PRACTICE: Esterson leads Shields in rain-hampered session at Silverstone

Jenzer Motorsport’s Max Esterson ended up with the fastest time in this morning’s Silverstone Free Practice, leading Hitech Pulse-Eight’s Cian Shields in a rain-hit session.

Esterson completed a lap of 2:00.153 to take top spot, eclipsing Shields’ previous benchmark time by just 0.114s as ART Grand Prix driver Nikola Tsolov ended up third.

With the full wet tyres strapped on as rain continued to fall at Silverstone, MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz was the early pacesetter thanks to his time of 2:02.391.

However, the fastest time continued to change as home favourites Joseph Loake and then Arvid Lindblad went to P1 only for Campos Racing’s Mari Boya to go over a second quicker on a 2:00.873.

Then came Tsolov in his ART car who then eclipsed Boya’s time by 0.323s, while his teammate Christian Mansell went up to third, over half a second behind the Bulgarian driver.

Hitech rookie Shields was next up as he set the fastest first and final sectors to go quickest with a 2:00.267, only for Esterson to go even better moments later with a 2:00.153.

With 20 minutes left of Practice, the teams brought their cars in and bolted on the slicks for the first time in the day, but just as they did the rain began to fall even harder.

This meant that the drivers did not improve on their best times, leaving Esterson fastest ahead of Shields, with Tsolov in third ahead of James Wharton, who has made a good start to his debut weekend with Hitech Pulse-Eight, as Boya ended up fifth.

The drivers will now go debrief with their teams ahead of Qualifying later today which is set to start at 14:05 local time.