Red Bull Racing led the way Saturday’s free practice session, as rivals McLaren faced a race against time to set up its two cars.
Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were quiet for the majority of the session – happy to wait until the final part of the hour to show their hand. The Milton Keynes-based team felt comfortable enough to split their strategy, with Webber focusing on long runs and his team-mate completing shorter stints.
However Red Bull’s session did not run trouble free when, during his final run, the front nose section on Sebastian Vettel’s car came loose on the run down to Abbey; pushing the car down to the ground and forcing the German to coast back to the pits.
Despite this Vettel’s time of 1:30.958 could not be bettered by the chasing pack, with his team-mate only 0.034 of a second behind.
Fernando Alonso finished the session just over a tenth away from Vettel’s time. The Spanish Ferrari driver had set the early pace in the session, but could not respond to Red Bull’s late charge when his car developed a suspected problem and was forced to wait in the garage to be examined.
Nico Rosberg was right behind in his Mercedes with Alonso’s team-mate, Felipe Massa, and the Renault of Robert Kubica fifth and sixth respectively.
Meanwhile McLaren appeared unable to challenge Red Bull, as the Woking-based team worked frantically to make up for lost time, after opting to ditch its ‘blown diffuser’ concept in favour of an earlier interpretation.
As a result, Lewis Hamilton could do no more than set the seventh fastest time, nearly six tenths off Vettel, with Jenson Button a lowly twelfth.
As well as Alonso and Vettel, a number of other drivers were not able to complete the session untrouble. Jarno Trulli continued to be frustrated, when the Italian was once again forced to sit out most of the session with a hydraulic failure on his Lotus.
Adrian Sutil (Force India) was also forced to sit out the final ten minutes with a suspected gearbox problem.
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:30.958 14 2. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:30.992 + 0.034 15 3. Alonso Ferrari 1:31.101 + 0.143 10 4. Rosberg Mercedes 1:31.188 + 0.230 15 5. Massa Ferrari 1:31.240 + 0.282 16 6. Kubica Renault 1:31.519 + 0.561 18 7. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:31.549 + 0.591 16 8. Schumacher Mercedes 1:31.555 + 0.597 14 9. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:31.559 + 0.601 18 10. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:31.581 + 0.623 16 11. Petrov Renault 1:31.698 + 0.740 17 12. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:31.703 + 0.745 16 13. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:31.867 + 0.909 17 14. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:31.947 + 0.989 16 15. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:31.994 + 1.036 13 16. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:32.235 + 1.277 18 17. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:32.331 + 1.373 20 18. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:32.723 + 1.765 18 19. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:34.339 + 3.381 20 20. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1:35.479 + 4.521 17 21. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1:36.098 + 5.140 11 22. Chandhok HRT-Cosworth 1:36.286 + 5.328 16 23. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:36.640 + 5.682 6 24. Yamamoto HRT-Cosworth 1:37.178 + 6.220 18
