Friday at Silverstone has done what it always does: stirs up equal parts belief, dread, and the kind of hopium that should probably come with a prescription. Lando Norris topped the timesheets with a stunning 1:25.816, quicker than last year’s pole, while Leclerc and Hamilton kept the local faithful well-fed with reasons to dream. But as always, there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface.
Gaslight Him, Lock the Garage, Pray for Plot Armor
Lewis Hamilton is driving like every lap is a homecoming, and the jokes write themselves. If we could just gaslight him into thinking every single race is his home race, maybe he’d string purple sectors together every weekend. Around Silverstone, he really is something else. But no one trusts the mechanics not to ruin it: lock all the mechanics up so they don’t touch Lewis’s car. Just give the old man a car with a stable rear end, is that so much to ask?
Of course, there was nearly an anticlimax: Carlos Sainz came this close to crashing into Hamilton in FP2, which would’ve been the worst kind of plot twist. But as someone put it, Sir Lewis is protected by “impregnable plot armor at Silverstone.
Norris: The Groove is Back, And So Is the Smugness
Norris topping the charts, and looking so comfortable, has McLaren fans letting their hope flow dangerously unchecked. The suspension tweaks first tested in Canada seem to have unlocked something. If you ignore that Canada-ending brain fade, Lando’s basically been P1 or P2 at every race since Miami. “It’s almost like good cars can give issues to their drivers,” someone said, a reminder that sometimes, it’s not all on the driver.
Fans are ready to be insufferable. The Lando vs. Oscar dynamic rumbles on too, anyone who thought Piastri would just run away with the WDC must feel a bit silly now. If the upgrades hold, maybe this really is Norris’s year.
Ferrari: Hopium on Tap, But Don’t Touch a Thing
Over at Ferrari, the tone is cautious. A solid end to practice for Leclerc (P2) and that decent long-run pace has fans hoping the tires don’t get shredded when temps drop over the weekend. It’s been the theme all season: Leclerc sacrifices qualifying pace for race pace, while Hamilton often can bring the best out of a single lap. Lower temps could help Mercedes claw something back, but as someone summed up: Merc was a solid 6-8 tenths off McLaren, Ferrari, and Max. That seems pretty bad.
And yet… the Tifosi mantra holds: FERRARI… DONT TOUCH ANYTHING!!! One slip-up, and Silverstone’s pizzas might get the ketchup treatment from frustrated fans.
Red Bull: Radios, Balance, and a Tsunoda Tour
It’s been another messy Friday for Red Bull. Verstappen’s radio was cutting out, and his reply said it all: “Yeah, luckily it isn’t.” The car’s balance looked off all session. Some suspect they completely messed it up trying to control tire deg, which Helmut Marko reckons is the real worry for Ferrari and Mercedes. But maybe he should focus on his own team’s pace, that was the mood in the comments.
Then there’s Yuki Tsunoda: the Tsunover Tour continues. He ended FP2 a full 0.9 seconds off Max, and once again, the debate raged about whether he’s being unfairly slated. Some insist he’s an underrated midfield king driving a horror show of a car; others say he’s nowhere near Max and might not even hold a seat next year. Lindblad’s FP1 cameo, getting a tenth closer to Max than Tsunoda did, just poured gas on the fire. “There are so many variables that make this comparison apples to oranges,” someone pointed out. But that’s F1: we’ll compare the apples to the oranges every time.
Alpine, Aston… and a Prayer for British Weather
Down the grid, Alpine fans just want to pack up. From P4 to P10 in the championship in three years, El Plan es un fiasco. Aston Martin dropping from P2 to P8 doesn’t look much better, but they’ve got El Padre at least. For both, the only real hope is that someone else messes up more spectacularly than they do.
Final Word: Silverstone Script Incoming?
So what happens next? If you believe the fans, a Norris win on home soil with Hamilton P2 would be the perfect “script,” with Lewis saving his first Ferrari win for Monza. Will the British weather play along? Everyone’s praying for lower temps to keep tires alive and bring everyone closer together. As one hopeful fan put it: “I just hope it is closer than Austria, then we’re on for a good show.”
Hope. Hopium. Hysteria. Silverstone delivers every time.