Vettel picks up where he left off

SILVERSTONE, England - Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel looked equally at home on the new Silverstone circuit as the old one on Friday after setting the pace in opening British Grand Prix practice.

By (Reuters)

Published: Fri 9 Jul 2010, 6:54 PM

Last updated: Mon 6 Apr 2015, 4:49 AM

The German won from pole on the shorter layout last year and returned on the back of a victory in Valencia at the end of June.

The 23-year-old, who celebrated his birthday last week, lapped the 5.9km track with a fastest time of one minute 32.280 seconds with McLaren’s championship leader Lewis Hamilton 0.334 slower.

Renault’s Robert Kubica, with a new contract signed only a few days ago, was third fastest with Red Bull’s Australian Mark Webber returning from his big crash in Valencia to post the fourth best time.

McLaren were trying out a new ‘blown’ rear diffuser similar to the one pioneered by Red Bull and showed mixed results in a home race for both their world champions.

While Hamilton was on the pace, reigning champion and team mate Jenson Button was only eighth on a morning that saw all the drivers coming to grips with an unfamiliar layout.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, the only driver other than those from McLaren and Red Bull to have won a race this season, was only 13^th quickest.

Hamilton is six points clear of Button ahead of a race billed as a battle of the British drivers with McLaren also leading Red Bull in the constructors’ standings.

“We are hoping we are going to put it (the blown diffuser) on and it will be fine, but we know it will take a little bit of getting used to,” Button had said on Thursday.

“So we are going to have a busy couple of days getting it right.”

Brazilian Bruno Senna was an absentee after being dropped by his Hispania (HRT) team in favour of Japanese test driver Sakon Yamamoto, who was by far the slowest on the track.

Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi sat out the opening session to allow Force India test driver Paul di Resta a stint in the car in front of his home crowd. He was 14^th.

Malaysian Fairuz Fauzy completed 11 laps in Italian Jarno Trulli’s Lotus.