Practice Two - Webber takes over for Red Bull 09 Jul 2010
Red Bull maintained their advantage at Silverstone courtesy of Mark Webber on Friday afternoon, in an hour and a half long second free practice session which saw some different faces in very different places.
Ferrari bounced into contention with second and fourth places to Red Bull’s first and third, Mercedes were fifth and sixth, and McLaren only eighth and 13th, separated by Force India, Williams and Renault. And Renault’s Vitaly Petrov was quicker than Robert Kubica. Go figure…
With a track temperature of 43 degrees Celsius and an ambient of 27, compared to 28 and 21 on Friday morning, conditions changed a lot. Red Bull, however, just went faster and fastest, with Webber eventually cutting down to 1m 31.234s. A rather breathless Sebastian Vettel lapped 0.641s slower in 1m 31.875s, but he was separated from his team mate by Fernando Alonso, who took the Ferrari round in 1m 31.626s for second, 0.392s adrift of Webber.
Felipe Massa was fourth on 1m 32.099s in the second Ferrari. Right behind the Brazilian came Nico Rosberg with 1m 32.166s in his Mercedes GP, while Michael Schumacher was half a second off his team mate with 1m 32.660s.
Petrov had an off at Becketts - as did the likes of Massa, Lewis Hamilton and Timo Glock - but was seventh with 1m 32.745s, ahead of McLaren’s Hamilton in eighth with 1m 32.757s. Force India’s Adrian Sutil and Williams' Rubens Barrichello rounded out the sub-1m 33s with 1m 32.787s and 1m 32.967s respectively.
Behind them, Kubica took his Renault round in 1m 33.019s for 11th, with Williams' Nico Hulkenberg (1m 33.164s), McLaren’s Jenson Button (1m 33.200s), BMW Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi (1m 33.402s), Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi (1m 33.728s) and Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Buemi (1m 33.836s) completing those runners below 1m 34s.
Pedro de la Rosa just failed to break that barrier in his BMW Sauber, ending the day 1m 34.051s, leading Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari on 1m 34.643s, Lotus’s Heikki Kovalainen on 1m 35.465s, Virgin’s Lucas Di Grassi and his team mate Timo Glock on 1m 36.237s and 1m 36.553s, HRT’s Karun Chandhok on 1m 37.019s, HRT’s Sakon Yamamoto on 1m 38.303s and Lotus’s Jarno Trulli on 1m 42.901s. Both Lotuses ran into mechanical problems.
On a generally tricky afternoon, Di Grassi spun at Abbey, Hamilton added to his Becketts off by leaving the road at Abbey twice, both Ferrari drivers went off-course at Copse, while Massa spun at Brooklands. Clearly the increase in track temperature played a key role as various driver/car combinations sought unsuccessfully to get their cars sorted out in slippery conditions.
