After a one week break the action restarts in Silverstone, one of the most historic circuits in the Formula 1 Paddock. 

Last year Sebastian Vettel won the race, marking one of his last victories in F1 (the last one was in Belgium 2018), followed by Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen. 

The action soon starts on the resurfaced track, with Antonio Giovinazzi spreading some flow wiz over his Alfa Romeo Giulia, to understand and verify all the technical news that the team has brought and to collect aero data. The Italian collected his first. Championship point in Austria. At the same time, Daniil Kvyat tries some aero rakes on his Toro Rosso’s front wing to collect data as well. New front wing in the Red Bull Garage too, so that both Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly spend the first minutes of FP1 doing aero - tests. 

No significant lap times during the first 30 minutes, but Romain Grosjean wakes everyone up when he spun in the pit lane exit: the French man lost his Haas and destroyed his front wing. It is not an easy weekend for the American team after the Tweet that his main title sponsor Rich Energy made some days ago, saying that the partnership with Haas was over after the poor performance in Austria. 

The first significant lap time is scored by Valtteri Bottas, 1.29.604s, while Hamilton only gets the fifth fastest lap time when there is only one hour left on the chronometer. The five time World Champion also made a mistake opening DRS in Turn 1-2, but that is not anymore a DRS zone after last year’s accidents. 

Despite this mistake, Lewis Hamilton improves, but is still behind his team mate, then to go under 1.28s for a lap. 

With 50 minutes left Kimi Raikkonen parks his Alfa Romeo Stelvio at the Luffield, suggesting that something is broken on the radio. This provoked a Red Flag, but as soon as the car was taken off the track, the action restarted. The team will replace the entire Power Unit and this means that he will not hit the track again in FP1. 

Kimi knows the way 👉#BritishGP 🇬🇧 #F1 pic.twitter.com/GbzOi3y4zb

— Formula 1 (@F1) 12 luglio 2019 " rel="general">

Kimi knows the way 👉#BritishGP 🇬🇧 #F1 pic.twitter.com/GbzOi3y4zb

— Formula 1 (@F1) 12 luglio 2019

Grey clouds are hovering over the Silverstone circuit: the resurfaced track has already been defined very slippery by most teams, as lot of drivers just lost their car going out of track limits. The rain can make it worse, even with few raindrops. 

Pierre Gasly closes on top, thanks to the track evolution. 1.17.173s for the French man, who leads Valtteri Bottas, 5 tenths behind. Verstappen is third, while Hamilton is out of the Top 3. Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel are behind, closing the Top 6 group. Both Renault takes the first two position of the midfield, followed by Alexander Albon and both McLaren.

Good performance by Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris, leading the midfield, with a good performance for McLaren’s home Grand Prix for the first time after some troubled years. 

Here’s the complete classification for the First Free Practice Session in Silverstone for the British Grand Prix.