01/07/2022
NEWS STORY
Round 10 of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship commenced on Friday with practice at the Silverstone Circuit as teams prepared for Sunday's 52-lap British Grand Prix.
Friday's track time consisted of two 60-minute sessions - FP1 and FP2 - around the 5.891-kilometer (3.66-mile), 18-turn circuit. FP1 was light on content however as the hour passed with Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen posting just three laps each thanks to rain showers keeping most cars in their garages - teams opting not to risk the changeable conditions early in the weekend. Only 10 cars officially recorded a lap time with Schumacher taking P5 and Magnussen P7 - both running the Pirelli Cinturato Green intermediate tires to tackle the damp conditions.
Overhead conditions improved ahead of FP2 with a partly cloudy sky but more importantly no rain meant a dry circuit. Magnussen started his program with a nine-lap baseline stint on the Pirelli P Zero White hard rubber while Schumacher recorded the same number of laps on the Yellow medium compound. Both transitioned to the Red soft rubber for qualifying simulations. Magnussen set a best time of 1:30.480 (P17) with Schumacher recording a 1:30.609 (P19). High-fuel runs in the VF-22 concluded Friday's running with Magnussen remaining on softs and Schumacher reverting back to the medium tires to take the checkered.
Haas F1 Team ran a total of 62 laps on Friday across FP1 and FP2 - 30 by Magnussen and 32 by Schumacher.
Kevin Magnussen: "It's always hard to read into competitiveness and positions after these practice sessions. FP2 was basically our FP1 because the real FP1 was wet, with one installation lap. I'm still optimistic, it's very tight so it won't take a big improvement to go many places up the order. I'm really optimistic and looking forward to tomorrow - let's see what the weather does."
Mick Schumacher: "It wasn't quite as easy as we imagined it would be - some teams have brought a few upgrades - but we'll see in qualifying. We know what we have to do, we have a clear direction in terms of set-up and there was a lot of lap time left in my lap around Turn 15, so there's still more to come and we still have stuff to unlock on our side."
Guenther Steiner, Team Principal: "FP2 was pretty good for us. We got all our laps in, we did all our work and we know what we've got to do. Even if our position doesn't look the best, we're still very positive for tomorrow. FP1 obviously wasn't very relevant - we just got out there to make sure the car was working as it should - but with the changing conditions there was no real progress made on the set-up of the car."
Check out our Friday gallery from Silverstone here.