Practice 2: Webber fastest as Ferrari get pace

Mark Webber ended day one at Silverstone fastest of all

Jul.09 (YallaF1.com) Most teams used the first practice session of the day to roll out, check and ascertain the value of their upgrades. The second practice session of the British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone gave a better impression of the pecking order to be expected during the course of the weekend.

Mark Webber in the cockpit of the RB6

Red Bull again were the dominant, pace setting team but Ferrari fans will be enthused by a good showing as the heavily revamped F10 was up among the sharp end of proceedings throughout the afternoon session.

When the chequered flag fell to end the day’s action it was Mark Webber (Red Bull) who was top of the timing screens. But his session ended 15 minutes prematurely with his RB6 up on jacks in the pit garage with what appeared to be an electrical problem.

Fernando Alonso's heavily revised Ferrari F10 looking good

Next best, 0.392 seconds adrift, was Fernando Alonso who found pace in the Ferrari F10 featuring new rear wing as well as a different exhaust system configuration. The team had a subdued morning session which was spent ignoring fast laps and dedicated to comparative tests of their updates which were rolled out for second free practice.

Alonso said, “I am quite optimistic for the weekend, but we know the characteristics of the track are maybe not the same as Canada or Valencia, so we will see. I think Red Bull are clearly the favourites at the moment.”

Splitting the Ferrari’s was Sebastian Vettel, who was fastest in the morning session, managing to the third best time split in the afternoon. He was a tad quicker than Felipe Massa (Ferrari) who was fourth fastest albeit half a second down on his team mate.

Nico Rosberg ended the session fifth

In a complete reversal of recent fortunes it was the Silver Arrows of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher, fifth and sixth respectively, who were best of the Mercedes powered brigade.

With Robert Kubica (Renault) focusing on race setup it gave his Russian team mate an opportunity to impress, which he did by setting the seventh best time. Fastest rookie on the day while Kubica was down in 11th. Neither of the R30s sported F-ducts.

Lewis Hamilton ended day one 8th fastest

Introducing their biggest updates so far this year, including new front wing and diffuser were McLaren Mercedes who simply lacked the pace to match the front runners. This will have their engineers working overtime. As a result Hamilton was eight quickest and a whopping 1.5 seconds off the pace setters. Jenson Button was 0.4 seconds down ion his team mate 13th on the timing screens.

The reigning World Champion said, “We know it (the new package) will take a little bit getting used to and I am sure there is setup work needed, so we are going to have a busy couple of days getting it right.”

Adrian Sutil (Force India) was ninth quickest, merely 0.05 seconds off Hamilton, while team mate Vitantonio Liuzzi who was back in the cockpit, after giving Paul di Resta a morning run, ended 15th best.

Big crowd at Silverstone enjoy the action and the sunshine

Rubens Barrichello (Williams) again tenth quickest as he was in the first session. This time faster than his rookie team mate Nico Hulkenberg who ended the session 12th fastest.

Next up, 14th on the timing sheets, was Kamui Kobayashi who continued to impress and out drive his Sauber team mate Pedro de la Rosa who managed the 17th best time.

Sebastien Buemi, 16th when the session ended, was again faster of the two Toro Rosso’s with team mate Jaime Alguersuari 18th on the timing sheets.

Sakon Yamamoto replaced Bruno Senna at Hispania Racing

Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus) was again best of the new team drivers with 19th best time, just over four seconds per lap off Webber’s best. Team mate Jarno Trulli only managed 3 laps in an ill sounding T127 which had been driven by Fairuz Fauzy in the earlier session while the Italian watched from the sidelines. He was last on the timing sheets.

Next up were the Virgin Racing pair with rookie Lucas di Grassi getting the better of Timo Glock, ending the session 20th and 21st respectively.

Karun Chandhok, 22nd on the timing screens when the session ended, was three quarters of a second faster than his new Hispania Racing team mate Sakon Yamamoto who ended 23rd.

Practice 2 – 9 July 2010