George Russell dominated practice for the Silverstone round of the FIA Formula 2 championship, with the current championship leader more than seven-tenths of a second clear of the field.
The ART Grand Prix driver, with a ten point advantage at the top of the standings, set a best time of 1:40.410s early in the session, 0.710 seconds clear of Alexander Albon of DAMS, while Lando Norris was third fastest for Carlin Motorsport.
The early running was affected by a Virtual Safety Car when Nicholas Latifi’s mediocre season continued, with the second DAMS race spinning to a stop at Becketts, while the end of the session saw a crash for Maximilian Günther exiting turn one, with the German spinning into the gravel trap and making light contact with the barrier.
But Russell was on fire straight from the box, with his time significantly better than the rest of the pack, while Albon and Norris were separated by just 0.036 seconds. The latter ended his session with a broken front wing after attempting an optimistic move on Sean Gelael heading into the final turn that saw the left hand end plate of the Carlin hit the right rear tyre of the Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing machine.
Ralph Boschung survived a couple of off track moments and will be encouraged to set the fourth fastest time for MP Motorsport, while the second ART Grand Prix machine of Jack Aitken will be wondering why he ended up more than a second down on team-mate Russell in fifth – he was four tenths of a second down in the first sector alone!
Luca Ghiotto placed himself inside the top six for Campos Racing ahead of Sergio Sette Câmara in the second Carlin, while Roberto Merhi put the second MP Motorsport machine into eighth ahead of the Charouz Racing System duo of Louis Delétraz and Antonio Fuoco.
Fuoco was one of a number of drivers to run off track during the session, with the Italian going through the gravel trap at Copse after running very wide, while Artem Markelov found himself off track on numerous occasions, the Russian Time driver ending the session just outside the top ten.
Silverstone Free Practice Result
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