Kimi Antonelli won the sprint race at Silverstone

Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton started the sprint race from the pole. The experienced ring fox led the race in front of his home crowd, until Antonelli pushed past his Mercedes on the eighth lap. Hamilton was second on the checkered flag.

Reigning World Champion Lando Norris drove a strong opening round in front of his home crowd and rose from the sixth grid to second place. The Briton, who struggled with the reliability of his car during the early season, gave quite a strong sample of his race pace and was finally third in the sprint race.

The differences between the teams in performance seem to have leveled off. The Mercedes drivers who dominated the early season Kimi Antonelli and George Russell had to fight for positions against McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull.

Cadillacin Valtteri Bottas started the sprint from grid 20 and was 19th on the grid ticket. Bottas’ teammate Sergio Perez received a ten second time penalty after crashing Fernando Alonson with.

Antonelli leads the World Drivers’ Championship ahead of Russell and Hamilton.

Silverstone time trials are held on Saturday at 18:00 and the race on Sunday at 17:00.