With a capacity crowd flocking Silverstone this weekend, Lewis Hamilton needs to emerge victorious this weekend. So far, the Briton hasn’t put a foot wrong – he starts F1’s first-ever sprint race in pole position. Although he missed out on improving his time in Q3, he fended off Max Verstappen’s late charge for pole on Friday.

However, during the practice session earlier today, the Briton showed concern for the engine settings. This prompted him to communicate with his race engineer Peter Bonnington on the radio.

Lewis Hamilton questions the need to push the engine during FP2 at Silverstone

While Verstappen outclassed Hamilton in FP1 yesterday, the Briton hit back in the all-important qualifying session. Although he took pole by the narrowest of margins, Hamilton took a huge step forward to make a comeback in the title fight.

After an intense qualifying session, the Briton egged on the faithful crowd at Silverstone as they greeted him with raucous cheers. While it seemed Mercedes played it safe during FP2, in which Hamilton finished P8, he questioned the engine settings on his car.

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With only a couple of hours to go for sprint qualifying, he expressed concerns over any possible risks to Bonnington. He asked, “Do we really need to keep pushing this engine? These are the same laps!”

However, his race engineer replied by saying the Silver Arrows were getting good data from the session. “Yeah, copy Lewis. This is all good information for us. We’re happy with the PU in this mode,” said Bono.

British Grand Prix FP2 Report: Mercedes Play It Safe as Verstappen Tops Ahead of Sprint Qualifying

Can Hamilton clinch his eighth British Grand Prix win?

The Verstappen-Hamilton battle is a tight one this year, and if the latter wants to have the upper hand in Sunday’s race, he needs to win the sprint race later today. While the Briton showed good pace on Friday, Verstappen could bring more to the table than he has so far.

The 36-year-old desperately needs a victory this weekend to close the gap to his Dutch rival in the driver’s championship. And with almost 140,000 fans attending the British Grand Prix, Hamilton is arguably a favorite to take top honors this weekend.

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