FP1: Hamilton quickest from Antonelli and Leclerc in sole practice session for British Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheets in the sole practice session for the British Grand Prix, beating Kimi Antonelli and the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.

Still seeking a repeat of his magnificent victory in Barcelona, Hamilton hit the ground running to take the fight to Mercedes at Silverstone, his effort of 1m 29.260s winding up over two tenths clear of Antonelli.

With only one hour of practice on offer before Sprint Qualifying later on Friday, most of the teams and drivers were eager to maximise track time when the session began at 1230 local time, with Hamilton leading the queue at the end of the pit lane.

The home hero – who will be targeting a groundbreaking 10th victory at Silverstone this weekend – emerged on hard tyres and set the opening benchmark of 1m 34.696s, which was quickly displaced by last season’s podium sitter Nico Hulkenberg.

There was no time to waste as the majority got a lap on the board in the first five minutes, with Mercedes looking once again like the team to beat as George Russell edged out his team mate for the top spot.

However, improvements came thick and fast, especially for Hamilton as he took his Ferrari over six tenths clear of Russell before Oscar Piastri leapt into P1, sporting a one-off livery inspired by the car Bruce McLaren first drove in 1966.

Others were keen to get in the mix, including Red Bull – the momentum they built at the Austrian Grand Prix seemed to give them an initial boost at Silverstone, with Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar exchanging the fastest laps of the session.

Further down the order, Lando Norris looked like he was having a tough time with his MCL40 as he had one lap time deleted for exceeding track limits and was forced to abort his next attempt, returning to the garage after running in P8.

Someone who managed to to find a fix for his troubles was Antonelli, who shook off his early complaints around energy deployment to go fastest with a time of 1m 30.777s, eking out an advantage of 0.192s over Hadjar.

With the opening laps complete, Fernando Alonso became the first to switch his focus to Qualifying simulation and improved to P18 on soft tyres, while others were still ticking through their hard compound run plans.

Piastri suffered the consequences of pushing too much as he lost the rear of the car at Becketts, spinning onto the large run-off area and only just avoiding the barriers, with the Australian reporting that his “tyres are dead”.

Contrastingly, Hamilton was enjoying a much smoother drive to post a time of 1m 30.521s and reclaim P1 by 0.256s from Antonelli, demonstrating how much he loves his home circuit. His hold on the lead was soon thrown into jeopardy as everyone bolted on the medium and soft tyres for the final 12 minutes.

Although they tried to take advantage of the significantly higher grip, Hamilton went even faster to end FP1 in first place ahead of Antonelli, Leclerc, Russell and Piastri. Verstappen just missed out on the top five as he led Norris and Hadjar, with Nico Hulkenberg and Liam Lawson taking the honour of ‘best of the rest’ in P9 and P10 respectively.

Alpine’s Franco Colapinto went marginally faster than Gabriel Bortoleto, Arvid Lindblad, Ollie Bearman and Carlos Sainz. The order was completed by the second Haas of Esteban Ocon in P16, Williams' Alex Albon, the Cadillac pair of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez, Alonso, Pierre Gasly and Lance Stroll.

With plenty of data gathered during FP1, there’s only a few hours for teams and drivers to review and reset ahead of Sprint Qualifying, which gets underway at 1630 later today.