Free Practice 1: The Red Bull Demonstration

The Red Bull team managed to fend off all competition during the first Free Practice session as part of the British Grand Prix. This is the last time the F1 world stops at the Silverstone circuit since Donington Park is set to take over from 2010.

The Austrian team is the only one to have gone under the one minute and 20 seconds mark. Just behind, the two Brawns of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello and the Renault of Fernando Alonso. This promises an exciting weekend.

It was Webber who dominated a large part of this practice session, but Vettel managed to pull through to finish 0.282 seconds behind his teammate.

The two Brawns are therefore third and fourth, 0.8 seconds off the pace set by the Red Bulls. Fernando Alonso completes the top five with Renault.

There is nothing surprising about this session being overshadowed by the political storm shaking the paddocks following last night’s announcement by the FOTA. The member teams want to launch their own championship in 2010. But for now, the race continues and the drivers are currently present.

After a slow start with few cars on track, the pace picked up considerably mid-session as Webber clocked a time of 1:20.865. He will be joined by his Red Bull teammate, Vettel, who is three-tenths slower for now.

These positions were maintained for five minutes before Rubens Barrichello’s Brawn briefly took the lead by a tenth. Then, it was Jarno Trulli’s Toyota, clocking in at 1:20.585, that claimed the top spot with just over half an hour remaining in the session.

But the supremacy of the Red Bulls was restored shortly after, with first Webber at 1:20.234, then a 1:19.682 that secured him the top spot. For once again, he was chased from this position by Vettel.

If Webber did not do better than a time of 1:19.682, Vettel embarked on one last frantic sprint. His first lap should have allowed him to move ahead, but he encountered Sebastien Buemi (19th) from Toro Rosso on his path, which slowed him down considerably. One lap later and in the final minute, he achieved a very good lap in 1:19.400.

The current leader of the championship is not far, Jenson Button is therefore third, 15 thousandths of a second behind his teammate Barrichello.

Felipe Massa is sixth in the better of the two Ferraris, followed by Jarno Trulli (Toyota) and Lewis Hamilton. McLaren is once again evaluating the aerodynamics with a paint mark on its front wing.

Nico Rosberg for Williams is only ninth, while Force India shows good performance with 10th and 11th places.

Nelson Piquet (Renault) had the first major incident of the weekend when he went straight off at Copse. He eventually finished 18th, far behind his teammate, Alonso.

Timo Glock also went off-road at the Club, but emerged unscathed from this excursion just like Piquet. The German is 16th. His teammate, the Italian Jarno Trulli, will have an off-track excursion at Becketts on his last lap.

Behind the Force India drivers, we find Nick Heidfeld (BMW), then Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari) and Sébastien Bourdais for Toro Rosso. Kazuki Nakajima for Williams is 17th, and BMW driver Robert Kubica is at the back with few laps completed.

Results Free Practice 1 – British GP – Friday, 19 June 2009: