HIGHLIGHTS: Watch the action from first practice at Silverstone as Verstappen sets the early benchmark

Max Verstappen and Red Bull continued where they left off in Austria with another pace-setting performance during first practice for the British Grand Prix, while Sergio Perez made it a one-two for the team.

In hot and sunny conditions at Silverstone, with a packed crowd watching on, Verstappen produced a blistering time of 1m 28.600s on the soft compound tyre to lead team mate Perez by just under half a second.

FP1: Verstappen leads Perez and Albon as British GP weekend begins

There was plenty for the home fans to get excited about in the first session of the weekend, with Alex Albon putting his Williams third on the timesheets – ahead of Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin and Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari – via some eye-catching straight-line speed.

It remains to be seen where Mercedes will slot into the order, however, with both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell completing the opening session on the medium and hard tyre compounds – not yet sampling the quickest, soft rubber.

The most dramatic moment of the session came early on when Nyck de Vries spun his AlphaTauri at Luffield, bringing out the yellow flags, but the F1 rookie managed to work his way out of the gravel trap and continue on his way.

Check out the action from first practice at Silverstone in the video player above.