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| Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain steers his car during the first free practice at the Silverstone circuit, in Silverstone, England, Friday, July 1, 2022. The British F1 Grand Prix is held on Sunday July 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) |
Hamilton’s Mercedes team has struggled
badly this season but has reason to hope for an improved performance this
weekend at Silverstone, where the British driver is an eight-time winner.
Unlike the recent races on street circuits, the British track has a smooth
surface which could reduce the Mercedes car’s tendency to bounce up and down at
speed, causing Hamilton back pain.
Hamilton said the team has done
“phenomenal” work on upgrading the car for this week’s race, where he will be
looking for a second straight podium finish after coming third at the Canadian
GP.
The seven-time F1 champion also spoke out
this week about improving F1′s record on diversity and inclusion, especially as
drivers across F1 condemned former champion Nelson Piquet for comments in an
interview describing Hamilton, the sport’s only Black driver, with a racial
term which drivers and teams widely condemned as offensive.
Standings leader Max Verstappen, who is in
a relationship with Piquet’s daughter Kelly, said Thursday that the man he calls
his “father-in-law” had used a word that is “very, very offensive” but that he
didn’t consider Piquet to be a racist. He added that Piquet’s lifetime paddock
access given to former F1 champions should not be revoked.
BOTTAS SETS EARLY PACE
Valtteri Bottas was the surprise leader in
a first practice session affected by rain. The Alfa Romeo driver set a time of
1 minute, 42.249 seconds as the track dried to top the standings, 0.532 faster
than Hamilton and 0.718 ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.
The red flag halted the session about a
minute before the scheduled finish after Lance Stroll span his Aston Martin
into the gravel.
HAMILTON’S JEWELRY
Hamilton has indicated a solution has been
found in his standoff with the sport’s governing body, the FIA, over his
piercings.
The FIA has a longstanding rule barring
piercings and jewelry on safety grounds but it hadn’t been enforced for years.
With a new FIA president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, and new race directors this
season, the FIA said it would implement the rule.
Hamilton initially said he would keep
wearing piercings — especially a nose stud which would be difficult to remove —
but indicated Thursday he’d found a solution.
“We’ve got so much bigger fish to fry,”
Hamilton said. “So I will work with Mohammed and with his team so that we can
progress forwards.”
BRITISH SUMMER
What would a British summer be without
rain? The weather is set to be a factor throughout the British Grand Prix
weekend, soaking the expected 400,000 spectators and potentially shaking up the
grid.
Sergio Pérez in particular will seek to
improve after a tough time in the rain at the last race in Canada. Pérez hit
the wall in qualifying and made little impact from 13th on the grid before his
gearbox broke in the race, while teammate Verstappen went on to win. Fernando
Alonso qualified a surprise second in the tricky conditions for Alpine and
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz challenged Verstappen for the win in Canada but was left
still waiting for his first career F1 victory.
VETTEL REFRESHES F1 HISTORY
Sebastian Vettel is reaching into F1′s past
to present a glimpse of its possible future.
The four-time champion will drive a British
racing classic before the race Sunday, demonstrating the Williams car driven by
British driver Nigel Mansell when he won the 1992 title.
Vettel bought the car in 2018 in a nod to
his memories of watching F1 as a child in the early 1990s — both he and Mansell
won the title with the No. 5 — and has set it up to run on environmentally
friendly fuel.
“I’m using the carbon-neutral fuels on
Sunday to demonstrate that we can still hang on to our history and heritage and
culture and motorsport, but do it in a more responsible way,” Vettel said
Thursday, promising the new fuel mix won’t change the sound of the V10 Renault
engine.