The Formula 1 Blog

Everybody focused on learning the new sections of Silverstone's very green Arena circuit on Friday, and doing the usual tyre comparisons. It didn't help that the track temperature rose from 28 degrees Celsius to 43 by the afternoon, as the ambient temperature rose from 21 to 27. McLaren did not show quite the pace many had expected with their newly-upgraded MP4-25, though many rivals suspect the championship leaders are yet to play their hand. We take a team-by-team look at Friday progress…

Team principals: Ross Brawn (Mercedes), Tony Fernandes (Lotus), Christian Horner (Red Bull), Martin Whitmarsh (McLaren) Q: First of all a little recap of how the day has gone for all of you. How have things gone for Lotus Racing? Tony Fernandes: Tough day today. We had three gearbox failures, two on Jarno's (Trulli) car and one on Heikki's (Kovalainen). One of those things...

Lewis Hamilton heads into this weekend's British Grand Prix as championship leader. His McLaren has got some new components that look promising and even though the young Brit is not fully satisfied with their performance just yet, he is confident that the team will find the right set-up for qualifying and the race. After all, who wouldn't love to win his home event?

Red Bull appeared to have enough pace to keep the upgraded McLarens at bay on Friday, with Sebastian Vettel taking the morning's top spot and team mate Mark Webber the afternoon's. The leading teams and their rivals reflect on their early progress at Silverstone…

Red Bull maintained their advantage at Silverstone courtesy of Mark Webber on Friday afternoon, in an hour and a half long second free practice session which saw some different faces in very different places. Ferrari bounced into contention with second and fourth places to Red Bull's first and third, Mercedes were fifth and sixth, and McLaren only eighth and 13th, separated by Force India, Williams and Renault. And Renault's Vitaly Petrov was quicker than Robert Kubica. Go figure…

HRT race driver Bruno Senna will be replaced by test driver Sakon Yamamoto for the British Grand Prix weekend, the team revealed on Thursday evening. Senna will be back in the car for the next round in Germany...

Sebastian Vettel pushed Red Bull to the fore as the opening practice for this weekend's British Grand Prix got underway on Friday morning at the new Silverstone circuit. Proving that lap times in team simulators have not been overly optimistic at 1m 31s, Vettel lapped his RB6 in 1m 32.280s to head late-improving Lewis Hamilton by 0.334s after the 2008 world champion took his revised McLaren round in 1m 32.614s...

Red Bull's Mark Webber says he is fit and well, and raring to go this weekend, less than 14 days after his horrendous back flip in the European Grand Prix in Valencia. The Spanish and Monaco Grand Prix winner confirmed that there have been no ill effects. “I'm over it, let's move on to Silverstone,” he said. “I had a bit of whiplash. I knew straight away that I'd hit my big toe pretty hard. But I didn't even know I was upside down, to be honest. It happened so quickly. I was very mindful that I should let go of the wheel, but I wanted to keep my arms in the car.”

Robert Kubica remains the insider's tip for 'champion of the future'. Currently sixth in the standings, he's outperformed the likes of Mercedes' Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher and Ferrari's Felipe Massa this season. His and Renault's cooperation has proved very fruitful - fruitful enough to persuade both to prolong it until at least the end of 2012…