Hamilton can start home weekend in perfect fashion

British Grand Prix practice
Channel 4 & Sky Sports F1, 9am Friday

Silverstone, the circuit where the inaugural F1 world championship grand prix was held in 1950, is the venue for this weekend's British Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton lost further ground in the championship by finishing fourth in Austria last weekend, but he will be confident of eating into Sebastian Vettel's 20-point advantage at his home track.

Bookmakers have given Hamilton their vote of confidence - he is 10-11 to win Sunday's race, 8-13 to go fastest in qualifying on Saturday, and 6-5 to head Friday's first practice session.

The latter price looks worth snapping up. Hamilton has topped the opening session at four of the last five grands prix.

The three-time world champion seemed distracted in Austria, possibly because he knew the five-place grid penalty he would have to take for an unscheduled gearbox change would make it all but impossible for him to win.

But Hamilton always gets a boost from the home comforts at Silverstone, and he will be eager to pour water on the hopes of his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas. The Finn brought himself into championship contention by holding off Vettel to win from pole in Austria.

With the possible exception of Barcelona, Silverstone is the most heavily-used of the circuits visited by the F1 circus so far this season. That means the track surface tends to change less as the weekend progresses than at greener, less-used circuits, and the data gathered on Friday is of more use to engineers.

So we should see the drivers getting in plenty of laps and hopefully a decent formguide for the rest of the weekend.

Ferrari are introducing an engine upgrade at this race, so it will be interesting how they approach the first session.

Fernando Alonso will go back to the higher-powered latest-spec Honda engine which he used briefly over the Austrian weekend, however that will mean yet another grid penalty for the beleaguered Spaniard.

Recommendation
L Hamilton fastest in practice one
2pts 6-5 Hills