The F1 world champion’s 1: 27.035 minutes on soft tires gave him a comfortable lead at the top of the times in the sole practice session before qualifying as part of the new race weekend format, in which F1 will contest its first sprint qualifying race on Saturday.
Norris finished second for McLaren, with his best lap on the mid-size tires, falling more than seventh-tenths of a second behind Verstappen.
Hamilton only managed to finish third despite the late switch to soft tires and was just 0.001 seconds behind Norris when Mercedes debuted a number of F1 car updates at Silverstone.
The first practice session started in hot and sunny conditions at Silverstone, with all drivers taking to the track with just one hour of track time in the first few minutes of the session before qualifying in the evening.
Hamilton set the early pace with 1: 30.048 minutes on his first push lap on the medium-weight tires, two tenths faster than Verstappen on the hard tires, with both Mercedes drivers driving planned upgrades for the first time.
After a first run on the Hards, the two Red Bull drivers switched to the medium to see how Verstappen set a new benchmark with 1: 28.179 minutes – over half a second faster than his teammate Sergio Perez.
Verstappen drove four tenths of a second faster after complaining about a drop in performance on his team radio on a previous lap before pitting to switch to soft tire operation.
The Dutchman put in a time of 1: 27.035 minutes on his first lap of push on the softs, initially pulling over a second ahead of teammate Perez until McLaren’s Norris pushed into second place but seven tenths back on the middle rubber stayed.
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
The majority of the teams left the switch to soft tires up to the last 15 minutes, including both Mercedes drivers, with Hamilton advancing to third place, just 0.001 seconds slower than Norris, but a clear seventh behind Verstappen’s best lap – what to do an amused reaction resulted from the British driver.
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Ferrari also left its soft tire laps until the end of the session to see Charles Leclerc move up to fourth, pushing Bottas to fifth for Mercedes.
After a mid-session spin at the exit of the Village Curve, Carlos Sainz Jr finished the session strong, finishing sixth, while Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel finished seventh ahead of the second Red Bull of Perez.
Daniel Ricciardo continued to see a clear gap between him and McLaren team-mate Norris, with the Australian driver only completing the ninth fastest as Esteban Ocon for Alpine.
AlphaTauri couple Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda both had a restrained session in 11th and 12th respectively ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi from Alfa Romeo, with Fernando Alonso in 14th place.
Kimi Raikkonen was 15th for Alfa Romeo ahead of Nicholas Latifi in the Williams, Haas driver Mick Schumacher Aston Martins Lance Stroll.
With Nikita Mazepin in 19th place for Haas, George Russell finished the session as the slowest driver, but the Williams driver’s best lap time was canceled because the track limit was exceeded and he suffered a broken left mirror.
The F1 drivers and teams are now preparing for qualifying at 6:00 p.m. local time, which will set the grid for the very first Sprint Qualifying Race of all time.
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