Great Britain – Free Practice 1: Ricciardo swims on the Silverstone track

At the start of this session, the weather is completely British. The sky is indeed gray and the track is soaked, contrary to Thursday morning’s forecasts.

Valtteri Bottas is the first driver to take to the track, and the Williams is throwing up a lot of spray, indicating the rain that has drenched the circuit. Most drivers complete an installation lap and return to the pits, not wanting to take risks in the tricky conditions.

After half an hour, there is still no track action, and the rain continues to fall. The track is still completely soaked, and the tires cannot heat up sufficiently to allow the cars to run safely. All the drivers can be observed in the paddock, passing the time as best they can, just like the many British spectators who already came out this Friday morning.

At mid-session, still no time has been set by the twenty-two drivers. Some of them attempted an outing but didn’t even trigger the stopwatch, returning after another installation lap. In the paddock, Canal + journalists are interviewing various team officials, all of whom believe it’s impossible to drive in these more than wet conditions. Esteban Gutierrez returns to the pits after an installation lap and comes to a stop at the end, successfully engaging in a start procedure. However, this does not lead to a flying lap, as the Mexican repeats the operation once again. It’s time for Sauber to conduct start tests on a wet track.

After one hour, the rain still dominates the first practice session. Indeed, no driver was able to challenge it while Sebastian Vettel had the track all to himself. But the three-time world champion chooses not to risk damaging his RB9 and returns to the pits.

Fifteen minutes from the end, a first driver starts the stopwatch: Daniel Ricciardo finally sets off, much to the delight of the crowd who hadn’t seen many cars this morning. He sets the best and first time at 2:00.029. The Toro Rosso driver improves the time to 1:57.992 before being joined on track by Jules Bianchi. It’s the Frenchman who clocks the second-fastest time of the session at 2:10.529. During the lap by the Nice native, many drivers also left the pits, providing some action for the last ten minutes of this session. Lewis Hamilton is among those hunting for a time and the Englishman sets the fastest time at 1:55.458. But the track remains very tricky, as evidenced by Charles Pic who ends up in the tire wall, minus a front wing. The Caterham driver abandons his car on the spot, causing a double yellow flag in the sector for a few dozen seconds.

As the checkered flag is waved, it is Daniel Ricciardo who sets the fastest time at 1:54.249 ahead of Nico Hülkenberg and Pastor Maldonado. Only eleven drivers completed a timed lap during this session, which was active only in the last ten minutes due to rain preventing teams from completing their planned programs.

Results of Free Practice 1 of the 2013 British Grand Prix: