Bottas leads TL1 'zombie' British GP with rain as protagonist

The start of the Formula 1 weekend at Silverstone, for the British GP, was wet. Rain fell on the track shortly before the start of the activity - at least on part of the track, such as the pit lane straight area - and set an anchor at the start of activities on Friday (1). Throughout the session, the rain ceased and returned, but it was always in character. At the end of a practice session in which almost nothing happened, Valtteri Bottas finished as leader.

The reality is that the rain stopped after 20 minutes, but it had an impact on the entire practice session. The obvious reason is that the track was wet in some parts long after the rain had stopped, of course. In the area of the fast Copse corner it rained a lot, so it would really take time to dry out. So what we saw was one of the most boring free practices of the year. Nothing was happening.

Only half of the drivers put time on the grid. Among them, there were no leaders or vice-champions, Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez. Better for Bottas, who finished with the fastest lap in the stopped activity by overtaking Carlos Sainz with less than five minutes on the clock. Then Lance Stroll made a mistake and caused a red flag that interrupted and ended TL1.

GRANDE PRÊMIO follows LIVE and IN REAL TIME all the activities of the British GP weekend. TL2 is scheduled for 12pm (GMT-3).

Check out how TL1 went:

Just before the start of TL1 at the scheduled time, rain started to fall at Silverstone. In some parts, in the paddock area and the pit lane, the rain was even heavy. Even so, there were no delays: the activity started precisely when it was supposed to.

And there was no slowing down to gain the track, either. As soon as possible, Mercedes sent Lewis Hamilton and George Russell out on track for an installation lap on intermediate tires. Ferrari decided to do the same and released Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. At some points on the track, such as the Copse corner, it was raining heavily; at others, such as Stowe, it was dry.

The weather forecast indicated that soon the rain would stop for most of the dry practice, but after ten minutes there was still rain and only one fast lap was recorded: Leclerc, with 1min43s801.

Slowly, the teams began to release their cars onto the track, but still for short installation laps on England's half-wet, half-dry track. Yuki Tsunoda was second on the timesheet, but with a lap over 1min51s. There was still no pretense of going fast or fitting a lap. After 15 minutes, Haas, Alfa Romeo, Nicholas Latifi, Lando Norris and Max Verstappen had not even left the pit-lane.

The rain finally stopped after 20 minutes and soon after Sainz beat his teammate and took the lead with 1min42s967. Only Kevin Magnussen, Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel joined the Ferrari duo and Tsunoda as fast lappers.

In a practice where absolutely nothing was happening, the 30-minute mark arrived with Sainz in the lead followed by Valtteri Bottas, Leclerc, Mick Schumacher, Guanyu Zhou, Magnussen, Stroll, Tsunoda, and Vettel, in that order, in the new top spots. The other 11 had no fast lap.

For the next 15 minutes, absolutely nothing happened and the track was empty until Hamilton came back with just over 12 minutes to go. Then it started to rain again, which practically put an end to the possibility of things heating up at the end.

But, truth be told, happy hour happened. Not with great fast laps, but with plenty of people showing up to try to understand a bit of the car in the last eight minutes, after the rain had passed again and with the track in better condition. Enough for Bottas to jump to the top in a lap of 1min42s249.

That would be the end, because Stroll spun alone at Copse and stayed in the gravel. The red flag with less than three minutes to go and the activity was over. Only ten drivers did fast laps, with Hamilton joining the list at the end. Qualifying was Bottas, Hamilton, Sainz, Leclerc, Schumacher, Zhou, Magnussen, Stroll, Tsunoda, and Vettel.