British Grand Prix: Max Verstappen tops first practice

The British Grand Prix is unrecorded connected 5 Live and BBC Sport website

Max Verstappen led team-mate Sergio Perez successful a Red Bull one-two successful archetypal signifier astatine the British Grand Prix.

Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin was the archetypal established front-runner down the Red Bulls successful fourth.

He headed Ferrari's Charles Leclerc successful 5th spot by conscionable 0.012 seconds.

Alonso was 0.668secs slower than Verstappen, who is looking for a sixth consecutive triumph this weekend, with Perez 0.448secs disconnected the benchmark acceptable by his team-mate.

Verstappen's pace, contempt complaints from the Dutchman astir a deficiency of grip that helium said felt "like driving connected ice", confirmed the anticipation pre-race that Silverstone's high-speed swerves would emphasise the Red Bull's advantages implicit the remainder of the field.

Esteban Ocon enactment successful a promising showing and acceptable the sixth fastest clip successful the upgraded Alpine, which has a caller beforehand wing, up of Ferrari's Carlos Sainz and the McLaren of Lando Norris.

Norris, too, has a caller beforehand helping successful summation to the large upgrade that improved the show of the McLaren astatine the Austrian Grand Prix past weekend.

Mercedes had a hard session. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were lone 12th and 14th fastest, contempt some cars being fitted with yet different caller beforehand helping arsenic Mercedes proceed to present upgrades aimed astatine returning them to a competitory position.

Russell complained that the car was "all implicit the spot successful Turns Six and Seven" arsenic some drivers seemed to beryllium battling with a deficiency of rear grip, a perennial occupation for Mercedes since the commencement of 2022.

The teams were having their archetypal acquisition of the caller Pirelli tyre, introduced for the remainder of the play with a stronger operation to trim chances of failure.

The league took spot nether bluish skies successful temperatures of adjacent to 25C and successful beforehand of packed grandstands, with a full of 480,000 expected astatine Silverstone implicit the 3 days of the contention meeting.

Unsettled upwind with the accidental of rainfall is expected implicit the weekend.

Those determination volition person the accidental to spot Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt driving successful a modified Formula 2 car arsenic filming starts for the caller Apple F1 movie.

The Oscar winner, who has been practising astatine Silverstone successful the pb up to the race, is playing a seasoned racer who returns to the athletics to mentor a rising young star.