Free Practice One
All eyes were on Williams Racing as Friday dawned on Silverstone for the 2014 British Grand Prix, with Susie Wolff becoming the first woman in 22 years to drive in a Formula One session, and with the team scoring their first pole and podium last time out in Austria. Unfortunately for the British based team, it didn’t quite go according to plan in the first session.
Wolff’s car came to a halt after just four completed laps with a terminal engine problem, leaving her just 21st on the timing sheet. She will get another chance to drive the car next time out at Hockenheim. The second car, driven by Felipe Massa was heavily damaged following a large shunt at the very fast Stowe corner and subsequently bringing out the red flag for a lengthy period, leaving the Brazilian, who was the pole sitter at the last race, just 17th.
It seemed business as usual for Mercedes with their cars almost a second quicker than any other car in the morning session, with Nico Rosberg a massive seven tenths of a second quicker than home favourite Lewis Hamilton. Behind the Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Toro Rosso were all split by less than a second in that order, showing that there should be some great competition for third on race day, especially if Williams get in the mix too. The Ferrari and McLaren both seem incredibly difficult to drive still, but they appear to have made gains, on race pace at least.
Behind them, the Force Indias of Sergio Perez and development driver, Spaniard Daniel Juncadella struggled as they seemed to be fighting with Lotus and Sauber, the latter also having their development driver Giedo van der Garde behind the wheel. Pastor Maldonado’s terrible luck continues as his car only made it to the end of the pit lane before giving up on him yet again and Jules Bianchi was the quickest of the Marussia/Caterham battle. Caterham had their reserve driver, the highly-rated Robin Frijns in the car in place of Kamui Kobayashi but suffered technical problems for much of the session. Marcus Ericsson also spun on one of the fastest points of the circuit, at Becketts.
During the red flag period, both Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo were caught overtaking under the red flag, but at the time of this being posted, no penalty was given in both cases.
Free Practice Two
Due to the accident suffered in the morning session, a huge amount of work had to be done to get Massa’s car ready for Practice 2, but it was not ready for the start of the sessions, Valtteri Bottas’ car was ready however. Reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel had yet more problems as he was suffering an issue with his brakes, which caused his mechanics to frantically work on his car, and he missed the start of the session, but 20 minutes late, both Red Bulls and Massa’s Williams emerged from the pits.
Pirelli expected the softer tyre to be over a second quicker than the harder tyre, but the teams spent the first part of the session using the harder tyre still; to complete their unfinished plans from the morning, and the times were similar to the that session.
Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez was the first man to set a competitive time on the softer tyre, yet was still over 1.5 seconds behind the Mercedes running the hard tyre. As expected, Williams joined the hunt in the second session but they didn’t show any signs of battling the two Mercedes as they did in Austria. Notably, Force India dropped well off the pace on the softer tyre, looking slower than the two Lotuses, who are clearly stronger here despite Romain Grosjean having a spin at Luffield, where there are plenty of fast corners, compared to Canada or Austria where there are very few.
Mercedes were just as quick on the soft tyre in the second session, with Lewis Hamilton little over two tenths faster than Rosberg, despite the British driver’s engine stopping with half an hour to go. Shortly afterwards, Marcus Ericsson’s bad day got worse when his car stopped, forcing him to park it in the old pit lane.
Behind Mercedes, it looked like Red Bull has a few tenths in hand over the rest of that big gaggle of cars on the softer tyre, which should help them in qualifying, while the two Ferraris seemed to struggle compared to the morning session. We are looking at a similar situation to the Spanish Grand Prix, where Mercedes were absolutely miles ahead, followed by the two Red Bulls, and then Ferrari, Williams, Toro Rosso, McLaren with Lotus joining the party too, though the Lotus doesn’t seem quite as strong as it did then.
In the closing minutes of the session, Jean-Eric Vergne’s Toro Rosso had a tyre come off at one of the fastest corners on the circuit, Abbey. We hope to not see the issues we had last year, where many tyres suffered some spectacular blowouts, and causing Hamilton to miss out on the chance to win the race. Also suffering issues was Valtteri Bottas in the Williams, with some bodywork coming off the engine cover having exploded in an unusual situation, to add to their miserable day, as the dark, heavy clouds roll in.
