Valtteri Bottas edges Hamilton in second British GP practice
Valtteri Bottas headed up a one-two finish for Mercedes in second practice ඣfor the British Grand Prix on Friday at Silverstone, narrowly beating teammate Lewis Hamilton to set the fastest time of the s🐟ession.
After finishing second-quickest in FP1, Bottas was able to continue his str𒀰ongಌ showing on Friday to head the field through FP2 with a best lap time of 1m26.732s.
Bottas had✨ set the quickest time on the Medium-compound tyre before making the switch to Softs, but initially failed to improve on his best effort after a scruffy first qualifying simulation run.
Valtteri Bottas headed up a one-two finish for Mercedes in second prac😼tice for🧸 the British Grand Prix on Friday at Silverstone, narrowly beating teammate Lewis Hamilton to set the fastest time of the session.
After finishing second-quickest in FP1, Bottas was able to continue his strong show♉ing on Friday to head the field through FP2 with a best lap time of 1m2💙6.732s.
Bottas had set the quickest time on the Medium-compound tyre before making th꧑e switch to Softs, but initially failed to improve on his best effort after a scruffy first qualifying simulation run.
The Finn managed to find tim𓂃e on his second push la👍p on the Softs to open up a 0.069s gap to Hamilton in second place that remained to the end of the session. Bottas lost some track time after Mercedes was forced to change a spark plug on his car as a precaution, but returned to the track fairly swiftly once the switch had been made.
Hamilton himself struggled on his qualifyiꦛng simulation, failing to match Bottas' Medium-tyre pace and📖 then making a mistake exiting Becketts on his second push lap, leaving the five-time world champion in second place.
Ferrari remained within striking distance of Mercedes at the💜 front as Charles Leclerc took third place, two-tenths of a second shy of Bottas's best time, with teammate Sebastian Vettel ending the day fourth-fastest.
FP1 leader Pierre Gasly once again finished as the lead Red Bull driver in fifth place after teammate Max Verstappen couldꦺ only finish seventh-fastest, the pair split by McLaren's Lando Norris.
Carlos Sainz underlined Norris's good pace by finishing eighth in the sister McLaren, while Toro R🐲osso's Alexander Albon and Racing Point's S♔ergio Perez completed the top 10.
Daniel Ricciardo was forced to park his car up at the side of the track in the final 15 minutes after⛦ an engine issue, albeit using one of the older-spec units ahead of a planned switch to a Spec-B engine on Saturday, meaning no penalty will be triggered.
The other driver to hit trouble in FP2 was George Russell, who missed the second half of the session due to a gearbox issue that the team is set to🌜 investigate tonight.
Running resumes at 11am on Saturday at Silverstone with Free Practice 3 ahead of♐ qualifying.
