Red Bull on top again at Silverstone

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Red Bull were fastest again in the second practice session at Silverstone as Mark Webber topped the times with a 1’31.234.

Fernando Alonso was second fastest in a session which saw several mistakes from drivers as they got used to the new track.

Third fastest Sebastian Vettel and fourth fastest Felipe Massa were among the drivers to spin during the second 90-minute session.

Lewis Hamilton also went off the track – he could only manage eighth-fastest in his McLaren while Jenson Button was 13th.

It was a difficult session for Lotus. Jarno Trulli, who sat out the first session while Fairuz Fauzy drove, only managed three laps before his car broke down. Team mate Heikki Kovalainen came to a halt late in the session.

Pos.CarDriverCarBest lapLaps
16Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’31.23415
28Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’31.6260.39226
35Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’31.8750.64125
47Felipe MassaFerrari1’32.0990.86525
54Nico RosbergMercedes1’32.1660.93229
63Michael SchumacherMercedes1’32.6601.42628
712Vitaly PetrovRenault1’32.7451.51129
82Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’32.7571.52322
914Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’32.7871.55327
109Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth1’32.9671.73333
1111Robert KubicaRenault1’33.0191.78530
1210Nico HulkenbergWilliams-Cosworth1’33.1641.9329
131Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’33.2001.96624
1423Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’33.4022.16823
1515Vitantonio LiuzziForce India-Mercedes1’33.7282.49427
1616Sebastien BuemiToro Rosso-Ferrari1’33.8362.60236
1722Pedro de la RosaSauber-Ferrari1’34.0512.81729
1817Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari1’34.6433.40936
1919Heikki KovalainenLotus-Cosworth1’35.4654.23125
2025Lucas di GrassiVirgin-Cosworth1’36.2375.00314
2124Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth1’36.5535.31921
2220Karun ChandhokHRT-Cosworth1’37.0195.78527
2321Sakon YamamotoHRT-Cosworth1’38.3037.06932
2418Jarno TrulliLotus-Cosworth1’42.90111.6673

2010 British Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
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    32 comments on “Red Bull on top again at Silverstone”

    1. Kubica slower than Petrov? I wonder what was he testing :)

    2. wow Petrov is above Kubica in the table… Pole had a lot of fuel in his car

      1. Why do you autpmatically assume Kubica is running heavy because he’s behind Petrov. Reading Autosport, Kubica is one of the drivers who hasn’t taken to the new section. There’s no comment from Petrov (because he’s not a major player), but for all we know, Petrov simply gets the new section whilst Kubica is baffled by it.

    3. Several drivers going off ….good sign for the race….great job by alonso…but red bull looks untouchable…mclaren evaluating new parts…but lewis looked out of sorts ..pushing too hard maybe..the bumps catching a few drivers unaware…overall a great session.

      1. yes the tension is building up i wonder if we are going to see some fight for the lead last year was disapointing but surely this year we may see some drama cause silverstone shouldnt be place of boring races

    4. Renault and Mclaren seem to be holding something in the bag yet again this weekend. I expect them to be making adjustments to the set up and run low fuel runs tomorrow morning and be firmly in the top 5 by the end of FP3. And by Qualifying Mercedes will be once again at the bottom of the top 10.

      1. MacademiaNut
        9th July 2010, 17:14

        I hope so.. otherwise, it won’t be a great show for the home team.

    5. Lotus 8 tenths of a second behind an established team. They’re getting closer all the time!

      1. Jarred Walmsley
        10th July 2010, 8:50

        Indeed, but what happened to Truilli?

    6. Maybe Massa was right about SFM’s upgrades. They have RBR in sight, sort of.

      McLaren remains a riddle. P2 times were actually slower than P1, indicating much fuel. Hamilton did a bit of gardening, which prevent a final quick run, which Button apparently did not attempt. Judging from VMM’s stout terminal speeds, they may have some speed to gain by adding downforce.

    7. nice driving hami

    8. People were expecting McLaren to make another jump forward with the addition of the blown diffuser but if anything it’s addition may have compromised some of the car’s other aero. Watching practice the car looked unstable through the fast corners and if anything with the the new blown diffuser it should help make the car better in the fast corners.

      I’m sure McLaren will get it sorted, I guess it’s just a reminder that in F1 you can’t just bolt new bits on sometimes and immediately see an improvement.

      Little surprise, but Red Bull look very strong here. And the Ferrari particulary in Alonso’s hands looks like it’s working well.

      1. I had a feeling the car is unstable in the back with Lewis, while Jenson has less trouble. But he was not pushing it as hard.

        I expect them to be closer tomorrow, maybe even at the top.

        Off to a splash in the pool now, have a nice time here.

      2. Younger Hamilton
        9th July 2010, 16:28

        Its possible or likely that they didv because at the beginning of the season and throughout McLaren were saying that the MP4-25 suits fast cornersand that through there the car balance is very good and that low speed corners were a bit of an issue.Im have all trust in McLaren and im sure it will be all back to normal tomorrow

        Red Bull and Ferrari have been warned!!!

    9. Nice to see Ferrari’s are back with Mercedes. Petrov is a surprise I think this weekend will be open for anyone to grab the pie.

    10. Younger Hamilton
      9th July 2010, 16:23

      McLaren arent really panicking about their laptimes as they are testing out their new parts and learning more about their new exhaust system while Ferrari,Red Bull and Mercedes are just showboating their real pace im pretty sure with the new radical Front wing and cooling and exhaust system and other new bits we’ve got,we’ll be right in there in saturday practice and in quali

      1. Well i hope that’s the case. My worry is Lewis going off so many times.

    11. I quite enjoyed the bit of off-roading… esp. when he went over a button and said “it was fun”

    12. I know you shouldn’t read into these times too much, but yamamoto 1.3 seconds slower than karun xD. If money and no talent can get you a f1 seat I think I’m going to start saving up some money :).

      1. LOL. Im looking for sponsors already, and hopefully I can take DiGrassis place within the next few races.

      2. You must have missed the early 90s. The grid was crawling with hacks with rich dads. Yamamoto is a superstar compared to some of those guys. It’s tough to criticize him for being off of Chandok. When did he last run an F1 car around corners? Think back to Badoer. He was good enough for the Ferrari payroll but desperately bad in the races.

        1. Didn’t Yamamoto take part in first practice for HRT at the Turkish GP earlier this season?

    13. Richard Brown
      9th July 2010, 16:49

      Just got back from Silverstone. Absolutely fantastic as always, my 13th British GP. Loved the new Abbey – I seriously suspect that about 0.3 of the Red Bull overall advantage is that one corner, it’s the only car that, consistently so at least, can take Abbey flat. Also interesting watch that the cars that are less steady over the bumps were taking the corner slightly wider in Session 2. Should be a great corner for qualy and race – will test the drivers to be that little bit braver or not when there isn’t necessarily any more time to gain from it.

      The presentation of the track looked sublime, new parts look great too. Here’s to a great rest of the weekend!

    14. I’m intrested in what people think of the new configuration compared with last years. To be honest at first I wasn’t pleased when it was first announced,losing historic corners like Bridge, but after watching those sessions I’m more in favour of this layout, love the new Abbey. You guys?

      1. Richard Brown
        9th July 2010, 18:26

        I get what you mean about Bridge being historic, but really, it’s never quite been the same since they built Abbey chicane in ’94. Priory was resultantly not that special anymore either as an entrance corner off it, though I grant it does have some history – Hill/Schumacher 1995, Barrichello overtaking Raikkonen 2003, Trulli’s crash 2004.

        Brooklands and Luffield are much improved now, as they’ve now become corners which are approached at far more speed via the Wellington Striaght, and as a result the drivers have been taking different lines and generally having to fight the car a lot more. It makes the end of the lap far more in-keeping with the majority.

    15. GOOOOOOOOOOO MARK!!!!

    16. As predicted, McLaren have taken a step backwards with their “upgrade”. It’ll be a RBR front grid lockout with Ferrari 2nd row, unless McLaren ditch it and go back to previous configuration, then they might split the Red Bulls or the Ferraris.

      1. Lewis has said he was generally pleased with the cars performance so i think they were actually just running heavy fuel and concentrating more on getting info from the new parts.
        I still think Red Bull will get pole quite easily though and possibly win too

      2. Keep Calm.

        And prepare for Mansell to slap big penalties on Hamilton for driving a victory lap with UK and Grenadine flags streaming from the cockpit.

    17. The last time Mclaren were not competitive was In Bahrain, when they were particularly troubled by a bump in the new section of the track. They ended up running a higher rider height just for the sake of that bump and thus compromised the entire weekend.

      Again, there is a bump in the new section of the track which causes troubles to Mclaren alone. Does the Mclaren MP4-25 floor come too close to the ground? I thought that the floors of the cars always remained at a fixed height above the ground. I hope John Beamer can glance over this issue in the next technical review.

      1. The floors don’t have a fixed height, the teams try to run them as low as they can. The cars have a plank on the bottom called the legality plank that gets measured by the FIA post race, and if it’s been worn away to a point where it doesn’t meet the minimum thickness, then they’re penalized. That’s my understanding of how the FIA controls ride height. So if McLaren is hitting that bump too hard consistently to the point that they feel it will grind too much of the legality plank, then they’ll have to slightly raise their ride height to compensate.

    18. Well it seems that Mercedes had a normal day but we have to see what they will do tomorrow especially in qualifying. Red Bull was the fastest today with Ferrari showing to be fast here. I can’t judge about the teams referring to this 2 practices. I will wait to see who is better in qualifying.

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