Friday, 4 July 2014

Rosberg leads Mercedes 1-2 as the sun shines on Silverstone

(Mercedes AMG F1 Team)

Mercedes AMG F1 Team's Nico Rosberg set the fastest time in the opening session for this weekend's British Grand Prix in Silverstone. The German, who currently leads the Driver's championship set a time of 1m 35.424s to finish the session 0.731s ahead of Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton giving the Silver Arrows yet another 1-2 on the time sheet's.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was best of the rest finishing the session 0.839s off Rosberg's pace. Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo was fourth fastest despite an apparent issue with his gearbox. The Australian finished the session 1.199s behind Rosberg and just ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari.

Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel was 6th fastest in the second Red Bull finishing the session just ahead of McLaren's Jenson Button, who has a special helmet this weekend as a tribute to his father John.

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(McLaren Mercedes via Twitter)

It was a great session for the Toro Rosso pair of Danil Kvyat and Jean Eric Vergne as they finished the session in 8th and 9th place respectively while Kevin Magnussen rounded out the top ten. Sahara Force India's Sergio Perez had a good session as the Mexican finished the morning in eleventh place just ahead of the Lotus of Romain Grosjean who was 12th in the sole E22 as Pastor Maldonado came to a halt in the pit-lane early on in the session.

Esteban Gutierrez was 13th fastest for the Sauber F1 Team, the Swiss outfit will be hoping to get the season kick started this weekend as they are yet to score a point in 2014. Daniel Juncadella was, along with Williams Susie Wolff making his Free Practice debut for the Sahara Force India F1 Team The Spaniard, driving Nico Hulkenberg's car set the 14th fastest time finishing the session just ahead of Sauber's test and reserve driver Giedo Van Der Garde who was driving Adrian Sutil's car.

Jules Bianchi did a fantastic job for the Marussia F1 Team this morning as the Frenchman finished the session in 16th place ahead of the Williams Martini Racing FW36 of Felipe Massa who had a massive crash but fortunately was unhurt in the shunt. 

Max Chilton was 18th in the second Marussia just ahead of Marcus Ericsson who failed to complete the session due to a problem with his Caterham. Robin Frijns was 20th while Susie Wolff was the last driver to set a time This morning may have been a disappointment for the Scottish driver but she still managed a smile when speaking to the BBC following the car failure. So it had absolutely nothing to do with her and she can now look forward to her next outing in the car which will come at the next race, the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim. This is a track that she now very well from her days as a DTM driver so for Susie Wolff it's a case of onwards and upwards. She has proved the doubters wrong and deserves full credit for the incredible work that she has put in to achieve her goal of driving in F1 and Williams have done a fantastic job in helping her to get ready to drive in F1.

© Ben Johnston 2014

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