The British Grand Prix weekend got underway with Free Practice One, with the grandstands very busy on a warn Friday afternoon.
Alpha Tauri’s Nyck de Vries was the first driver to find the gravel traps at Luffield, however, he was able to rejoin after his oversteer moment.
Pirelli brought a new specification of tyres to the full Grand Prix weekend this season after they were previously tested during practice at the Spanish Grand Prix. Drivers were struggling to get to grip with these new tyres which the track temperature being much higher than usual at Silverstone.
After twenty minutes of the session, Alex Albon (Williams), Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), Oscar Piastri (McLaren), Logan Sargeant (Williams) and Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo) were still to set a lap time.
At the halfway point, it was Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) that was top of the leaderboard with a lap time of 1:29.357. Max Verstappen was in second just over half a second behind, with his team-mate Sergio Perez in third.
Charles Leclerc was next to move to the top of the leaderboard, with Esteban Ocon (Alpine) joining him in second place, 0.039 seconds behind the Ferrari driver.
De Vries recovered from his early adventure into the gravel to move up to fourth, just under half a second behind the leading Ferrari, and just over four-tenths faster than his teammate Yuki Tsunoda.
Red Bull put on soft tyres as the session reached its final quarter, with Perez improving and moving into third on the leaderboard. Mercedes had a few very nervy moments in the final 15 minutes as Hamilton had a big oversteer moment at Stowe and Russell locked up and went into the run-off area at Brooklands.
Verstappen then went to the top of the times, with Perez following to give the current World Champions a 1-2 finish at the end the session.
In third was Albon, followed by Alonso and Leclerc to round out the top five. Ocon, Sainz, Lando Norris (McLaren), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Piastri rounded out the top ten.