It has been a mixed day. It was amazing to drive around Silverstone in a Formula One car, this place is incredible, and the track is thrilling. We had a gearbox issue in FP2, only completing about three proper laps. That has set us back a bit, but I am confident we can hit the ground running again tomorrow. It’s a track I know well, and I feel comfortable ahead of the weekend.

The new surface this year makes the track a little spicier and the car behaves differently. Additionally, the wind was quite gusty in places which has a big influence on the car. Although this is the same for everyone it probably has a larger impact on us as we have less grip, therefore more sensitive to these conditions. We will go through the data tonight and see what we can do.

As we expected, the new surface and the normal Silverstone wind made conditions a little tricky today. That said, we were able to evaluate some test items and begin to understand the tyres in preparation for qualifying and the race. Both drivers had steady FP1 sessions despite the brief interruptions from the VSC and the light rain. The stronger wind gusts this afternoon made testing more difficult and the gearbox issues on George’s car meant that we lost our reference for some of the tests. However, Robert drove well and had a decent long run on the hard compound. We will now rebuild George’s car ready for tomorrow when we will make our final refinements ahead of qualifying.