A first session in the rain in which a stranger, a second dry session that left the top three of the Championship out of the top three, a third session on Saturday morning in which the world champion scored a 0.4 or more difference with the rest. Free practice for the legendary British Grand Prix at Silverstone had been a real merry-go-round of emotions and the prelude to qualifying could not come any other way, with the teams once again turning to all the meteorologists to understand each other. if and when it might rain again.
A little sun, some clouds, raindrops…
Just your typical Silverstone weather!#GPBritish #F1 pic.twitter.com/F9fvX2AEoZ
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 1, 2022
It was in these conditions that Valtteri Bottas took his Alfa Romeo and was the fastest this Friday morning, surpassing by more than half a second the focus of all eyes this week, Lewis Hamilton, who in addition to being one of the drivers of The house was involved in a controversy after Nelson Piquet uttered racist words in a comment about last year’s race in a program that was soon criticized by the most diverse quadrants between drivers, teams and organization. Then, on dry ground, Carlos Sainz managed to overtake the competition again with Hamilton second and another Briton, Lando Norris, third. This morning, the two Red Bull had achieved the best times with the Dutchman at the helm and Mercedes setting times along the same lines as Ferrari.
How we ended up for FP3 with Max topping the charts ⏱️
Ranking is on its way soon ????#GPBritish #F1 pic.twitter.com/mirUZ91psh
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 2, 2022
Verstappen was satisfied with the improvements to the car, Hamilton spoke of good feelings on this return to Silverstone where he had won eight times and added three wins in a row and seven in the last eight years, Leclerc and Sainz were looking for last-minute weapons to put them themselves in the race fight for one more pole position. But while all this was happening, the eyes were focused on the sky and what may or may not fall from 3:00 p.m. on the Silverstone circuit. And if punctuality wasn’t very, very British, it didn’t go far: four minutes ahead of schedule, a quarter of an hour before departure, it started to rain.
Everyone is attentive to the skies ????️#GPBritish #F1 pic.twitter.com/bz4y2evAK1
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 2, 2022
Daniel Ricciardo’s radio conversation with the McLaren team was a paradigmatic example of how the start of the track was very conditioned, with the British team warning the Australian that they expected the rain to stop in eight minutes with 15 to go. the same. Q1. And as a problem never comes alone, there was still a yellow flag at one point that could have conditioned some fast laps. The times showed that the track seemed to improve and the escape to the last five places began, with constant fastest laps by almost all the drivers. It was until the last, with a surprise called Nicholas Latifi. leaving out the two Haas (Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher), the two Aston Martins (Vettel and Lance Stroll) and the other Alexander Albon’s Williams.
DRIVERS REMOVED
meatball
Magnussen
Vettel????
Schumacher
Walk #GPBritish #F1 pic.twitter.com/QJXjpK41N4— Formula 1 (@F1) July 2, 2022
With Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and partly McLaren (apart from Norris, by the way) having the fastest times, the war for the cut in Q2 was down to just half the drivers and with the track showing more difficulties afterwards. of other. small period of rain that was felt and that even removed the lines that were being drawn. More: Q2 even had a little more fog, very noticeable in some areas of the circuit due to television images. In the midst of all the difficulties, Latifi passed through the raindrops again (literally), he set a good time before the rain returned with more intensity and left out the two Alpha Tauri (Gasly and Tsunoda), Ricciardo, Ocon and Valtteri Bottas.
CLASSIFICATION Q2 ????#GPBritish #F1 pic.twitter.com/yY15P7V8QM
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 2, 2022
For the first time, Williams managed to reach Q3 in 2022 and then the Grand Prix “at home”. But now came the last test of the Red Bull slimming diet and the RB18, a car that was always above the 798 kilos established as the minimum weight by the International Automobile Federation. According to the analyst Paolo Filisetti, quoted by the newspaper Marca, the team managed to make some changes that took almost two kilos off the cars (1.8 kg) and would give them an advantage of 0.2 per second, but once again the rain to be the great protagonist, with more drizzle, the ten cars immediately leaving the track and Verstappen making a pawn… celebrated in the stands. The Dutchman seemed to be the fastest, Leclerc kept trying pole but Carlos Sainz came out as the hero of the day, making a perfect lap that he himself did not seem to believe that he had given him the first pole position in the Grand Prix number 150.
Source: Observadora
