Jul 8, 2011
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There are always plenty of tell-tale signs you are at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix, from the flak-jacketed policemen in the paddock (along with their explosives sniffer dogs) to members of the British Royal Family strolling around, a huge crowd of enthusiastic fans even on Friday and road signs that seem to send you two different ways to the same one place. However, for the foreign visitor to this famous track, the true key signature is the awful weather. It does not matter that most British Grands Prix take place in sunny conditions, it’s the rain people remember most, so it was with an almost perverse sense of pleasure that we discovered we were in for an unpredictably wet weekend.
For Scuderia Toro Rosso, that pleasure was perhaps justified as our STR6 seemed to go particularly well in the changing conditions that went from just damp and greasy to full on aquaplaning-soaked, with a dry surface the only condition Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari did not experience today. The two STR6 ran reliably, under the interested eye of staff from our wind tunnel in nearby Bicester, who do not often get the chance to see the product of their work in action. By the end of the two sessions, our Swiss driver had completed 39 laps, the most on the day, while our Spaniard did one lap less. In the morning, Jaime was tenth, two places higher than his team-mate and in the afternoon Sébastien was tenth, with Jaime seventeenth.
The weather is due to improve gradually over the next two days, so who knows if more rain is on the way, but it seems likely that some of tomorrow’s track action, more than likely Qualifying, will take place in the dry. Our friends at Red Bull are definitely the favourites for victory on this track, even if the final time sheet of the day does not reflect that: Felipe Massa was quickest for Ferrari, followed by Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes and Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber, which had to be rebuilt in between the two sessions after the Japanese driver had a heavy crash in the morning. In fourth and fifth places came the McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, with Adrian Sutil completing the top six for Force India. Only one driver change since the last race in Valencia and you don’t need telling it concerns “our very own” Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian who drove Friday morning sessions for Toro Rosso at all previous eight Grands Prix, has now been loaned to Hispania Racing for the rest of the season, standing in for Narain Karthikeyan. He finished the day in 23rd spot, just ahead of team-mate Tonio Liuzzi.
Credit: Toro Rosso (www.scuderiatororosso.com)
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