(Mercedes AMG F1 Team)
Mercedes Lewis Hamilton led a team 1-2 in the second free practice session ahead of Sunday's British Grand Prix at Silverstone despite the fact that the 2008 world champion stopped out on track with around half an hour to go as his Mercedes power unit failed with a suspected drop in oil pressure, a similar issue to the one that Williams Martini Racing's Susie Wolff suffered this morning. Hamilton's fastest time was a 1m 34.508s finishing the day just 0.228s ahead of Nico Rosberg.
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was third fastest with the Spaniard finishing as 'best of the rest' behind the Silver Arrows albeit 0.736s behind Rosberg. Daniel Ricciardo once again outperformed Red Bull team mate Sebastian Vettel despite suffering a turbo failure in the latter part of the session. Ricciardo's best time was set on the Medium compound Pirelli tyre the Australian was fourth fastest and said:
'Today hasn’t been too bad. Mercedes were really strong this morning but we seem to have found some more speed this afternoon. With the Prime, it was really good but with the Option we didn’t find enough time so, if we analyse tonight and get it right, then tomorrow we should be closer. The wind here is always really strong and today in particular we had really strong gusts coming through and it changes a lot between the corners, you know one corner you feel like the car is really sharp and then another corner you feel like it doesn’t have any grip at all. So that’s a bit complicated, but same for everyone and it makes it a little bit more interesting.'
'Today hasn’t been too bad. Mercedes were really strong this morning but we seem to have found some more speed this afternoon. With the Prime, it was really good but with the Option we didn’t find enough time so, if we analyse tonight and get it right, then tomorrow we should be closer. The wind here is always really strong and today in particular we had really strong gusts coming through and it changes a lot between the corners, you know one corner you feel like the car is really sharp and then another corner you feel like it doesn’t have any grip at all. So that’s a bit complicated, but same for everyone and it makes it a little bit more interesting.'
Sebastian Vettel, in the second Red Bull finished the session 1.119s behind compatriot Nico Rosberg to claim the fifth fastest time. After the session, the German said:
'I think it was interesting today, obviously we’re not sure what the weather will do tomorrow and Sunday, but I think we learned a little bit today and will take that into the weekend. Overall I think it was OK but we can still improve from where we are. Ferrari was pretty quick as well today, obviously the first row is taken, or seems to be, but behind that I think it was fairly close. It was quite windy which didn’t make life easy out there, so I think it was decent, but I want to improve.'
Meanwhile Valtteri Bottas put in a good performance for the Williams Martini Racing as the Finn set the 6th fastest after the team had to work like busy bees to repair both his and Felipe Massa's cars as they needed to get the maximum amount of data out of the cars as possible.
'I think it was interesting today, obviously we’re not sure what the weather will do tomorrow and Sunday, but I think we learned a little bit today and will take that into the weekend. Overall I think it was OK but we can still improve from where we are. Ferrari was pretty quick as well today, obviously the first row is taken, or seems to be, but behind that I think it was fairly close. It was quite windy which didn’t make life easy out there, so I think it was decent, but I want to improve.'
Meanwhile Valtteri Bottas put in a good performance for the Williams Martini Racing as the Finn set the 6th fastest after the team had to work like busy bees to repair both his and Felipe Massa's cars as they needed to get the maximum amount of data out of the cars as possible.
Jenson Button was 7th fastest for the McLaren Mercedes time while team mate Kevin Magnussen finished the session in 8th place just ahead of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen who will be looking for a better performance over the rest of the Grand Prix weekend.
Toro Rosso did another great job in the second session as Jean Eric Vergne finished the session by rounding out the top ten. The Frenchman finished the session just ahead if Williams Martini Racing's Felipe Massa who managed to get on track after his team managed to rebuild his FW36 following his heavy crash in this morning's session.
Daniil Kvyat did a great job in the second Toro Rosso as the Russian F1 rookie finished the session in 12th place. Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez was 13th fastest for the Swiss based team while the Lotus F1 Team's Pastor Maldonado, who failed to get on out on track this morning was a tenth of a second ahead of team mate Romain Grosjean.
Sergio Prez was down in 16th place for the Sahara Force India Formula One team, The Mexican said:
'It was quite a challenging day for us and we are a bit shy of where we would have wanted to be. We struggled with balance in both sessions and this meant we couldn't extract all the pace from the car. We knew this was going to be a hard track for us due to its layout and tonight we will need to review the set-up to find the extra couple of tenths that can get us back in the group where we belong. We have a pretty clear idea of what we need to do overnight and if we can achieve that, we should be looking much better tomorrow.'
Nico Hulkenberg was 17th after sitting out the opening session. The German said:
'Just the one session for me today and it was very windy out on track. That made things more difficult, although we know it’s a common situation here at Silverstone. It was quite a normal session for me, but we need to analyse the situation better tonight to make the right conclusions for tomorrow. It’s the usual challenge of understanding the tyres and improving the balance to put ourselves in a better position.'
Daniel Juncadella, who drove the car in the opening session said:
'It was good fun today and a great opportunity to drive my first free practice session on our home track. It’s a track I know well and everything went smoothly with no problems. The main challenge was getting the tyres working, especially because of the harder compounds being used here. The priority today was to give the team some data and feedback to help prepare the car for Nico this afternoon.'
Adrian Sutil was 18th in the second Sauber while Jules Bianchi set the pace in the battle between Marussia and Caterham. The Frenchman finished the session just ahead of the Caterham of Kamui Kobayashi and his own Marussia team mate Max Chilton while Marcus Ericsson rounded out the time sheets, 5.254s behind Rosberg.
'It was quite a challenging day for us and we are a bit shy of where we would have wanted to be. We struggled with balance in both sessions and this meant we couldn't extract all the pace from the car. We knew this was going to be a hard track for us due to its layout and tonight we will need to review the set-up to find the extra couple of tenths that can get us back in the group where we belong. We have a pretty clear idea of what we need to do overnight and if we can achieve that, we should be looking much better tomorrow.'
Nico Hulkenberg was 17th after sitting out the opening session. The German said:
'Just the one session for me today and it was very windy out on track. That made things more difficult, although we know it’s a common situation here at Silverstone. It was quite a normal session for me, but we need to analyse the situation better tonight to make the right conclusions for tomorrow. It’s the usual challenge of understanding the tyres and improving the balance to put ourselves in a better position.'
Daniel Juncadella, who drove the car in the opening session said:
'It was good fun today and a great opportunity to drive my first free practice session on our home track. It’s a track I know well and everything went smoothly with no problems. The main challenge was getting the tyres working, especially because of the harder compounds being used here. The priority today was to give the team some data and feedback to help prepare the car for Nico this afternoon.'
Adrian Sutil was 18th in the second Sauber while Jules Bianchi set the pace in the battle between Marussia and Caterham. The Frenchman finished the session just ahead of the Caterham of Kamui Kobayashi and his own Marussia team mate Max Chilton while Marcus Ericsson rounded out the time sheets, 5.254s behind Rosberg.
©Ben Johnston 2014
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