Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in the sole practice session ahead of sprint qualifying at the British Grand Prix on Friday, leading championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 0.213 seconds and raising genuine hopes that he can claim a record-extending 10th victory at Silverstone following his maiden Ferrari win in Barcelona last month.
Hamilton’s advantage was particularly pronounced in the final sector of the Silverstone circuit, an area where his knowledge of the track across nearly two decades of racing has consistently produced the kind of precision that separates his Silverstone performances from the field. He is six points behind Antonelli in the championship standings entering the British Grand Prix weekend.
Where everyone else finished
Antonelli’s second fastest time kept the championship leader in close contention, with the Ferrari of his teammate Charles Leclerc in third and Russell ending the session almost seven tenths of a second off Hamilton’s pace in fourth. Russell arrives at his home circuit with momentum from last week’s Austrian Grand Prix win, which reduced Antonelli’s championship lead to 40 points, but his practice performance suggested Hamilton rather than Russell may be the Ferrari threat at Silverstone this weekend.
Oscar Piastri was fifth for McLaren ahead of Max Verstappen, while reigning world champion Lando Norris, who won last year’s British Grand Prix at the same circuit, was a notable outlier in seventh, more than a full second behind Hamilton’s benchmark time. The gap for Norris was significant enough to raise questions about whether the reigning champion’s setup heading into sprint qualifying matches the direction his car needs to go.
The sprint format and what comes next
The British Grand Prix is operating as a sprint weekend, meaning the normal practice and qualifying structure has been compressed into a format that places greater emphasis on getting the car right immediately rather than through incremental session-by-session adjustment. Sprint qualifying, which will set the grid for Saturday’s 18-lap sprint race, was scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m.
The sprint race result does not directly determine Sunday’s grand prix grid, which is set by a separate qualifying session, but it provides competitive data about car performance and setup direction that teams and drivers will use to make decisions ahead of the main event.
Hamilton’s Silverstone record and what another win would mean
Hamilton has won at Silverstone more than any other driver in the circuit’s history, a statistic that has become one of the signature achievements of his extraordinary career. His nine victories at the circuit span the entirety of his time in Formula 1, from his first years with McLaren through his dominant Mercedes era and now into his first season with Ferrari. A tenth win would extend a record that already has no realistic challenge from any active competitor.
His win in Barcelona represented the first victory of his Ferrari career and demonstrated that the combination of his talent and the development work the Italian team has done on the 2026 car can produce competitive results even in a season where Mercedes has won most of the early races. A Silverstone victory would be more personally resonant than almost any other circuit on the calendar, and Friday’s practice performance suggested the pace to challenge for it may be there.
