Massa tops rain-wrecked practice
Friday 8th July 2011
An estimated 75,000 Silverstone crowd were left bitterly frustrated as rain played havoc with the second practice session for Sunday's British Grand Prix.
Just as the pit lane opened to signal the start, so did the heavens over the Northamptonshire circuit, effectively wiping out the first 50 of the 90 minutes.
When the clouds did start to break, only towards the end of the session did the times start to drop, but even then the best from Felipe Massa was three seconds behind Mark Webber's leading lap in the morning.
That, too, had been blighted by the weather, to such an extent Webber's time of one minute 46.603secs was 17 seconds slower than the pole lap of Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel 12 months ago.
The drivers, though, could not ignore the conditions forever, in particular as showers are forecast for Saturday, and could play a significant role with regard to the order of the grid.
In FP2, the top 11 times were all set on the intermediate tyres in contrast to the extreme wets used earlier on due to standing water on the track after the rain finally relented.
Massa's time of 1:49.967 was set at the death when the conditions were at their best, beating Mercedes' Nico Rosberg by 0.777secs.
Kamui Kobayashi was left thanking his mechanics for getting in some much needed practice following an accident in FP1 from which he was fortunate to escape without suffering serious injury.
Kobayashi ran wide out of the final turn onto the new pit straight - that now exits out of Club - and after flashing across the astroturf, his car lost all grip.
For a brief moment it appeared as if his Sauber would flip over, only to right itself before crashing into the barriers, wrecking the front right and rear left of the car, with Kobayashi unharmed.
Despite that, the Japanese driver's mechanics performed a sterling job to repair the damage, allowing him to get in 16 laps and third on the timesheet, 1.428secs behind Massa.
The McLaren duo of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button finished fourth and fifth, around 1.5secs down, managing six laps apiece.
Then came the Force India duo of Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta, with everybody else after the Scot over two seconds off the pace.
As for Webber and Vettel, the latter completing a mere four laps, they were down in 14th and 18th positions, with the reigning champion 4.5secs down, albeit hardly a concern.
On his full grand prix weekend debut, Daniel Ricciardo at least managed to finish ahead of Hispania Racing team-mate Vitantonio Liuzzi.
After serving as test and reserve driver for Toro Rosso this year, Ricciardo has been 'loaned out' to Hispania for the remainder of the campaign.
The 22-year-old Australian was 5.861secs behind Massa in 23rd place, with Liuzzi a further two tenths of a second down and last.
Credit: ESPN STAR (www.espnstar.com)
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