How British Grand Prix practice unfolded

Ferrari end the day top of the pile thanks to Carlos Sainz but could Silverstone's magic be swirling around its favourite driver, Lewis Hamilton? Encouraging signs for Mercedes to build on tonight.

We'll be back again on Saturday for third practice from 11:30 BST, and then it's full steam ahead for qualifying at 15:00 BST.

Hope to see you again tomorrow.

Bye for now.

I like the fact that Mercedes look stronger. That's Hamilton's best Friday for a long time, probably all season and he's looked decent on the medium run and he looked better on the softs.

Norris was spectacularly quick on his soft run. I don't think that McLaren are going to have the pace to keep that up tomorrow but I might be wrong and hopefully I am because it'd be fun to see them up there.

Ferrari and Red Bull looked pretty close but I would say maybe advantage Ferrari, but it's set up nicely.

Full times, gaps and laps to have a look over from FP2.

The rest of the top 10 was made up of Fernando Alonso, Sergio Perez, George Russell, Daniel Ricciardo and Lance Stroll.

1. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) - 1:28.942

2. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) +0.163s

3. Lando Norris (McLaren) +0.176s

4. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0.207s

5. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.462s

Oh dear, Lewis Hamilton reports something might have come off his car, around Turn Nine. He has ended the hour second fastest, though. Lando Norris in the McLaren is third in the timing sheets with a 1:29.118.

Ian Warrender: So with Ferrari having the edge, what method will they use to not win?

We're expecting a high tyre degradation on Sunday so this will give us our first bit of indication, the track well and truly rubbering in now, but certainly this track is getting faster and will do throughout qualifying tomorrow.

Hard tyres for George Russell and positive news from his Mercedes engineer. "You're matching the Ferraris now," he's told. Carlos Sainz is on the soft tyres, Charles Leclerc is on the mediums.

1. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) - 1:28.942

2. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) +0.163s

3. Lando Norris (McLaren) +0.176s

4. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0.207s

5. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.462s

Can George Russell extract a bit more pace from his Mercedes? His engineer seems to think so, but Russell isn't convinced, given the lack of grip he says he is experiencing.

There's a big split in the different teams:

George Russell is miles away from Lewis Hamilton today - eight tenths down, seven tenths down on his teammate. Perez, miles adrift of Verstappen. Norris way ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, so Ferrari are more consistently towards the front and they were the same on the medium tyre.

Birthday boy Daniel Ricciardo is trying to reach the heights of his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris but so far, the Australian has only managed a 1:29.902 to sit ninth on the timing sheets. He's eight laps in on a set of soft tyres.

The red-banded soft tyres are on Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes and they have enabled the seven-time world champion to leap up the pack and slot into second on the timing sheets, just under two tenths short of leader Carlos Sainz's quickest marker.

A bit of mess of a pit stop down at McLaren as the jack seems to slip from the rear of the car as the mechanics tried to change Lando Norris' tyres. The car thuds onto the ground and the crew are left to scramble around to get the 22-year-old back up and running.