Grand Prix of Britain, Practise Session 1, 2 & 3

Fernando Alonso led the way for Renault in final practice for the
British Grand Prix, as damp but drying conditions at Silverstone led to
a rush of activity in the last few minutes of the hour-long session… (read full report here)

Pos  Driver        Team                     Time              Laps
 1.  Alonso        Renault             (B)  1:20.740            16
 2.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:20.988 +  0.248   18
 3.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:21.266 +  0.526   14
 4.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:21.277 +  0.537   19
 5.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:21.668 +  0.928   14
 6.  Piquet        Renault             (B)  1:21.786 +  1.046   14
 7.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:22.059 +  1.319   21
 8.  Glock         Toyota              (B)  1:22.183 +  1.443   21
 9.  Raikkonen     Ferrari             (B)  1:22.355 +  1.615   20
10.  Barrichello   Honda               (B)  1:22.387 +  1.647   17
11.  Button        Honda               (B)  1:22.440 +  1.700   19
12.  Massa         Ferrari             (B)  1:22.461 +  1.721   20
13.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:22.544 +  1.804   18
14.  Trulli        Toyota              (B)  1:22.556 +  1.816   20
15.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber          (B)  1:22.916 +  2.176   22
16.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:23.028 +  2.288   17
17.  Sutil         Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:23.049 +  2.309   22
18.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:23.112 +  2.372   21
19.  Kubica        BMW Sauber          (B)  1:23.282 +  2.542   20
20.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:32.119 + 11.379    6

Oh dear, the rain doesn’t seem to have helped the progress of Kimi setting up his car, however the car should be quick in both wet and dry conditions. All depends on the weather and at the moment, it’s predicted to be sunny during 1pm when qualifying begins. Fear not my fellow fans, we should have an exciting qualifying session and I think Kimi’s side of the Ferrari garage are sandbagging. But that’s my view, please share yours!

| Free Practise 2 – Kovalainen Fastest Ahead of Red Bull

Heikki Kovalainen led the way in the second free practice session for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, as McLaren and Red Bull monopolised the top four positions.

Red Bull’s Mark Webber and David Coulthard were a promising second and fourth, sandwiching Kovalainen’s McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton, while the best of the Ferraris was down in eighth position.

Kovalainen held a comfortable margin over the field for most of the session. After Hamilton, Webber and Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso) had all taken a turn on top in quick succession, Kovalainen hit the front with a 1:20.353 on soft tyres with 28 minutes gone.

When he rejoined, again on softs, half an hour later, the Finn improved to a 1:19.989, putting him seven tenths of a second clear of the pack.

Webber reduced that margin to half a second with a late improvement that guaranteed him second place, while a slight error in the complex on his last run meant that Hamilton finished the day 0.554 seconds behind his teammate.

Ferrari only managed eighth and 12th places with Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen. While the latter appeared to be running a more conservative strategy, Massa had to sit out the first half of the session while his car was repaired after his morning crash, and then had two trips over the grass later on…

Pos  Driver        Team                     Time              Laps
 1.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:19.989            35
 2.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:20.520  + 0.531   32
 3.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:20.543  + 0.554   31
 4.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:20.589  + 0.600   36
 5.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:20.748  + 0.759   43
 6.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:20.805  + 0.816   43
 7.  Button        Honda               (B)  1:20.929  + 0.940   39
 8.  Massa         Ferrari             (B)  1:20.943  + 0.954   18
 9.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:20.985  + 0.996   18
10.  Barrichello   Honda               (B)  1:21.002  + 1.013   34
11.  Kubica        BMW Sauber          (B)  1:21.023  + 1.034   33
12.  Raikkonen     Ferrari             (B)  1:21.275  + 1.286   31
13.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber          (B)  1:21.453  + 1.464   36
14.  Glock         Toyota              (B)  1:21.472  + 1.483   18
15.  Alonso        Renault             (B)  1:21.511  + 1.522   27
16.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:21.520  + 1.531   42
17.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:21.634  + 1.645   39
18.  Piquet        Renault             (B)  1:21.642  + 1.653   45
19.  Sutil         Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:21.756  + 1.767   30
20.  Trulli        Toyota              (B)  1:22.196  + 2.207   23

Well, it’s obvious Ferrari were running a race pace strategy in this session with Kimi, as they usually do this season. But what a promising show from Red Bull! They’ll be working hard to gie Coulthard another podium, in what will be his last British GP. A pity that Massa’s having trouble with his car, it would be for the second consecutive time that he’ll be starting from the back of the grid for this Grand Prix, as he did last year after stalling on the grid. But he managed to finish a strong 4th, will he be able to fight back this weekend? Kimi’s got nothing else on his mind apart from winning, so let’s just wait for qualifying and Sunday eh…Keep Flying Kimi!

| Friday Quotes, Ferrrari , "Struggle to find the best set-up" – Kimi

Kimi Raikkonen – 12th: "This morning things were not so bad, while in the afternoon I had a bit of a struggle to find the best settings on the car, which was not working as well as it had done at last week’s test. We have to look at the data to understand why.

"Obviously, the order in the second session is not representative of the relative strengths in the field. But I am still reasonably confident and if we manage to find a good set-up, then we can fight for the top places."

Felipe Massa – 8th: "It was a big crash, but that’s part of the game and I have had much worse accidents in my career. I didn’t see any flags and I had approached the corner in the usual way and then I totally lost control of the car under braking. I tried to slow down, but the impact was still pretty violent.

"The most important thing is that we were able to fix the car and in the end we didn’t lose that much time as it wasn’t planned for me to do many laps in the morning. I want to thank all the lads for the work they did: they were fantastic and they didn’t stop for a moment right up to the very end of the second session.

"We came to Silverstone with a good starting point after the tests we did here last week and I think we are going in the right direction. I am pleased with the balance of the car and its performance on both types of tyre we have here from Bridgestone."

| Video: FP1 – Onboard Lap with Kimi

       http://www.viddler.com/simple/f904fa97/

| Free Practise 1 – Massa Leads McLaren, Kimi 4th Fastest

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa beat the two McLarens to the fastest time in Friday morning practice at Silverstone – despite the Brazilian sitting out the final third of the session after a heavy crash on oil at Stowe…(read full report here)

Pos  Driver        Team                     Time              Laps
 1.  Massa         Ferrari             (B)  1:19.575             8
 2.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:19.587  + 0.012   15
 3.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:19.623  + 0.048   13
 4.  Raikkonen     Ferrari             (B)  1:19.948  + 0.373   16
 5.  Kubica        BMW Sauber          (B)  1:20.367  + 0.792   11
 6.  Alonso        Renault             (B)  1:20.436  + 0.861    7
 7.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:20.588  + 1.013   18
 8.  Piquet        Renault             (B)  1:20.653  + 1.078   16
 9.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:20.698  + 1.123   16
10.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:20.744  + 1.169   27
11.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:20.892  + 1.317   10
12.  Glock         Toyota              (B)  1:21.102  + 1.527   22
13.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber          (B)  1:21.107  + 1.532   18
14.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:21.166  + 1.591   17
15.  Trulli        Toyota              (B)  1:21.265  + 1.690   22
16.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:21.282  + 1.707   21
17.  Button        Honda               (B)  1:21.901  + 2.326    7
18.  Sutil         Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:22.169  + 2.594   16
19.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:22.219  + 2.644   19
20.  Barrichello   Honda               (B)  1:24.123  + 4.548    4

What a start to the weekend at Silverstone! Not very good for Ferrari but it seems McLaren are quite close on pace, and Alonso, Vettel and Coulthard all look like they want a big result on Sunday. It’s only the first session, I wonder what the next will bring? Hopefully no problem for Kimi.

There was an interview with Kimi earlier, he just talks about this season bringing no more pressure than he had last year. It was also just announced today by the FIA that Silverstone has lost the British GP to Donington from 2010! It’s been a long time since the BRDC have said they’ll sort things out at Silverstone, but they never did so. I guess they can only blame themselves for losing the Grand Prix. At least F1 still remains in Britain and Donington takes responsibility to make sure that it stays here, that’s the main thing. But I assume there will be many upset fans in Silverstone….

| Video: FP1 – Massa Crashes

         http://www.viddler.com/simple/c7d53f88/