Hamilton goes fastest at Silverstone to edge championship leader Antonelli in practice

Lewis Hamilton gave the Silverstone crowd an early reason to cheer on Friday, going quickest in the only practice session of the British Grand Prix sprint weekend with a 1m29.260s on soft tyres — 0.213s clear of championship leader Kimi Antonelli.

The Ferrari driver’s lap, set with six minutes remaining, went unchallenged as Antonelli retreated to the Mercedes garage for the final phase of the session. The result put Hamilton ahead of his former team and its current title contender on a track that, as a sprint-format weekend, offered just one hour of practice before qualifying.

The session opened on hard compounds, with teams cycling through high fuel loads as the Silverstone asphalt reached a track temperature of 49°C. Antonelli led the midpoint standings on a 1m30.777s, just 0.192s clear of Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar and 0.209s ahead of team-mate George Russell. Hamilton had already shown pace on the harder rubber, slipping in a 1m30.521s that put him 0.256s quicker than Antonelli before the soft-tyre runs began.

Oscar Piastri’s McLaren had a spin between Becketts and Chapel with 25 minutes remaining, though the Australian recovered to finish fifth with a 1m30.147s. The incident briefly interrupted the rhythm of a session that had seen the lead change hands multiple times as fuel loads dropped and the track rubbered in.

When the soft-tyre runs arrived in the final ten minutes, Antonelli was first to break the 1m30s barrier with a 1m29.473s, a significant 0.465s ahead of Russell. Charles Leclerc sat just a tenth behind Russell at that point, but Hamilton then went to the top of the timesheets and stayed there.

Leclerc ultimately snatched third with a late 1m29.859s, edging Russell — who ended fourth on 1m29.938s — by 0.079s. Piastri’s fifth place was a tenth clear of Max Verstappen, who set a 1m30.288s in sixth for Red Bull. Lando Norris took seventh, 0.050s ahead of Hadjar in eighth.

Nico Hülkenberg was the best of the remaining field in ninth for Audi, posting a 1m30.743s, though the German driver is still without a championship point in 2026.

The power-sensitive nature of the Northamptonshire circuit had been a major talking point on Thursday in the context of the ADUO — Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities — regulations, with Red Bull and Mercedes expected to benefit. Ferrari’s presence at the front, however, complicated that narrative heading into sprint qualifying.