Sainz starts well at Silverstone and leads TL2 of the British GP. Hamilton is 2nd

With no rain in the morning, the second free practice session for the Formula 1 British Grand Prix on Friday (1) was sunny between clouds and a clear track. To make up for lost time, teams and drivers populated the Silverstone track a lot throughout the 60 minutes. In the end, after Valtteri Bottas scored the first place in TL1, things went back to normal: Carlos Sainz took the first time.

Despite a short period at the halfway mark of practice when Lando Norris put McLaren in front, Ferrari controlled the actions on the timesheet for the remainder of the day. Almost always, Sainz was faster than Charles Leclerc, but the two of them, as a rule, were superior to Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez.

Those who showed again that they are in for a promising weekend were Mercedes - especially Lewis Hamilton. The seven-time champion took second place, behind only Sainz. True, he had already done so, with second place in TL1, but the times and circumstances there were unrepresentative. In TL2, not so much.

GRANDE PRÊMIO follows LIVE and IN REAL TIME all the activities of the British GP weekend. On Saturday, TL3 opens the day at 8am (GMT-3), while qualifying starts at 11am.

Check out how TL2 went:

There was no rain on the Silverstone track at the time the clock struck 12pm [GMT-3] for the start of the second free practice session. On the contrary, the heavy clouds from earlier were gone in favor of a clear sky, with plenty of sunshine on most of the track - some heavier clouds still remained at certain points of the track, but less threatening than before.

As expected after the time-wasting TL1, where only ten drivers set a fast lap, the track filled up immediately. The need for mileage knocked on the door of the teams. Quite a few people were betting on all kinds of tires. Alpine and Williams went for soft, while the rest of the grid was divided between medium and hard.

Max Verstappen, who only did an installation lap in TL1, was already reporting a "strange noise" in the Red Bull car. Meanwhile, Lando Norris went straight through Abbey corner and made a path through the escape area to avoid having to pass on the grass.

It's hard to know how significant the laps were for the cars at that point, but Charles Leclerc came through with 1min29s639 and the lead after 10 minutes of practice. Carlos Sainz was second, while Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez made sure Red Bull stuck with Ferrari - the two main grid teams were on medium tires.

Traffic was a real issue on the track. George Russell complained, but in the sequence also ended up blocking Norris. George, by the way, used hard tires compared to the medium ones for Lewis Hamilton, in a different strategy. Alexander Albon managed to get Williams into the top-1-, while Leclerc improved his lap and strengthened his lead.

Hamilton was still complaining about the Mercedes' many knocks, even days after boss Toto Wolff said the problem had been solved.

After a busy 20 minutes, the track then emptied. For the next five minutes, only sporadic appearances: Valtteri Bottas was one, Russell came out later on the softs, and the TV broadcast showed the appearances of former starters in the paddock: Nico Hülkenberg and Esteban Gutiérrez, in this case.

At the 30-minute mark, it was Norris who started. Moments before, the Englishman had lapped in 1min29s118 to take the lead. Leclerc, Sainz, Russell, Verstappen, Pérez, Yuki Tsunoda, Bottas, Hamilton, and Kevin Magnussen rounded out the top-10. The track was warming up again.

The start of the second part of the practice session was with most of the pack showing up on the red stripe tires. Alonso quickly jumped up to fourth place, while Albon appeared with paraffin on the side of his Williams. On soft, Ferrari strengthened their lead and took the lead again. Sainz lapped in 1min28s942 to overtake Norris.

In the following minutes, almost everyone completed quick laps on soft tires. Only Red Bull, Hamilton, and Sebastian Vettel took a little longer.

Verstappen, by the way, was again reporting the strange noise in the Red Bull car. But the biggest problem was in the McLaren pits: when the mechanic hooked the jack to raise the rear of Norris' car and change the two front tires, the instrument broke and left Lando waiting, without tires, for a few seconds.

When he finally managed to ride on soft tires, Hamilton did very well: he jumped up to second place. Verstappen went fourth, just ahead of Leclerc and 0s207 slower than Sainz. Pérez was unable to get beyond seventh place on his first attempt with the red-banded rubber.

Further back, in an Aston Martin that was still suffering on its home track, Vettel reported a broken floorboard and guaranteed: he hadn't gone off the track or hit anything, it was a car problem. The four-time champion was in 15th place.

TL2 turned into a place for race simulations in the last ten minutes, something that cut down the fastest laps. Good news from then on was only for Russell, when Mercedes told him on the radio that he was "on the same pace as Ferrari".

And that's how it ended. Sainz in the lead and Hamilton second, while Norris, Verstappen, Leclerc, Alonso, Pérez, Russell, Daniel Ricciardo and Lance Stroll rounded out the top-10.