Brendan Lines 8th August, 2020 10:00am

Valtteri Bottas set the pace in the morning’s FP1 session, with Lewis +0.138s back in P2, the positions were reversed in the afternoon for FP2, as Lewis topped the timesheets with Valtteri +0.176s shy in second.

Teams favoured running their usual practice programs on the Soft compounds, opting to keep the Medium and Hard tyre allocations for qualifying — teams had learnt their lessons from the previous week’s blow-outs in the final laps, not to push the Softs in the hot Silverstone conditions.

“We focused a lot on the tyres today and there doesn’t seem to be a lot between the Medium and the Soft when it comes to single lap pace. The Soft is struggling with the high-speed corners, especially in these hot temperatures and if you’re running on higher fuel,” Bottas said yesterday.

Daniel Ricciardo proved Renault’s claim on third in the Championship may not be an idle threat, as the Aussie took P3 in FP2 running just eight tenths off Hamilton’s time.

“In the morning we did quite a bit of data gathering so we knew it wasn’t going to be totally representative. For the afternoon, we had a bit of a warm-up, made a change to the car, which worked,” Ricciardo said.

“Our long runs also looked decent, so that’s a good base for Sunday.”

Ricciardo’s teammate Esteban Ocon finished P10 across both sessions with respective laps of 1:27.701 and 1:26.928.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was P3 and P4 across the sessions, Verstappen says he doesn’t expect the change in tyres to really set the order any differently.”

Alex Albon’s Red Bull went fast enough for P6 in FP1 and P11 in FP2 with respective laps of 1:27.280s and 1:26.960s.

Nico Hülkenberg came back to fill Sergio Perez’s seat at Racing Point this weekend and was on the pace from the out set of FP1 scoring P4 seven tenths off Mercedes, with Lance Stroll in P8 (1:27.539s).

The Racing Point cars reversed their order in FP2, as Stroll took P5 ( 1:26.501s) and Hülkenberg P6 (1:26.746s).

It was another tough day for Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel who’s SF1000 came to a halt with drive issues effectively red-flagging FP2. Vettel would have to be satisfied with P7 for FP1 and P14 for FP2.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc had a more positive day in P5 for FP1 and P7 in FP2.

FP2 proved to be a more competitive showing for McLaren, opting to spend most of FP1 correlating data on its cars.

Lando Norris was the fastest if the McLaren’s in FP2 holding down P8 whole Carlos Sainz was P9 just +.051s adrift from Norris.

Out side the top ten, Alpha Tauri’s Pierre began his bid for a Q3 appearance again this week, the Frenchman posted P13, but Daniil Kyvat slotted ahead of Gasly in P11.

Williams is hoping to consolidate on its performance from last week, George Russell showsed some consistency placing P15 and P16 across the sessions, while Nicholas Latifi placed P16 and P19.

Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi made way for Robert Kubica in FP1, Kimi Räikkönen was the best of the Alfa’s in P17 and P18 in the Friday sessions.

FP3 and Qualifying for the 70th Anniversary GP at Silverstone begins from 07:30pm local time tonight.