekend, the German claimed fourth place in his first session of his second weekend back in F1 with a time of 1:26.942, just under five hundredths slower than Verstappen.

Charles Leclerc took fifth place for Ferrari, almost nine-tenths of a second behind Bottas. The Monegasque, who finished on the podium last weekend, ended the session over three tenths of a second clear of teammate Sebastian Vettel. The German driver finished in seventh place, behind the second Red Bull of Alexander Albon.

Lance Stroll finished eighth for Racing Point, over half a second down on team-mate Hulkenberg’s time, while Daniil Kvyat and Esteban Ocon completed the top 10 for AlphaTauri and Renault.