Lewis Hamilton bounced back to top the times ahead of Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas as the world champions dominated Friday afternoon’s second free practice at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
The championship
leader and six times champion had been second behind the Finn in the opening
morning session at Silverstone, but was fastest in torrid heat and temperatures
of 36 Celsius.
Daniel Ricciardo
was third for Renault, eight-tenths off the pace set by Hamilton with his best
lap of one minute and 25.606 seconds, enough to lift him one-tenth clear of
Bottas.
The two had traded
fastest laps during the session, which ended early with two minutes remaining
when Antonio Giovinazzi was left stranded with his Alfa Romeo at Becketts after
Sebastian Vettel had suffered an engine failure in his Ferrari at Copse.
The session was
red-flagged and not re-started.
Max Verstappen was
fourth for Red Bull ahead of the Racing Point pairing of Lance Stroll and Nico
Hulkenberg, the Canadian edging ahead of the stand-in German driver, who was
replacing coronavirus victim Sergio Perez.
The Mexican had
returned a positive result from a Covid-19 test overnight Thursday and missed a
second successive race, allowing Hulkenberg to impress again in the
controversial ‘pink Mercedes’.
The team had been
docked 15 points and fined earlier on Friday after a stewards hearing upheld a
Renault protest and ruled that their brake ducts were not legal.
Behind them,
Charles Leclerc was seventh for Ferrari ahead of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz
of McLaren and Esteban Ocon in the second Renault.