Lewis Hamilton was quickest at a wet Silverstone ahead of Kamui Kobayashi and Michael Schumacher. Heikki Kovalainen was seventh!
McLaren:
Lewis Hamilton: "I had some fun out there today! I got to do a good few laps too, which was good, because I was concerned that the fans wouldn't get to see much action. There were so many of them out there today. I can't remember seeing so many people at a racetrack on a Friday before - it was incredible. British Formula 1 fans are the best in the world! I would like to have gone out and done even more laps - but we simply didn't have enough tyres to do that. Perhaps that's something we can look at for the future. There was a lot of standing water out there, and tons of aquaplaning. That's to be expected when there's heavy rain, of course, but I have to say that there doesn't seem to be that much drainage around the circuit. You're aquaplaning almost all the time, to be honest, so you need to be very in tune with your senses or you're very likely to lose control. I think the drivers can probably make more of a difference in the wet than we can in the dry, so I'm really looking forward to the rest of the weekend, which looks likely to stay chilly and wet."
Jenson Button: "We learned a few things today - but mainly that it's often wet at Silverstone and the fans always come out in force even when it's chucking it down! Seriously, though, I'm glad we were finally able to do some running as it hasn't been the nicest of days for them. It was very tricky out there - there was lots of standing water. You wouldn't want to be racing wheel-to-wheel in those conditions, as you wouldn't see the puddles until it was too late. I think we learned throughout the day where the biggest rivers on the circuit were situated - one of the biggest is along the Hangar Straight just before Stowe. You're travelling at 290km/h [180mph] and you hit a river that gives you wheelspin - at that speed - and when that happens your car can snap out of control very easily. When you're driving alone, it's not so bad, because you can pick your way around and lift off whenever necessary, but in the race you can't do that. So, pretty obviously, I hope there won't be as much standing water around on Sunday."
Sauber:Kamui Kobayashi: "In wet conditions our car is quite okay, but it is difficult if not impossible to guess how it would be on a dry track here. However, the conditions are the same for everybody, so we can't complain about that. Obviously we couldn't evaluate the new parts as we had planned. In the end I took a set of intermediate tyres, but only to get a feeling for them. It was definitely too wet for them. Generally the circuit tends to develop little rivers here and there, and even on the straights you have to be very careful not to lose the car by aquaplaning. It seems we will be having a wet weekend and this might not be the worst thing for us."
Sergio Perez: "I found the day very boring. There wasn't much we could do and it was impossible to complete our test programme. However, we did some running on the wet track and our car seems to be good in these conditions."
Mercedes:
Michael Schumacher: "There are still things to be learned on days like these and the positive about today's rain was that it is also forecast for tomorrow and Sunday. This meant that we were able to use today to prepare for the race, primarily on the wet tyres. We also tried the intermediates briefly but they were no faster in these conditions. The rain was constant, which allowed us to at least complete some parts of our programme. There was a lot of standing water, but it was hard to spot from the cockpit, which meant that the drivers had to be very vigilant. Today's sessions went okay and, in any case, we know that at this circuit, with its particular characteristics, rain offers us good chances and opportunities."
Nico Rosberg: "In general, it was a good and productive day for us. We improved the set-up during the break which helped as we were quicker in the afternoon. It's very unusual that the weather forecast for the whole weekend is wet, and we didn't run that much to save our limited wet tyres. The conditions were really quite tricky out there with all the puddles, and it was very difficult to find the right limit. I hope we can continue to make progress tomorrow."
Caterham:Heikki Kovalainen: "I think that's the wettest day we've had in F1 for quite a while and that cut short the amount of running we could do today. It was pretty treacherous out there in both sessions, more so in the afternoon when I was getting wheelspin at the end of the straight and when it's like that it's not worth risking the car, particularly when we have quite a lot of new parts on it that we need to take a look at as much as we can this weekend. As it was so wet I can't really say how much of an improvement we've made here, but this morning the car felt pretty well balanced as soon as I started to push a bit, so if it's raining like this on Sunday at least we know we have a decent setup to race with."
Vitaly Petrov: "This morning Heikki and I were running comparisons between the new exhaust layout and rear bodywork so my first taste of the new parts was in FP2 when it was even slippier out on track. Even with conditions like that we still got through a few laps and the car felt good - pretty stable, good traction and a good base for us to work from tomorrow. It would be good for everyone if it is more dry tomorrow but even if it's not we'll just have to get on with it. I like the rain so for me it's not a problem."
Related Links
Hamilton quickest at rain-soaked Silverstone
Friday's gallery from Silverstone
