Massa quickest as rain returns at Silverstone

2011 British GP second practice

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Felipe Massa, Ferrari, Silverstone, 2011

Felipe Massa was fastest in the second practice session at Silverstone.

But Friday’s second 90 minutes of practice saw even wetter conditions than the first.

The weather had improved in the interval. But five minutes before the second session was due to start the heavens open and heavy rainfall doused the track.

A handful of cars came out as the session began, but they soon retreated back to the pits without setting a time.

As the rain continued to hammer down the track fell silent until more than half the 90 minutes had passed.

Finally the rain eased and cars began to appear on the circuit again, led by Jaime Alguersuari, who set the fastest time to begin with.

One by one further cars appeared. Nico Rosberg was among the first to follow, but he had a moment at Abbey and ran onto the run-off area.

The times continued to improve and made for an exciting ends to a session that had started very slowly.

In the end it was a question of which driver started their lap last. Felipe Massa snatched the quickest time with a 1’49.967.

Barely a few minutes earlier Michael Schumacher had set the quickest time. But the time improved so quckly he ended the session in 12th place.

Nico Rosberg took second place, seven-tenths of a second off Massa.

Kamui Kobayashi and Lewis Hamilton, the latter one of the last drivers to join the track, were third and fourth.

Pos.CarDriverCarBest lapGap
16Felipe MassaFerrari1’49.9679
28Nico RosbergMercedes1’50.7440.77716
316Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’51.3951.42816
43Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’51.4381.4716
54Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’51.5181.5516
614Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’51.7381.77118
715Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’51.7811.8147
811Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth1’51.9922.02513
917Sergio PerezSauber-Ferrari1’52.1692.20212
1018Sebastien BuemiToro Rosso-Ferrari1’52.1892.22221
1110Vitaly PetrovRenault1’52.1982.2319
127Michael SchumacherMercedes1’52.3252.35812
1320Heikki KovalainenLotus-Renault1’52.5782.61116
142Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’52.5872.6206
155Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’52.8692.9028
169Nick HeidfeldRenault1’54.0234.0568
1719Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari1’54.2744.30716
181Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’54.5454.5784
1925Jerome D’AmbrosioVirgin-Cosworth1’54.7144.74713
2012Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Cosworth1’55.1555.1888
2121Jarno TrulliLotus-Renault1’55.1555.18812
2224Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth1’55.5495.58210
2322Daniel RicciardoHRT-Cosworth1’55.8285.86110
2423Vitantonio LiuzziHRT-Cosworth1’56.0376.0706

2011 British Grand Prix

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    65 comments on “Massa quickest as rain returns at Silverstone”

    1. That would be a fascinating grid for the race!

      Anyway, a good job by Massa. He’s turned around his poor histories this year at Shanghai and Montreal, so maybe Silverstone’s next for him.

      1. It would be pretty interesting to start off like that!

        The last 8 or so minutes were just about the part that made for good watching though. Poor 90000+ around on track today!

        1. I was thinking of going today but decided against it because of the weather forecasts. I have to say I would’ve been a bit annoyed with the lack of running, but the last 15-20 mins were good.

      2. Its an interesting result indeed. But it’s just Friday’s practice, and wet.

        Unfortunatelly tomorrow will be the same thing as the previous races.

      3. He has seemed to up his game, it’s very nice to see. A pole is almost certainly out of the question, but I too would love to see this be the grid for Sunday!

    2. So what if Pirelli would bring an extra set of wets and intermediates for the Friday sessions?

      And promise a monetary bonus to the top 5 cars in lap count to help spur some on track action?

      1. There should be a limited amount of tyres for the practice sessions and a limited one for qualifying and the race, so that each session is done independently.

        1. That would equal bringing more tyres; you would need at least five sets of inters for all sessions, and even then you would have to do qualy and race on one set each (has been done in 2005, I believe?).

          1. Maybe now teams decide to keep three spare sets for the race: if the maximum was two the extra set would be used in practice.

      2. I think Pirelli should get a bit creative with transporting tyres to GPs. On a 3-day-rain weekend, four sets of inters is not enough (and three sets of wets – but as they pointed out on BBC 5 Live – they don’t actually use wets for the race because they drive behind the SC if it’s too wet), but it’s still a lot to carry around to venues where they don’t get used at all.

        Perhaps Pirelli should just put some tyres in some trucks and drive them in overnight (especially for the European races), so teams can use fresh rubber for Saturday and Sunday.

        1. Pirelli cannot afford the risk of running out of tyres during a race. So I believe they ship containers of them everywhere.

          Yes, it’s not very energy efficient, F1 is a wasteful sport regarding logistics.

      3. So what if Pirelli would bring an extra set of wets and intermediates for the Friday sessions?

        And promise a monetary bonus to the top 5 cars in lap count to help spur some on track action?

        I dont think it would spur some on track action. The problem is FP1 and FP2 are mainly data-tracking runs. The new parts are always made for dry running. Because it’s wet, they can’t properly evaluate the new parts, and thus don’t need to run that many laps. You could give them 100 sets of wets and inters but it’s more about evaluating new parts, than just going around for fun

        1. I think extra money for the top 5 lappers teams would get more cars out. Especialy in the case of hispania virgin or williams who are on very tight budgets. As monisha kaltenborn said in p2 at valencia you can never have enough money.

          Short of making a rule about completeing a certain number of laps this is the only way teams would be persuaded to go out.

    3. I hope the Ferrari’s can take this pace into qualifying.

      1. What pace?
        They might have pace but Massa is mainly top due to running late on a drying track, hence RBR finishing where they have. It means nothing, but it would be nice if the grid was something like that.

        1. actually the top 11 cars were running the same tyres and set their times in the last 5 mins of the session massa finished top on merit.

          Granted redbull did not take part but that’s all redundent now because somehow renault, as in the engine manufacturer has persuaded the fia to give them a massive advantage with the off throttle rules. If the decision is not overturned *again* in the next 24 hours redbull will dominate by a bigger ammount than they have all season……

          1. actually the top 11 cars were running the same tyres and set their times in the last 5 mins of the session massa finished top on merit

            and the track was dramatically different in those last five minutes it was changing with each car that passed. At the beginning of the 5 minutes you speak of the track was 3 seconds slower. Even running 20 seconds later in the last minute difference had a massive difference, which is my point.

      2. I don’t get why people ever think that practice results mean anything.

        Every time mercedes or ferrari (or whoever) set “fast” practice times, they are praised for their improved pace. Then when qualifying comes, everything goes back to the way it was at the previous race. And so on.

    4. Schumacher was comfortably the fastest on the wet tyre.

      He’s looking good this weekend.

      1. If it rains I think he can pull out a surprise result, maybe with the help of some retirements ahead of him.

        1. I really, really, really want it to rain.

          But it’s meant to dry up as the weekend progresses.

          1. I used to think that, but after Canada it looks likely that wet = safety car laps.

            There is a nice middle ground where its not dry but not wet either, just a bit slippery, and they are free to race. I would rather it stay dry and we just got a full distance proper race to be honest.

          2. I don’t know – Michael can benefit from that, but for Felipe I still remember his 2008 race here.

        2. Sound_Of_Madness
          8th July 2011, 17:23

          Retirements? Difficult to happen IMO, these cars are very reliable, and it’s not like you can expect many mistakes from the guys in front either.

      2. schumacher dominated nico today. How ever his chances of getting a podium have been substantialy reduced in the last 2 hours see my above post.

    5. Getting a good time this practice would have been about getting out at the right time. They’re about 2 seconds off practice one!

    6. SennaNmbr1 (@)
      8th July 2011, 14:59

      20 lap minimum running in all practice sessions is needed IMO.

      1. More rules is not what F1 needs, and certainly not ones that are hard to check (what if there’s a problem on your car?).

        I agree with you though that something must be done to put on a show for thousands of fans getting cold in the rain.

        1. something must be done to put on a show

          That would be even more pointless and ridiculous than the mandatory pit stop rule.

        2. What about getting Bernie to stump up some extra cash at the end of the season, for the teams who rack up the most laps during the FP sessions. Reliability issues would be the teams concern, not FOM’s.

      2. For what purpose?

        1. for extra money for the teams which alot of them desperatly need. Plus extra fun for the fans which if you talked to any of the guys sat in the stands for 3 hours today and that was just for the f1 they would all agree.

    7. SennaNmbr1 (@)
      8th July 2011, 15:10

      If there’s a technical problem then obviously you’d have to be exempted. But there definitely should be some way of getting cars on track when it’s raining. If spectators stop turning up then there probably won’t be any F1 for much longer.

    8. According to Sarah Holt, Lewis Hamilton has been called to the stewards office. Wonder what that is all about…

      1. Just to prepare him for Sunday I guess.

        1. “Play nice, speak nice, Lewis!”

      2. Probably rehearsal for any penalties that will be given out on Sunday.

    9. “Lewis Hamilton has to go to see the stewards after practice. No news on why”

      According to Sarah Holt’s Twitter feed.

      1. It’s just so that he knows the way there on Sunday.

    10. Congradulations to Ricciardo for beating Liuzzi. Not a bad effort for your first time in the car.

      1. 2nd you mean.

    11. another lap or two and massa would have been spinning like a top!

    12. I am feeling that the Mercedes is a lot better around this track at the moment… MSC’s time was set on extreme wets, the fastest person to do so… They do seem to be more consistent in practice.. Although I’ll have to wait for the analysis to confirm whether I’m right…

      1. Mercedes always have good quali pace it’s the early race pace with heavy fuel is where they always struggled.

        1. Only if your name is nico rosberg, schumacher has made more places off the line than any other driver this year.

          1. But that’s only at the start. By lap 2 there’s usually a pretty big gap between the Merc cars and whatever is ahead of them. Sort of like the old Trulli Trains.

          2. Yeah he made better start then any driver but what about after couple of laps? The rear tyres looses it’s grip faster then any other car.

    13. hope Massa doing well this weekend. Jeff, who cares about your opinion.

      1. Lewis Hamilton?

    14. Good to see that they had Kobayashi’s car fixed.

      1. That was an epic rebuild!

      2. I didn’t see the smash but it sounded pretty bad. Great they managed to get him out.

    15. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen the headline “Massa quickest”. Hopefully, this is a positive sign of better things to come from the Little Brazilian.

    16. I was not able to watch the sessions and lap times are not any of use either.

      I am ‘blind’ now heading into FP3 and Q.

      1. There is such thing as the bbciplayer you know ;)

        1. Thank you, Sir, but I was at work. :)

          I thought it’s UK only anyway.

          Staying with the Friday, I guess it’s because of the downpours we don’t get our usual FP analyses. The teams have it all to do tomorrow.

    17. georges10099
      8th July 2011, 17:30

      hamilton went to the stewards office to ask why his DRS was open when he was on slicks but on a wet track. he had a talk with them about how to improve safety too.

      Now, conspiracy theories are put to bed ;)

    18. both lewis and webber had a meeting with the stewards because the apparently used drs during p1.no further action is required.

      http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/Documents/gbr-document-18.pdf

      1. It’s a practice session all teams have free use of drs. They should not have even had to waste their time talking it through.

        1. georges10099
          8th July 2011, 18:03

          even in practice it is not allowed in the wet.

    19. Elliot Horwood
      8th July 2011, 18:01

      I need some help, at silverstone grandstands is ROW A at the front or at the back of the grandstand? thanks

    20. Any idea why Ferrari are referred to as “Scuderia Ferrari” at FIA.com opposed to “Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro” from earlier this season?

      1. Adam Cooper reported that they have actually officially changed their name:

        Ferrari changes official team name

    21. so Mercedes were running an illegal car in this session, blowing 50% off throttle in protest against Red Bull. There performance was very good throughout this session, meaning if the rules are equalized, either with Red Bull’s rediculous advantage being taken away, or others being able to do the same, we could see mclaren looking very good.

    22. I thought the timing app was bust at first…just that wet though!

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