F1 British GP Live Commentary and Updates – FP1 & FP2

A 1m29.824s for Verstappen is 20th at present, but like Perez, he took no part in FP1, so is acclimatising to the track in these early stages. 

Only Magnussen is yet to set a time, something he is on the way to rectifying. 

Setting the first time of his weekend, Perez puts in a 1m29.399s to go 14th. Keep in mind he didn't take part in FP1, so don't judge that opening effort too harshly. 

Tsunoda begins his opening effort and he will be the first driver to register a time. Sargeant and Albon will follow soon after. 

The track has immediately become very busy, with teams keen to complete their running before the predicted rain arrives.

Drivers to look out for in this session are Perez, Gasly, Magnussen and Sargeant, after all four sat out FP1 to allow junior drivers a session. 

The music has played, the drivers are getting strapped in, and we're just about ready to go. T-minus five minutes. 

We have just under 10 minutes to go before FP2 gets under way. Highlighting how unpredictable the conditions have been today, the official chance of rain stands at 60 percent. A 40 percent chance it will remain dry. 

Lando Norris was the fastest driver earlier in the day, but Verstappen elected not to run the soft in that opening session, leaving the picture of what to expect very unclear. 

Good afternoon and welcome back to Silverstone for second practice at the British Grand Prix. 

We'll take a pause there on the live text blog, but do check out the website for all the news and latest updates from Silverstone in the meantime before we resume later this afternoon for FP2 at 16:00 BST. See you then.

Before FP2 begins, with Perez, Magnussen, Gasly and Logan Sargeant getting back aboard, it will be a busy lunch at McLaren trying to diagnose and fix the issues on Piastri's car. And for those F2 drivers who have just stepped out of the cockpit, there's not long before they have to get themselves up to the old pits where their teams are based for qualifying.

A shame then for Hadjar to end his session on that downer. Bearman was half a second down on Hulkenberg, but took his softs much sooner than the German and would have had less rubber on the track at the time. Colapinto ending up four tenths behind Albon is certainly respectable on his first time in the car. Doohan meanwhile was seven tenths back from Ocon and split the two Williams cars.

That heart-in-mouth incident between Hadjar and Norris will be investigated after the session. Thankfully, unlike last week's McLaren-Red Bull altercation, there was no contact this time.

Phew, a big moment for Norris who locks up and goes off the circuit at the Farm left-hand sweeper as he approaches Hadjar at a vast rate of knots. The Red Bull rookie is immediately apologetic and holds his hand up to acknowledge Norris as he motors by on the Wellington Straight. But that set of softs for the McLaren man will be good for little but the skip after that.

Nobody at the sharp end of the leaderboard is looking likely to improve on this final tour, so it will be Norris who heads the times with a best effort on softs - which the likes of Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari elected not to use. 

Piastri's car has been pushed back to the McLaren pit box by some marshals. It seems doubtful he'll make it out again though before the end of the session.

Hadjar meanwhile has been sent out on the mediums for the first time in the session and almost matches the time set by Tsunoda before the RB man's early spin, but remains bottom of the timesheets for now. 

It looks like Piastri can't make it back as he pulls up just short of the pit entry.

"What are these guys doing?" grumbles Doohan as he's unable to take his ideal line into Vale due to a slow-moving Aston Martin and backs out of his time. The Australian is currently 16th, while Colapinto improves to lap three tenths down on Albon.

Lots more drivers are now using the soft, with 2006 and 2011 Silverstone winner Alonso using the red sidewall tyres to vault into fourth for the local Aston Martin team.

Ricciardo has to jink and weave in traffic on the Hangar Straight trying to anticipate where a dawdling Williams will go ahead of him. Still it's enough to move him ahead of Alonso into 13th spot.

Both Doohan and Colapinto are around seven tenths down on their respective full-time team-mates as things stand. A caveat for both is Colapinto is getting his first taste of the 2024 Williams, while Doohan's practice running in Canada was severely curtailed by the weather there.

Leclerc is 0.139s down in third, while Sainz was unable to improve last time around on his first lap with mediums.

The latest drivers to use softs are Hulkenberg and Ocon, which explains their sudden presence in the top eight, above Bottas.

It's worth pointing out that time from Verstappen was set on the mediums. It proves fractionally quicker than the first efforts of Russell and Leclerc on the same compound too, with the Mercedes man just 0.010s shy.