Grosjean fastest at drenched Silverstone

2012 British Grand Prix first practice result

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Very wet conditions greeted the teams for the first 90 minutes of practice ahead of the British Grand Prix.

Patches of standing water were visible around the circuit as the drivers made their first tentative laps out of the pits.

The rain was light to begin with and drivers were able to improve their times for the first half of the session. Mark Webber was the first driver to turn a lap in less than two minutes.

Webber continued to lower his time but the quickest lap of the session went to Romain Grosjean, who set a 1’56.552 shortly before the conditions worsened.

Unsurprisingly the hazardous conditions caught a few drivers out. Heikki Kovalainen had a messy moment in the Caterham, skidding off st Becketts and plughing through the Silverstone mud.

Both HRT drivers also had a spin, as the did returning Timo Glock for Marussia.

Kamui Kobayashi did the most laps, completing 19 tours without suffering a repeat of his crash in last year’s practice session.

However neither Force India set a time, nor did Fernando Alonso, though Ferrari did a series of practice starts at the end of the session.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
110Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’56.55213
216Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari1’56.8270.27510
34Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’57.1740.6226
415Sergio PerezSauber-Ferrari1’57.6641.11211
56Felipe MassaFerrari1’58.1191.5677
62Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’58.4631.9117
714Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’58.4831.93119
87Michael SchumacherMercedes1’58.4931.94110
98Nico RosbergMercedes1’58.9422.3908
1017Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari1’59.0762.52412
111Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’59.4142.86211
1221Vitaly PetrovCaterham-Renault1’59.6143.0629
1319Valtteri BottasWilliams-Renault1’59.7333.1817
1420Heikki KovalainenCaterham-Renault1’59.7873.23510
1518Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault2’00.1253.5735
169Kimi RaikkonenLotus-Renault2’00.2533.7019
173Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes2’01.8345.2826
1824Timo GlockMarussia-Cosworth2’01.8355.2836
1922Pedro de la RosaHRT-Cosworth2’04.3417.7899
2023Daniel ClosHRT-Cosworth2’05.0228.4706
2125Charles PicMarussia-Cosworth2’11.76015.2086
225Fernando AlonsoFerrariNo time4
2311Paul di RestaForce India-MercedesNo time3
2412Jules BianchiForce India-MercedesNo time1

2012 British Grand Prix

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Image © Sahara Force India F1 Team

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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48 comments on “Grosjean fastest at drenched Silverstone”

  1. Heikki!!!!!!!!
    P14 (yes, 3 people didnt set a time and it is only FP1, but still!!!
    Caterham updates seem to be paying off massively :D

    1. Petrov was 12th…

      1. you just got pwnd. LOL

        1. Me? Why?

          1. @tflb1 – I think Force Maikel is referring to xjr15jaaag as the one being owned. You were the one who did the owning by pointing out that Petrov finished the session in twelfth to Kovalainen’s fourteenth.

          2. Not you hardhead, the one celebrating Kova’s position, of course :D

          3. @PrisonerMonkeys @Postreader Okay, I understand now. Now I really have been ‘pwned’ by you two.

        2. @force-maikel

          pwnd? How old are you?

          1. @cduk_mugello It was a joke. @Prisoner-Monkeys thank you for explaining to him.

    2. sorry, but are serious about reading these timings or is it just me who didn’t get the sarcasm.

    3. Even as a BIG Heikki fan, I wouldn’t draw any conclusions from this. The crazy weather conditions might, however, help Caterham get a surprise result this weekend.

      1. Plus he wasn’t even the fastest Caterham.

        1. Nah, I’m sure there’s some conspiracy behind it. Bernie, Mr. Fernandes and Mr. Putin obviously agreed to arrange this, Petrov is going to do demonstration runs in Russia next week, he badly needs some good publicity now.

          1. yeah, I mean its not like Petrov has been on par with Heikki pretty much all season…oh, wait…

      2. @girts I’m gonna hazard a guess here and say that Alonso and FI would have probably beaten Caterham!

    4. @xjr15jaaag – First of all, it’s FP1. Times set in FP1 are never representative of actual pace. And secondly, it’s raining, which always skews the grid out of order. Caterham’s best qualifying results have always been in the wet. It’s impossible to judge how well their upgrades have worked until we see some dry running, preferably in FP3, qualifying and/or a race.

      1. Most of which was state in the initial statement.
        The purpose of that was to declare my joy at seeing the caterhams really close to everyone else, and I’m a Kovalainen fan.
        The caterhams did a fantastic job in FP1, and FP2 as well, althought hat’s an entirely different page.
        I mentioned that you can’t read much into practice times, and it is just nice to see one of my favourite drivers setting very competitive times.
        In no way am I suggesting that Caterham will finish incredibly high up.
        It’s just an observation.

        1. Ouch guys, Leave xjr15jaaag alone.
          He is happy for his driver and should be allowed to be, no matter how meger the accomplishment ;-).

          When did this forum become such a battleground. Used to be a nice place where people could debate w/o insults, and opposing points of view were equally respected, even if they were never agreed. Chill Out…

  2. And now Grosjean is of to the batcave!

  3. Not much info to be gathered, I guess, from the session. Neither for the teams, nor to us.

    The rain could wash away the effects of the newest developments on the cars. As McLaren brings a major upgrade to Hockenheim, and they said they has one – though less significant one – here, I expect them to bounce back in Germany at latest.

  4. Too early to say anything. In dry it’s difficult to say about FP1 then in such conditions, it is impossible to say.

    1. Exactly, timings mean nothing in P1, whatever the conditions. P2 will give us more of an insight with the long runs.

      Either way though, if the rains keeps up we’re in for a weekend very few will be able to predict.

      1. timings mean nothing in P1, whatever the conditions

        I would disagree
        Timings mean nothing to us for comparison against other drivers but mean a great deal to the teams.

        Indeed, I often have great fun in speculating about P1 times. You know they have to be testing SOMEthing. A new part, the fuel load, the tire wear.
        If you look at the lap time and stint deltas, the doors open for decent speculation.

        Part of the reason I like F1 is because it allows soooo much “armchair team-management”

  5. I fear of Bernd Mayländer leading majority of the GP on Sunday…

    1. Only if the circuit doesn’t clear up. The trouble in previous races – most notably Malaysia this year and Montreal in 2011 – is that the circuit wasn’t draining properly. The Montreal circuit is built on an articifical island, so rain tends to pool up without running off. And while the Sepang layout is very, very good, this has a downside; the circuit follows the contours of a natural bowl shape, so when it rains, all the water flows down into the pits and the main straight area.

      If a race is declared wet, it doesn’t mean it will automatically start behind the safety car. That will only happen if there are puddles of standing water on the circuit, making it dangerous to race. And that generally only happens if there is not enough drainage.

    2. I highly doubt it. It’s rained a lot over the last week sure, but we haven’t had any massive downpours like you would get in the far east. Here in England we just get boring, mild, average intensity rain. Not even any decent thunder either.

      1. yeah definitely no downpours such as in Malaysia for example…. but the likelihood of crashes in wet conditions are much greater, therefor the chances of Mayländer making a few appearances are also much higher..

      2. Well… the forecast is for “up to a month’s rainfall” in some parts of the midlands over this weekend. For today, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2635167#extra-uk-content: “20 to 40mm will fall widely with localised totals of 60 to 80mm”.

      3. Yep it’s pretty bad out there currently, lots of (by UK standards) heavy rain.
        Wettest June since 1910 I think and with some weather records broken so I read.

        After 30+days of rain there is little left for the ground to absorb – loads of standing water on roads and fields.

        Lets hope the drainage is good enough to race but not that good if you know what I mean.

    3. He’s led more laps than Massa…

  6. I always feel sorry for reserve drivers on days like these. Jules Bianchi did one installation lap, Daniel (Dani?) Clos managed 6, and Valtteri Bottas put in a whopping 7 laps!

    Good to see Ricciardo up there, it’s been a while since he’s had a really good weekend.

    1. On the other hand it is good that neither Senna, nor Hulkemberg lost precious track time. I dont mention Karthikayan becouse I dont think it really matters for him, he is that professional.

      1. +1.

        Karthikeyan is one driver who can directly sit on the car for qualifying as it does not make any difference to him:P

  7. It`s obvious that Lotus will win because the Gnomes have taken up residence in there garage, and everyone knows that Gnomes are psychic and have a taste for champange.

  8. Keith, where did you get the picture for the article on the home page!?!!? I need it as my facebook cover picture this week! :D

    1. Never mind I found the article with them all in. Don’t think it’s a big enough image though :'(

      1. Where did you find it?

  9. is it early to say GRO is championship material? not just this session but this entire season so far, once he matures he’d be a fine driver.

    1. @sagaratgamkar It’s hard to say if he’s the new Alonso but at the moment I don’t see why Grosjean couldn’t become a world champion if the car is up to the task.

      1. @girts but there is still some time for him. he is still raw with a few things like his start, either over does it or the opposite. but certainly hes deserves winning more than a few drivers who’ve won this season

    2. @sagaratgamkar

      is it early to say GRO is championship material?

      That depends – are you referring to this season, or to future seasons?

      I think he will be champion one day … but that day is not going to be November 26, 2012. He’s got 53 points to Alonso’s 111, so not only is he going to need a handful of good results, he’s also going to need a fair few results to go his way.

      1. i mean in the future, he also needs to improve more as a driver. may be after a few years. as of now we all know championship or not , ALO is the best driver.

    3. I think he is WDC material – I always expected him to do well this year and he has not let me down. I think he has a record which shows he is no rookie at racing too.

      The trouble is he seems to start races in those positions where you are likely to get bumped around a bit having not got the car capable of getting on the front row.

      1. I always struggle with the predictions of “WDC” material.
        So often it is a question of the car. Jenson Button is a perfect example of that. For years, he was the butt of terrible jokes, a lost potential. But, once in that Magical Brawn GP, he achieved the heights, and now, at Mclaren, he seems to be drifting back again. Personally, I think he was lucky to get that Brawn car and, in a way, stumbled into the WDC rather than earned it.

        Its something of a catch-22. A driver cant get on a good team w/o good results, but they cant get good results with a dog-of-a-car. This means that Testing is the only way to judge an unknown driver in a good car
        Testing is gone now, and even back then, the results were never publish, so, my own answer is that we will never know if GRO is WDC material until (and unless) he starts leading the championship

  10. Lotus will win because BATMAN!

  11. has GRO been linked to moving to another team yet. and how about KOV on the same?

    1. I think he should stay put – unless Genii / Lotus is in financial trouble.

      Ferrari won’t call and neither will Red Bull, McLaren or Mercedes. So that’s leaving only Williams, Force India and Sauber. Maybe Williams is a good place to go.

      But it’s true that by now we should be hearing Romain to Ferrari rumours… @sagaratgamkar

  12. I was thinking today how frustrated I would be if I was on my way to the circuit knowing I was missing F1 cars racing about in front of me, then I remember that I’m probably better off travelling as there won’t be any cars on track anyway!

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