Red Bull quickest as Mercedes hold back in rain

2014 British Grand Prix third practice

Posted on

| Written by

The Red Bull drivers headed a rain-hit final practice session at Silverstone as the Mercedes pair did not set times.

With the track 18 seconds slower than it was yesterday Sebastian Vettel headed the times despite briefly sliding off the track at Becketts. Team mate Daniel Ricciardo was second-fastest.

The Lotus pair were next, Pastor Maldonado third-fastest ahead of Romain Grosjean. The latter had a spin at the exit of the final corner and narrowly avoided hitting the pit wall.

However Jules Bianchi was not so fortunate. Late in the session when the rain intensified the Marussia driver slid off at Stowe and nudged the barrier. Adrian Sutil and Lewis Hamilton also went off separately at the same corner, without hitting anything.

The unfavourable conditions discouraged drivers from doing much running, with only six of them getting their lap counts into double digits. The track never dried sufficiently for slick tyres to be used.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
11Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’52.5226
23Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’52.6310.1096
313Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1’53.0440.52210
48Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’53.5661.0446
599Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1’53.5851.06312
626Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Renault1’53.6541.13215
720Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1’53.9111.3895
822Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’54.0411.5196
977Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1’54.2171.6954
107Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’54.5582.0365
1125Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Renault1’54.6022.0806
1219Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’55.0032.4814
1327Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’55.6883.1666
1421Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’56.2743.75213
1511Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’56.9184.3967
169Marcus EricssonCaterham-Renault1’57.0914.56910
1717Jules BianchiMarussia-Ferrari1’57.5865.0646
1810Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1’57.9145.39210
194Max ChiltonMarussia-Ferrari1
2014Fernando AlonsoFerrari4
216Nico RosbergMercedes4
2244Lewis HamiltonMercedes5

Combined practice times

PosDriverCarFP1FP2FP3Fri/Sat diff.Total laps
1Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’36.1551’34.50841
2Nico RosbergMercedes1’35.4241’34.73664
3Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’36.2631’35.24459
4Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’36.6231’35.5111’52.631+17.1238
5Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’36.9211’35.6271’52.522+16.89553
6Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1’36.0161’54.217+18.20137
7Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’36.9631’36.2281’54.041+17.81365
8Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1’37.2311’36.2991’53.911+17.61270
9Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’36.7061’36.5541’54.558+18.00457
10Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Renault1’37.2271’36.5831’54.602+18.01957
11Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’39.4611’36.6711’55.003+18.33240
12Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Renault1’37.1751’36.7781’53.654+16.87675
13Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’38.0561’36.9511’56.274+19.32366
14Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1’37.0641’53.044+15.9845
15Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’37.9101’37.0971’53.566+16.46960
16Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’37.7201’37.2361’56.918+19.68266
17Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’37.4491’55.688+18.23933
18Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1’37.5201’53.585+16.06537
19Daniel JuncadellaForce India-Mercedes1’38.08323
20Giedo van der GardeSauber-Ferrari1’38.32819
21Jules BianchiMarussia-Ferrari1’38.9171’38.6581’57.586+18.92829
22Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1’39.0681’57.914+18.84641
23Max ChiltonMarussia-Ferrari1’39.8141’39.22453
24Marcus EricssonCaterham-Renault1’40.5971’39.7621’57.091+17.32950
25Robin FrijnsCaterham-Renault1’42.26111
26Susie WolffWilliams-Mercedes1’44.2124

2014 British Grand Prix

Browse all 2014 British Grand Prix articles

2014 F1 practice sessions

    Browse all 2014 F1 practice results

    Image © Red Bull/Getty

    Author information

    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...

    Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

    10 comments on “Red Bull quickest as Mercedes hold back in rain”

    1. Profile Photo

      BasCB (@bascb)
      5th July 2014, 11:21

      Hm, so I guess Mercedes is fast, but might it be that they are a tidbit worried about reliability now?

      1. Franton
        5th July 2014, 11:38

        Or they’ve forecasted a wet weekend and they don’t want to burn up their limited sets of wet tyres.

        1. Profile Photo

          hunocsi (@hunocsi)
          5th July 2014, 11:41

          Or they know it won’t be wet anymore (as I read some forecasts) so they thought it’s needless to run.

          1. Profile Photo

            petebaldwin (@)
            5th July 2014, 11:44

            Must be that way round. If they think it’s going to rain, they’d be mad to not get some practice in!

            1. Profile Photo

              bosyber (@bosyber)
              5th July 2014, 11:45

              Wolff said something about saving tyres @petebaldwin so maybe not.

            2. Profile Photo

              hunocsi (@hunocsi)
              5th July 2014, 12:08

              @bosyber I don’t think running one set of tyres off is that much of a waste.

              By the way, how would the teams cope for a whole weekend if it was wet all along? 3 sets of wets and 4 sets of inters don’t sound like much…

            3. Profile Photo

              bosyber (@bosyber)
              5th July 2014, 12:17

              Well @hunocsi, I agree, especially since it looks like it will be dryer for the rest of the weekend. But, if I heard Wolff correctly, apparently some within Mercedes do …

    2. Profile Photo

      U2F1 (@u2f1)
      5th July 2014, 11:36

      is it gonna be a wet quali or the track will dry up before that?

    3. Profile Photo

      sato113 (@sato113)
      5th July 2014, 11:59

      Hamilton did 5 laps, did he mess.up.every one? That guy does not.know.how.to.string a lap together

    4. Profile Photo

      HK (@me4me)
      5th July 2014, 12:37

      a bit off topic: I just love the looks of the RB10. I honestly think, for me, it’s one of the most beautiful F1 cars of recent years.

    Comments are closed.