Valtteri Bottas
Valtteri Bottas finished in second position during last year's British Grand PrixReuters

With Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg winning four and three races respectively in the F1 calendar this season, they go in as favourites for the British Grand Prix.

The first two practice sessions start on Friday with the third one scheduled for Saturday, while the qualifying will also take place later on Saturday. The main race takes shape on Sunday.

Hamilton will be eager to come up with a winning performance in front of his home crowd like the way he did last season. But, he is going to face stiff competition from teammate Rosberg, who has won three out of the last four races.

Apart from the Mercedes's drivers, there are other racers who will also put their claim forward. One such driver is Valtteri Bottas after the Williams man secured second spot in the 2014 British Grand Prix.

Top class drivers such as Sebastian Vettel need to challenge Hamilton and Rosberg more and put pressure on them as well.

Bottas is also quite confident ahead of the race. The track at Silverstone is appreciated by many F1 drivers as it is said to be one of the fastest.

"It's one of these old school tracks and really high speed, so it's always really fun to drive here. I think it should be good for our car as well, like we saw last year. We had some new bits for Austria and I think they should work maybe slightly better here, so looking forward to the weekend," F1 official website quoted Bottas as saying.

With Mercedes having take a huge lead in the constructors' championship, teams are required to challenge Rosberg and Hamilton, or else they might run away with the title with a few races to spare.

Drivers such as Kimi Raikonnen have been unimpressive during the season and his future with Ferrari is under some serious doubt. But, if the Ferrari driver improves on his performances in the latter half of the season, starting with the British Grand Prix, he might be retained by Ferrari.

Things have not gone right for Raikonnen, who crashed with Fernando Alonso in the last grand prix in Austria. 

"We try to do good races. Obviously the last race was a bit difficult but that's part of the game, sometimes you have that. Who knows: I don't know anything more than you guys, so I will know hopefully at some point what will happen. There are always speculations to start off the year and it's always the same stories. It doesn't really surprise me a lot so let's see what happens," Raikonnen said.

British GP Schedule: 

First Practice Session (Friday): 10am local time (2:30pm IST, 5 am ET)

Second Practice Session (Friday): 2pm local time(6:30pm IST, 9am BST)

Final Practice Session (Saturday): 10am local time (2:30pm IST, 5 am ET)

Qualifying (Saturday) – 1 pm local time (5:30 pm IST, 8 am ET)

Race Day (Sunday) - 1 pm local time (5:30 pm IST, 8 am ET)

Venue - Silverstone Circuit, England.

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