Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN completed the first day of on-track action at the British Grand Prix. The Silverstone circuit was wet in FP1, a factor that limited running in a session that saw Valtteri Bottas top the timesheets with Zhou Guanyu in sixth; in the second session, a dry track allowed for plenty of laps to be completed, the resulting data driving the engineer's efforts to fine-tune the setup of the C42 tonight.

Valtteri Bottas: "It hasn't been a bad day: the first session wasn't that useful, with half the track dry and the other half wet, but we were able to do plenty of laps in FP2, as many as anyone else, and try some high-fuel runs. It's clear that the midfield is very tight once again; a couple of tenths more or less can mean a shift of a lot of places. We'll need to make a good improvement tonight but I think we can look forward to qualifying. There's still a bit to do to balance the car, especially in the high-speed corners, but I am confident we can make a step forward."

Zhou Guanyu: "It's been quite a smooth Friday overall. We couldn't learn much during FP1 due to the weather: driving out there was quite tricky and it was challenging to find the right balance, so FP2 was the first clean session of the day. I can consider myself happy, the field is super close again, as we expected, and the car seems to be working much better, with just a few things that we need to adjust for tomorrow. Having the complete package of updates for the whole weekend is always good, especially for rookies like me, so I'm looking forward to getting into more action tomorrow and improving even more ahead of qualifying."

Check out our Friday gallery from Silverstone here.