PRACTICE: Dunne the early benchmark as he leads the way at Silverstone

Alexander Dunne made a strong start to his Silverstone weekend by topping the timesheets of the Silverstone Free Practice.

The Rodin Motorsport driver’s 1:42.065 was the quickest lap of the session, beating Invicta Racing’s Rafael Câmara by 0.071s, with DAMS Lucas Oil’s Dino Beganovic in third.

It was a strong start for Rodin with Dunne setting the pace way with a 1:43.143, leading teammate Martinius Stenshorne in P2 by 0.085s.

Campos Racing’s Noel León then went up to second and to within 0.007s off Dunne, before Gabriele Minì and then John Bennett set the fastest times.

However Dunne quickly reclaimed his place at the top with a 1:42.513, with Câmara now his closest rival, 0.173s behind in P2.

The Brazilian completed a 1:42.136 on his next push to put three and a half tenths between him and the rest of the field.

ART Grand Prix driver Kush Maini then cut Câmara’s lead to 0.277s, as he jumped up to P2 with just over 20 minutes to go.

After a short stint in the pitlane, the drivers returned to the track for their final laps of the morning with Bennett jumping up to third ahead of Joshua Duerksen in fourth.

Minì then moved up to P2, cutting the gap to Câmara to 0.218s, while Duerksen improved once again to go to third.

The times were coming in thick and fast with 10 minutes remaining in the session. Beganovic went to within 0.005s of the leader, with teammate Roman Bilinski in third.

But moments later, Dunne eclipsed Câmara’s time by 0.071s to return to P1 with a 1:42.065. There were no further improvements, with Dunne taking P1 ahead of his Invicta rival, with Beganovic in third.

Sebastián Montoya was fourth for PREMA Racing ahead of Bilinski, with Minì in sixth. Duerksen wound up in seventh, and he was followed by Bennett, as Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and Maini rounded out the top 10 for ART.

The drivers will have a couple of hours to look over the data before hitting the track later today for Qualifying at 14:55 local time.