The British Grand Prix - Practice 3 Formula 1

Whether it's because it's slightly hotter

Whether it's because it's slightly all day. Encouraging for the

McLaren. It's all day. Encouraging for the

medium tyre. Clearly Red Bull feel there's

medium tyre. Clearly Red Bull feel behind the two Mercedes cars. As we

suspected, it's Hamilton and Rosberg at

here at Silverstone. The crowd here would love it if

here at Silverstone. The crowd here the time sheets despite the fact

the British Grand Prix. Not long until free practice three and not

long until qualifying. Yesterday morning in the dry it was Nico

Rosberg who was fastest and in the afternoon it was Lewis Hamilton,

despite the fact that his Mercedes had an oil pressure problem and

stopped out on track on the losing invaluable track time and data. He

missed about a third of the session which is crucial at this stage of

the weekend. Lewis Hamilton got pole position last year, Nico Rosberg won

the race. In the pit lane we have Tom

Clarkson, what is the weather looking like? We haven't had any

rain in the pit lane for about an hour, there is a nice strong wind of

four metres per second drying big -- the track. The teams will have to be

very careful how they use the intermediate tyres because they only

have four for the whole weekend. The weather being so unpredictable, they

might need some of those during qualifying. There is a 60% chance of

rain during this session. The clouds look pretty dark. One of us two will

get caught out, I have gone for the dry spec I hope it will stay dry but

it looks unlikely. You have to feel sorry for the thousands of people

whose -- who spent the night camping. Jenson Button is just

getting in his car, McLaren have gone from being number one in the

constructors after the first race to being in sixth place now. They will

be hoping for better this weekend. You can probably make out Jenson

Button's helmet which he will be wearing as a mark of respect to his

father who passed away will stop they are hoping to turn the

grandstands think. -- pink. I have gone for the pessimistic wet weather

setup. You can get involved in this session through social media come on

the details are below. The commentators will try to read

out as many comments as they can. It could be quite a busy session. Let's

hope so. We're looking forward to some action, it is only a 60 minute

session. This rebuilds us towards qualifying. It is important, as much

as they have to think about their tyre allocation, they have to get

used to be circuit. It is wet, yesterday was completely dry,

suggestions are it will be at least for qualifying. Predictions for

tomorrow are a bit sketchy. Lewis Hamilton has been enjoying looking

around this Mercedes car in the Mercedes garage this week and,

somewhat ever on to be Formula One car he will be competing in this

weekend. Mercedes had a notable victory in the British Grand Prix in

1955 when it was at Aintree, although they missed out in 1954.

They had a win here last year thanks to Nico Rosberg. It was a victory

that Rosberg rather inherited. Not only did Lewis Hamilton have a tyre

failure, Sebastian Vettel was leading the Grand Prix and he

suffered a rare gearbox failure. This year, Sebastian Vettel has been

less lucky with his reliability. Generally he has not had perfect

reliability. It has hit him in races this year. The car has not had the

pure speed to win races when it has been clean for him. It has been a

tough time. Daniel Ricciardo, his new team-mates, seems to be

revelling in the setup at Red Bull but also in the way the cars are

running behind Brit systems. He has put the pressure on Sebastian Vettel

-- running the hybrid systems. It will be interesting to see this

weekend, Vettel has had a couple of pole positions in the past, he has

been outqualified by Daniel Ricciardo on a number of occasions

this year. We will wait to find out what happens.

Quite a lot of damp areas around the circuit. We had AGP qualifying

session this morning and they took the worst of the puddles of the

track -- we had a GP3 qualifying session. There is a bit of work on

the right-hand front brake area. He had a huge shunt yesterday in

practice, took all four corners of the car, right at the beginning of

the session. They are a bit late in getting the break shrouding --

brake. There are not so many puddles any longer, it is purely

intermediate weather. This circuit is quite greasy, you can see the

lighter sections. Until the cask go with a bit of speed and the down

first -- the cars go with them speed and

there are some dry patches, says Jenson Button. He is feeding that

back to be team because they don't want to tear up these intermediate

tyres too much. The green indicates it is the intermediate tyre. If he

stays out there it will do a bit more. In a few places there is some

spray being picked up. You can see how slippery and sliding it is as he

tries to get on the power out of club corner. It is normally a

flat-out right-hander but it is in fifth year as he accelerates and

gently comes through, raking in to turn three. This is the slowest

corner of the circuit. In the dry you would want to hit the apex but

he hasn't got the front group to get near it on this lap. One of the

problems McLaren have had is generating the tyre temperature.

Jenson is very smooth, it has its benefits but in these intermediate

and greasy conditions, it is probably not his ideal scenario. In

the dry this weekend we have the harder compounds of tyre that

Pirelli bring. McLaren was saying yesterday that their challenge is

indeed getting those hard temperatures in the heart tyre. That

has been their problem so far. Let's quickly remind you of the fastest

times from yesterday. Lewis Hamilton set the pace, despite the problem

that denied him a full race run. Nico Rosberg was second fastest,

Alonso for Ferrari was third. Always difficult to know if the Friday pace

will be converted into qualifying pace. Then the Red Bulls were next

up. This track perhaps isn't quite as beneficial as it was in Austria

because Bottas was sixth fastest. Massa was 11th fastest. They had a

very difficult day as Jenson Button is trying to get off the drying

racing line to cool his intermediate tyres. I presume he will head back

towards the pits and sit and wait. Williams have lifted their game,

they will be better but they will not be as good as in Austria. Just

watching the Ferrari come out of the pits? Alonso, Raikkonen and Rosberg

are heading out on to track and they have gone with the full wet tyres. A

real mixture down here. They have an extra allocation of three full wet

tyres and four of the intermediates. The intermediate is the tyre they

would most likely use this afternoon if it is damp and wet for

qualifying, and also for tomorrow. It is better to burn up a full wet,

extreme wet, than an intermediate, that is probably the reason. We are

seeing the likes of Sutil out on the full wet, Bianchi, Chilton and hot

as as well. Vettel has gone on the intermediate -- Chilton and Bottas.

Williams had a reasonable run yesterday apart from their problems.

The first session denied them very many laps at all, a decent pace in

the afternoon. McLaren were next up, seventh and eighth fastest. Kimi

Raikkonen was a little way off his team-mate comedy was ninth fastest.

--, team-mate, he was ninth fastest. Toro Rosso could be a team to keep

an eye on this weekend to get into the points, they look pretty good.

They were good last year as well. That was the point when a Red Bull

engineer said one of the Toro Rosso drivers would step into the vacant

Red Bull seed. The gaggle in the middle of the top ten will be hotly

contested. Kimi Raikkonen had a tough time trying to get the car

balance to his liking. He was happy in the morning but not in the

afternoon. Much more tread visible on the full wet tyre. Trying to pick

up some water to cool those wet tyres as he goes down the start

finish straight and through Copse Corner. And into Becketts. This is

where you lose edge and is amount of speed in comparison to the drive.

This is normally one of the fastest and best sections of circuit in the

world, I think. As you flick it right, left, Right and left and down

towards Hangar Straight, now down towards Stowe and the last couple of

corners. It is the corner where Felipe Massa had his accident

yesterday and Daniil Kvyat nearly repeated it. He stays off the kerb,

headed into the pits. Add a quick conversation with Kimi Raikkonen

manager this morning, talking about his time at Ferrari. He was saying,

that team is very much centred around Fernando Alonso. They have

very different driving styles, Fernando Alonso likes the rear of

the car to be planted and he works with the front end. Kimi Raikkonen

likes a responsive front end. It is a missed a polar opposite in terms

of what they are looking for from the car -- almost a polar opposite.

Kimi Raikkonen came into Ferrari, Fernando Alonso's team, he has

moulded the development for such a long period of time. Felipe Massa's

driving style was similar. He has a unique situation where he will throw

the front of the car in, really throw it in, and then come back on

the steering to find the grip angle. Kimi Raikkonen has certainly

struggled and not produced the performances I expected from him or

Ferrari. It has been disappointing so far, we will see how he gets on.

Will he be able to produce anything like that? A great run of podium

finishes in the mid-2000s. We will have to see what happens. Ferrari

did find a problem with Raikkonen's cap, that is interesting. He was

complaining that it something is not quite right -- Raikkonen's car. We

have had confirmation they found something specific, they are not

telling us exactly what. If you want to keep in touch with the

behind-the-scenes stories, you can go to the BBC F1 website, there is a

live text service as well. Thank you for your comments. This one says,

good morning, what effect would Lewis Hamilton's failure yesterday

have on his race? He missed out on his similar to race run. --

simulated. It will have an effect because it is laps he missed in

comparison to Nico Rosberg. Lewis Hamilton did 14, Rosberg did 35. It

was the long run laps, he had Audie done his short performance run and

they were just arty -- he had already done. And they were just

starting. The team will understand it but Lewis Hamilton will miss a

bit of a field. The fact that the conditions are completely different,

and possibly tomorrow, brings it back onto a level keel again.

However, you want to be out on the circuit and doing the laps. You

don't want your team-mate necessarily to lose it but you would

want your car to be the reliable one. The wind has dropped in

strength considerably. It was gusty yesterday. We saw a lot of drivers

talked about it after the session, about how it was blowing the car,

some corners it made the car grip too quickly into turns and other

corners it was making it understeer or run wide. It's a big factor here,

it's an airfield circuit. Lewis Hamilton comes out of the pit lane.

You have got such an open airfield, big grandstands now, also two pit

buildings, one here where we are sitting right now and one, the old

one on the other side of the circuit, and when you pop out behind

those buildings suddenly this gust of wind hits you and if it hits the

front or rear of the car first it affects the balance aspect. It's

inconsistent. Yesterday it was -- yesterday it was gusting and it was

difficult to predict what was a track condition and car balance and

what was just wind. Daniel Ricciardo looking very chilled at the moment

as he prepares to come out on circuit. The winner of the Canadian

Grand Prix, the only man to have won a race apart from the two Mercedes

drivers so far this year. That was quite a surprise to everybody

concerned but of course Mercedes had their problems there. Ericsson going

out on circuit for Caterham. Nobody's established a lap time as

such. They had a good run here last year.

Daniel Ricciardo got their best ever results at Silverstone

place finish last year and qualified in 5th. Fernando Alonso looking

somewhat thoughtful at this stage of proceedings. Still under 50 minutes

to go in this final practice session leading to qualifying. Three times a

pole-sitter himself at this circuit, and has had a couple of wins go his

way, as well. We will get more data on this.

Cancel the magic, that's a setting presumably on the steering wheel,

but it sounds quite fun! Sounds excellent, if you ask me. They

should all have settings, instead of L3, Hammer Time is what they said to

him in Austrian. There is no question they understand and ne that

we are listening and working out what's going on and they also the

other teams, as well, they don't want to show their hand too much.

Lewis Hamilton doing another standing start, using the

opportunity when track conditions aren't in perfect place to do some

running, just to get some of this basic work done to ensure, as he is

sitting there, the clutch is doing a biting point, his hands aren't even

on the wheel, he will pull the two paddals on the bottom, activate the

procedure and then accelerate out, give more data to the team so that

they understand what he needs and what the clutch needs for the start.

The only two cars on track are the two Caterhams, I think. Tom, I think

you are at McLaren. I am and I am outside McLaren. Bad news for me and

my shirt, it's starting to rain again. The track conditions are

going to get worse. Jenson Button is now out of his car. He has been

having a chat with his race engineer. The word from McLaren is

that they think there is no point wasting the tyres, both Jenson

Button and Kevin Magnussen have... If you look at the front brake

ducts, it gives you a glue on the conditions. You see that McLaren

have taped over those front ducts to try and help retain some temperature

in the front brakes. There's little braking here, particularly in the

middle sector from Copse through to Stowe. Interesting how they're

having to go to slightly basic measures of taping up the front

brake ducts. It's a quick and easy way of adjustment. They had those on

yesterday even in the dry. Once the brakes are hot, that also feeds back

to the tyre and works the front tyre a little better. So it's not just

necessarily just working the brake, it's also working the tyre. A bit of

rain might not necessarily be good for you, Tom, but it's going to be

good for us, it will give hopefully a clear indication that the circuit

is going to be wet and we will get more cars out on track. A few

comments coming in about the change in weather conditions here today.

Nathan asking, if the rain falls for the race and the forecast for

tomorrow might be the odd shower around, so it isn't impossible, if

the rain falls for the race who might perform the best in your

opinion? This is a change of circuit anyway in comparison to what we have

had in the last two in Canada and Austria which were very much slow

corners, big long straits. Around here it's all very high speed

corners. The average corner speed is significantly higher than it was in

Austria. I would expect that Red Bull will be strong around here

anyway. In the dry I think Ferrari will be good. Maybe a little bit

less so in the wet. Alonso will probably... Toro Rosso you can never

discount. But ultimately, you are going to see it's Mercedes at the

front. In the pit lane, Jenny, you are at

Force India, they had a tough day yesterday. 16th and 17th. What are

they telling you today? They did have a tough day. Hulkenberg was

adamant at the end of the session they need to do better. He is in his

car waiting to go out. Like Tom said, the brake ducts are taped up

almost. A tiny slot on those. Just at the back of the garage you can

see Sergio Perez stood there meeting some of the guests, partners of

Force India. But he had a tough day, as well. He was asked comments and

thoughts about maybe being a team-mate of Susie Wolff and he sort

of said something along the lines of, it would be terrible to be

beaten by a girl. Then very flippantly said, well, you know,

they're best in the kippen anyway. -- kitchen. The media in Mexico

picked up on this and went crazy. He has received a lot of flak and the

team are trying to manage it. Susie came out in support and has taken to

Twitter saying his comments were taken out of context. As my family

will tell you, I drive better than I cook. She's obviously in the taking

it to heart too much. But it has kicked up a little bit of fuss.

Sergio Perez seems to be putting his small racing boot into his mouth a

couple of times too many this season. Right, hopefully he can

focus on the driving here today. Seeing some of the cars getting a

little bit out of shape. It looks as though there is a touch more rain in

the air now than at the very beginning of this session. It's

going to be a tough one to learn much. What it also means is that

Lewis Hamilton isn't going to get that kind of race run that he hoped

to plan for this morning. They had talked about changing their run plan

in order to make up for that time he lost yesterday. Clearly he is not

going to be able to do that and he has done three lapse but they've all

been installation laps so far and hasn't completed a flying lap. The

two cars that have done that are Ericsson and Kobay -- Kobayashi.

A big slide there for Kvyat a second ago. He looks impressive in these

conditions. He was in Brazil in the first practice at the end of last

year when he got one of his first opportunities to drive in Formula

One and he was breathtaking even then. Clearly he enjoys driving in

these conditions. Toro Rosso regularly send their drivers out

when conditions are tricky. Good experience, of course, for Daniel

Kvyat. Let's look at that again and see how well he corrected it. It's a

very tricky corner. It's adverse and you have to get the front of the car

and throw the front in otherwise you understeer when you come through it

and he obviously threw the front in and kept the power in. The rear came

around. Interestingly there is a clarification last night because

yesterday a lot of drivers were driving completely off the circuit

there. Charlie Whiting, the race director, said from qualifying

onwards anybody that does that will have time taken away from them as

they did in Austria when they ran wide at turn eight. That's one to

watch. That's his team-mate Jean-skaep Eric Vergne. --

Jean-Eric. Copse and the last corner, where you can do it and gain

time. Most corners if you run wide you lose time, but not at those two.

You can see the extra rain on the camera showing how much wetter it

is. Jean-Eric is fastest in this session in the Toro Rosso at the

moment. Toro Rosso's only ever Grand Prix victory came in the wet

conditions when Sebastian Vettel took that first and only win for the

team. I don't think they're going to be in the same position here.

Nonetheless, they've been showing well and potential points scorers

this weekend. A yellow fromming out there somewhere in sector seven --

yellow flag out there. Jean-Eric was 10th fastest yesterday. He is 19

seconds off the pace. What about the tyres? Car balance, it's really hard

to drive. We saw that on the last corner there, that was clear to see.

He had a big oversteer on the - it's turning and reactive, the rear can't

keep up and especially around here, because you are trying to accelerate

and come through the last and it drops away and it's fish-tailing.

You have to squeeze on the throttle so gently or you get a massive

build-up and snap oversteer. He is still fastest, that was a better lap

for Jean-Eric. He goes up to the arena section. Another question from

Paul saying how much slower are the cars lapping Silverstone this year

with the hybrid units compared to the V8 era? I can tell you that last

year in this third practice session in the dry they were looking at

times of one minute 31, we are not dry in this session obviously.

Yesterday they were about two seconds, just over two seconds

slower, than last year with the V8. I don't think it's necessarily the

engine side of things. The top speeds were quick, it was over

200mph yesterday. But it's more the lack of downforce and also they've a

much harder tyre than last year. Last year at Silverstone is where

there was a tremendous amount of tyre failures and since then Pirelli

have had to make the tyres significantly more robust and this

year they've made the compounds a little bit harder. Whereas with the

medium last year I would say it was a bit faster than in 2014. Pirelli

announced they're going to be testing an 18-inch tyre when testing

takes place here later this week, which is a new introduction and

13-inch tyre is used in Formula One at the moment. Big profile tyre. You

don't have the low profile tyre that you use in sports car racing, for

example. It would be a major shift for Formula One if they went down

this route. It's more relevant to what they use in everything else in

cars and other forms of motor sport. Therefore, they're being tested next

week as a little bit of a sort of toe in the water to see if that's

the way they want to go. When Michelin were talking about coming

into Formula One they stipulated that only if they went to that size

of tyre would they look at it. Magnussen's radio. How is the track,

would you like to continue? There is a lot less... Kevin Magnussen has

not done a full time lap yet. Has done several installation laps to

get a feel. Rosberg comes back to the pits. Same for him, he done two

very quick sector times there, Ross ber. We have been fastest --

Rosberg. He would have been fastest. Looking after the tyres making sure

they don't use too many sets before they wet into qualifying. Some more

of your comments coming in, thank you very much for those. Hannah

saying, do we think Susie can get a race seat in the coming seasons? She

missed out on much opportunity to drive yesterday with the problems

she had. She will be out in Germany next time. A race seat is another

matter, we will have to wait and find out. Joining us now is team

principal of Red Bull racing Christian Horner. Morning, it's a

little bit more slippery than yesterday. Absolutely. Just

listening to the comments about Susie, she is having a word with her

husband really, surely he can influence a bit of a race seat. You

are not offering a seat at Red Bull? Unfortunately not, she did a great

job yesterday in the small amount of time she had. It would be great to

have a woman in Formula One, Toto should definitely make that happen.

Another driver is a test driver for Sauber, the Red Bull junior

programmes, we see a lot of drivers coming through, are there any female

drivers on the books? We had one. She's not on the books any more.

Yeah, we are always looking at talent. If you go to the grass roots

and look at carting now there is a lot of young girls that are doing a

great job there. It's a matter of time before we find a quick one.

Let's get to matters of the moment. What's going on this weekend, what

about the weather forecast, what's the latest in terms of what we will

see for qualifying and for the race? Well, it's a bit more of this for

this morning and it's supposed to be getting brighter this afternoon.

Could well be one of those really sort of, you know, wet and dry

qualifyings, at 1.00pm, so everyone is watching the radar like a hawk.

Presumably that suits you, a little change in the air and the

opportunity perhaps to put one over Mercedes, because often it's about

how operationally you handle a session like that being out on the

right tyre at the right time? It's always an opportunity to shine. It's

always an opportunity to look stupid, as well. So, I mean it's a

level of conditions like -- it's a leveller, conditions like this. From

an operational peck perspective you want it to be fully wet or dry. When

it's like it is at the moment, you are in the lap of the gods a bit.

Yesterday it appeared you were competitive on the harder tyre. On

the medium tyre you didn't seem to get the performance you expect it.

Did you find a solution? We had a good look. Daniel managed to split

the Mercedes yesterday which was an impressive lap time but didn't go

quicker on the softer tyre and I think we were out of balance on that

softer tyre. Having had a chance to look at the numbers, Sebastien's run

was actually competitive. How competitive do you feel you would be

in a straight fight with Mercedes? I think we would probably get within

three tenths. The gap was a second at the beginning of the year and if

we get everything right, we can be within two or three tenths and we

are noting ever closer. It looks as though Toro Rosso were fairly strong

yesterday, presumably you were keeping an eye on that? They are

doing a great job, we are impressed with Kvyat and Jean-Eric is doing a

great job. A few reliability issues that they are focused on. But to

their place looks encouraging. -- their place looks.

On the electoral gremlins behind you? -- are the electrical gremlins?

I hope so, you would have to ask Renault people. He has the same

mechanics and the same people working on his car over the last 48

Grand Prix is but unfortunately things have not gone his way. Thank

you for joining us, best of luck with the rest of today.

We are riding with Daniel Ricciardo as we head down the straight. We can

see what gears he is using, whether he is on the throttle or breaks, how

are things looking? He is using a wide line to try to cut back, maybe

not idea to use the kerb. So he gets a straight acceleration and equal

loading as he accelerates down across the start finish line. Up to

Copse, adverse camber, you wait until the understeer sorts itself

out and then start to squeeze on the throttle. Now up through Becketts.

Normally this first part is flat and you line it up, using more road on

the left than normally in the dry conditions. The grip just isn't

there and you have got to let the cargo to wear the grip is and

accelerates to Hangar Straight. We have seen a lot of cars go into the

right-hand side wall by accelerating, but not today. We are

seeing a lot more break action. A wide line, staying off the slippery

bit. The guide sort of goes to where the grip is. There are certain

corners -- the car sort of goes to. There are certain corners where you

have to square it off and keep to the apex but there are faster ones

where you let it run out and you find the line. Daniel Ricciardo's

time, I think it is repetitive for these conditions. It is the fastest

one so far -- representative for these conditions. He was struggling

with the balance of his car yesterday although the team felt

they made a few improvements. That was the on-board view, which looked

fairly heroic. Speeds, just building up and not really getting the grip

he needs. Ricciardo is fastest, Magnus is third, Maldonado is

fourth. -- Magnussen is third. Just ten drivers have established a lap

time in this session so far. Just over half an hour to go. On track

these Kimi Raikkonen, Alonso is not on track. He is sitting in the pits

at this stage. Ferrari wanted to get more of an idea with Raikkonen's

car, having found a problem after yesterday. They want to get laps

under his belt and make sure things are ready for qualifying. He locks

up the right front as he comes into the left-hander and that puts him

out of line. Oversteer as he tries to put the power down, old-fashioned

oversteer. He is fifth fastest. Let's get back to the pits. I am at

the Morrissey garage and problems for you already -- Marussia garage.

We have had a bit of a gearbox issue which has made us have to abort the

session early. It is a proper failure we have to change the box.

It is annoying, we have a five place grid penalty for the race. I was

quite quickly last year in the rain. It is frustrating I am missing out

on this running. How hard is it to sit in your garage and watch the

cars streamed past? It is frustrating but the best thing you

can do is take in as much as you can and learn from it, so you are fully

prepared for qualifying. It still might be dry for qualifying. We will

wait and see and try our best later on. Five place grid penalty not what

you wanted, can you challenge this weekend? Can you beat those within

touching distance? We have the advantage over the Caterhams, Sauber

is a bit out of reach at the moment. But if it stays wet and they don't

get things right, we might be there. Right in the background, someone has

gone skidding past the grandstand, who is doing doughnuts?

He gave the crowd something to cheer about, we might get another look at

it. Second fastest, Romain Grosjean, that was the lap when he spun across

the line. He gave it a bit too much through the last corner that he

hasn't hit anything. A chance to see what he did. Coming through the last

part comedy loses it, a bit wide, as soon as he gets onto the rear wheels

and the kerb, it spins three quarters. He is lucky that he did

not knows into the wall but recovered reasonably well. How hard

is it, when you lose control around the corner? What do you have to do

to keep control and not lose the entire car? You have to react as

fast as you can. Sometimes it is so quick that you can't catch it. Think

that was Grosjean, you know it is not going to be a big one but it

could be frustrating when you take the nose. You have to time it well

and get front end grip to turn it around, and he did that perfectly. A

final work for the British fans, give them a bit of a wave. -- final

word. They are waving back. Is it lovely to have the British fans

supporting you? It is awesome foot of it was like this in free practice

one last year. They were there in high spirits, doing the Mexican

waves and flying the union Jacks. It is brilliant to be back every year.

I think I spotted his brother, Tom Chilton, in the back of the garage.

Both brothers racing effectively around the world in their different

categories. Sebastian Vettel showing us how slippery it is as he comes

down the Wellington Straight, that was out of Aintree and now into

Brooklands. He may be using a different line to the conventional

line. He stays out wide for a bit longer. He comes back with straight

acceleration to try to maximise the straight lengths. He is an wide open

throttle. With the snap oversteer, I am sure he is happy that he has got

very fast hands to react to it. It was a quick snap. He came off the

throttle to get back into line. His team-mate is fastest in this

session, I wonder it Sebastian Vettel will be in the ballpark as

well. The pressure coming from the other side of the garage this year

consistently. He is fractionally up on the split times. As we look

through the gloom towards Stowe corner. Coming in wide there. That

was the kerb and the green on the other side is Astroturf. When Felipe

Massa put two wheels onto that, he turned right into the wall. It is

very tricky out of the last section. We saw Grosjean half spin. Vettel

goes a tenth quicker than Ricciardo. Very evenly matched as ever. That

duel will continue. RADIO: Just exercise caution, the

painted green surface is slipping. With Grosjean having found that out,

the message is being passed to the other teams. Six cars are out on

circuit. That message to Lewis Hamilton, as he comes out of the

track and into The Loop. Alonso is coming back. A lot of teams have

been doing practice starts. Some of the background work is not the

sister making the car go faster but making the race go quicker -- not

necessarily making the race go quicker. It is hard for the teams to

plan anything with the change in conditions. They can't really change

it, once it starts qualifying. There is not much difference between a wet

and dry set up in reality. You go with a dry set up unless you have a

major problem. I would say 99% of the cars will be the same for wet

and dry. It will be the systems, the way the hybrid recuperates energy.

You have significantly less lateral grip in the wet compare to the

drive. It is more a case of the tuning aspect -- compared to the

dry. Lewis Hamilton is quick on the sector times, up half a second on

what we have seen so far from Vettel and Ricciardo. He has just gone off,

actually. That wasn't in the plan! He was trying to go for the wide

line into Stowe but he ran out of space. Nico Rosberg learning from

that, I am sure. Tom, you are at Mercedes? I am, looking at Ross

Perot, wondering what he was saying their foot appears been out of the

car for a while -- looking at Rosberg. They have

car for a while -- looking at more padding, probably to help

protect him through the lateral G affected on him. He did only 14 laps

yesterday afternoon, Lewis Hamilton, to Nico Rosberg's 35. It is a case

of trying to catch up as much as possible and that sums up the

championship. Rosberg is now walking over to Lewis's side of the garage

and looking at the front left wheel, saying nothing to his

team-mate, not even looking at his team-mate. Looking at the front left

tyre. A raise of the eyebrows to one of the mechanics. And Rosberg is

heading back to his car. Trying to learn everything the whole time.

Part of that is psychological in terms of not looking at his

team-mate, a big part of it is just looking at the left front, it is a

right-handed dominated circuit, there are a lot of long

right-handers. The left front tyre gets a hard time in the wet. He will

be able to see if it has got where, -- wear and tear. Then he will be

able to understand if it is the right tyre, a little bit more, and

what it might be like in the race or even qualifying. 16 cars have set a

time, several have yet to do a flying lap. We are yet to see

Bottas, sat patiently in the pits. Massa has not completed a flying

lap. We have seen Alonso a couple of times. Rosberg and Hamilton, neither

have completed a flying lap. They are at the bottom of the charts,

Hamilton having done five laps like that. Now we are getting into the

meat of the season, the teams and drivers have only got a limited

number of gearboxes and parts of hybrid system, a limited number of

internal combustion engines. They don't want to be running for the

sake of it, they haven't got capability. With Susie Wolff having

an engine failure, because they were stretching the mileage a little bit

longer to try to make sure they have mileage in hand, I can see them

sitting back and watching as things progress, unless the time is perfect

for them to do some running. Just under 20 minutes to go of this

session. The cameras seem to have got steamed up, as well. The track

is getting more slippery. You can see the rain hitting the camera.

Times will be slower than we have seen so far. Gutierrez is on the

interimmediate ate. You go for that until there is spray and puddles.

The intermediate... Here is the radio. We are missing a lot of time

on braking and entry almost everywhere. Definitely later braking

everywhere. That's purely confidence of getting the temperature into the

brake, into the front tyre to be able to hit the brakes, like into

turn three as he was going to that particular corner. You lose a lot of

time around here. I am glad to say join us now is Toto Wolff. It's a

strange session this morning, a bit flating -- a bit frustrating for

Lewis, he is not getting the laps that he missed out on yesterday.

It's not perfect with these conditions. But probably does make a

lot of sense to run at the moment, you need to save tyres. It's the

same for everybody. Obviously Lewis missed out on those crucial laps

yesterday. The guys must have sat down with engineers last night and

looked through the data that Nico Rosberg was able to give, is Lewis

in a reasonable shape going into the weekend based on that knowledge Yes,

of course. First of all, I guess he felt confident in the car before and

we shared data. So he should be all right. It's Allan here, what do you

think your advantage is in comparison to say Red Bull and

Ferrari around here, because they look to be closer yesterday than

maybe previous races? You can't really judge, Alan. It's early days.

Yesterday you don't know what fuel loads cars were running... Sorry to

interrupt, Bianchi going through the gravel track. You have your guys not

doing many laps and presumably this is one of the reasons because it's

easy to get some damage done. Yeah, of course. This can always happen,

not a lot of time between session and qualifying. Yeah, this is one of

the reasons you are not running a lot. We will look at the replay of

what happened. He came in a bit too hot. He hasn't been able to get the

car slowed down enough to use the run-off area that Lewis Hamilton did

a couple of laps ago. And then slid across the gravel track and tapped

into the wall. Locked up the right front. That means he can't turn. Has

to go straight. Both of them are locked up. At this moment you are

hoping you stop before the tyres and he doesn't. Toto, your thoughts

going into qualifying, all your teams tend to get the same weather

information. I don't know whether you have your own Mercedes scouts to

keep an eye on what's going to happen for later today? Well, it

would be good to have scouts around the race track but unfortunately we

don't. We have all the same weather radar, that was good the past, of -

past couple of races, no scouts around us. Best of luck with

qualifying. We have seen a replay of Adrian Sutil. That was a fraction

before Bianchi. Got the car turned enough through the gravel and was

able to escape in front of hardy fans there with their umbrellas up

now. Two cars on circuit. Gutierrez and Ricciardo. At this moment as a

driver your stomach is - oh, my goodness, I have made a mistake and

there's 15 minutes to go before and leading up to qualifying. He missed

out on laps yesterday. They had several technical problems on the

car yesterday. He was short of laps anyway. That hasn't really

benefitted him at all. He is having a tough weekend so far and indeed

the team appear to be having a bit of a nightmare with the problems for

Max Chiltern, he hasn't been out either. At least he managed to do a

decent number of laps, 28 laps in session two yesterday. They got some

decent knowledge out of that. The Marshalls are in place quickly

trying to get that car out of the way, but Bianchi not looking pleased

with himself. A few cars haven't set a lap time, the likes of Massa,

Alonso and Hamilton, but Vettel coming back out on track now. Just

seeing Toto, there he is at the Mercedes pit wall. He and Paddy, of

course, in charge at that team and keeping an eye on the progress and

their lead in the constructors' table. We are on board with

Ricciardo. Both the Red Bulls on circuit now. They're not too worried

about the tyres getting a few more laps on them. They probably stayed

on the same set of intermediates. It's wet enough now they'll be able

to cool them, control tech tures so the blocks -- temperatures so the

blocks won't get too hot and start moving around which gives grip away.

For me, coming through turn one, he looked as if he had a tremendous

amount of confidence. It wasn't understeering too much. It wasn't

oversteering too much. It looked nicely balanced in these tricky

conditions. So the Red Bull with plenty of down force and Adrian knew

his tricks of the trade in terms of getting as much down force. Talking

of straight line speeds, it's the two McLarens at the top of the speed

trap at the moment. Just under the 200mph mark, that's on the Hangar

Straight, just before they get on the brakes for Stowe corner. The two

McLarens well up. Hulkenberg, and of course, Hamilton, as well. This is

Daniel Ricciardo now coming through the yellow flag area. Bianchi's car

will be out of shot on the left. Look at the amount of spray the back

of the car is kicking up now, different to the early part of the

session. He brings the car back in. Vettel is still going, I think,

despite the mistake he made. The yellow flags have been withdrawn

from that sector. They've Bianchi's car out of the way. Alonso in the

bothering to get into his Ferrari. Looks chilled at the moment. A long

time since we have seen Alonso qualify on the front row of the

grid, let alone a pole position. The wet conditions could help him. There

is Kevin Magnussen. He had a good race last time in Austria. I think

the team was pleased with him. Scored solid points. Button was just

outside the points. A bit more of of a difficult weekend for him. This

weekend so far McLaren have been showing more promising pace than

perhaps we expected. There was the lady that caused such a stir

yesterday, Susie Wolff getting an opportunity to go out in the first

practice session, but of course it lasted four laps. One of those was a

flying lap. So very disappointing but she will be back out in Germany

in a couple of weeks' time. This is what I saw in the background when

Ricciardo was coming down the strait. A little bit on to the

wetter part, the rear snapped out, he straightened it up as opposed to

spinning the car. Across and no harm done. Came straight back to the

pits. We have got just over 11 minutes to go in this session.

Nobody is sitting in that Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. Both cars sitting

quietly in the garages. It's a relatively quiet session. Normally

we would be getting to the stage of practice where it goes frantic and

they're putting in qualifying simulations. Of course, there's not

a lot of point doing that because the track conditions are not helping

them, they're probably going to be different to what they will be when

they go out in qualifying. They might as well sit around and save

the equipment at this stage. Yeah, if we look back at yesterday where

they did a lot of the race runs, preparation for that, then certainly

the two Mercedes were top dogs. Alonso, you mentioned him, not being

on the front row, but he was quick again, he was there, third quickest.

In the long run he was extremely consistent all the way through. But

the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo, that could be the surprise package.

That's the one that's got the potential, if it's dry, to be up

there and nipping at the heels of the two Mercedes cars. We have seen

that a few times. The only time we didn't see that solidly was last

time in Austria, they had a disappointing race weekend Red Bull.

The track layout perhaps was the least suited to their car. Not sure

if they made the right decisions. They went home and had a long hard

think about how that went. They probably had their worst race

think about how that went. They weekend of the year in terms of

performance so far. Kvyat locking again. Wide and on the full wet, as

well. That's the one you would normally expect of that little bit

more grip at this point. Another view from the onboard camera here.

Nearly made it around and ran out of road. Dealt with it pretty well.

It's so greasy around here. If you don't have maximum down force, as in

a lot of down force, then you just don't generate the tyre temperatures

as you would normally do. You just sort of slip and slide around.

Remember, last year we had a lot more down force than this year.

Therefore, they're already a little bit more on the back foot before

they get out on to the track for that. He did race here last year in

GP3. Good to see Force India coming out on track. Hulkenberg and Perez

have established a lap time. They're almost identical. Actually a bit of

a gap. In terms of lap time Hulkenberg was over a second quicker

and Perez earlier in this session. With conditions changing it's hard

to read. Going out Sergio Perez on the intermediate tyre. It's the one

that's more likely to be used. Back with Kvyat. We have a Russian Grand

Prix later this year, first time that Formula One will have gone to

Russia. Looking forward to that around the Olympics Park at Sochi.

That's going to be a new venue, of course, for Formula One and I am

sure Kvyat is going to be very much the centre of attention when we get

to that Grand Prix. He takes that big wide line through Stowe corner,

keeping off the kerb. Does he stay out for another lap? Looks like he

is going to finish the lap. Let's see what the lap time is like.

It's going to be slower than when we saw Vettel and Ricciardo out at the

best of the session. A nice bit of car control through.

Nice progressive, smooth. In slow-motion that's going to be

fantastic later on. Good lap time. He is two seconds off the best that

we have seen when the track conditions were presumably a little

better. Yes, presumably. It's difficult in these situations unless

everyone is out at the same time to see what is a true lap time. The

rain seems to have stopped a little bit. Certainly it's less than what

it was earlier on. Bottas on track now. Likes slippery conditions. We

saw that last year when he put in a great qualifying performance in

Canada which was out of the blue. This year he is much more

consistently qualifying well. He had a frnt row start last time in us a

-- front row start last time in Austria. This is not the time to

throw the car off the road, though. He comes up it towards the Beckets

complex now. The Williams, which has been, if anything a little bit light

on rear down force throughout the season, could be tricky in these

conditions. I think generally around here they probably won't be as

competitive, or not going to be, as in Austria and Canada. Expect their

performances to be back up to their previous best when you get to

Hockenheim. In these conditions it makes it doubly tricky. He is going

to complete the lap. Let's get an idea of the lap time. He has gone

wide there. Just hold it is in. This is the slippery last corner where we

have seen so much action. He is changing up so early. There is

a little piece of something in the middle of the circuit there. He is

changing up early going up the gears, short shifting so he doesn't

have that extreme power. That was a 10th quicker than Kvyat's lap a

moment ago. Somebody's lost a wing flap or board, difficult to say what

it is. Hopefully that's not going to cause problems. It's just offline.

We have the two Force India cars out there at the minute. Let's see

Hulkenberg. Now that was a bizarre twitch. There is little - the road

flows away and the road's not porous so the water sits on top. Auz you

can see it's wetter and -- as you can see it's wetter. It snapped

left. I have seen that quite a few times in the wet where people

actually end up in the barrier on the left side. That would increase

his heart rate a few beats per minute. It was off the Sauber. It

lost something. It was off the left side. Looked like the front of the

floor area or something. A strange message on the timing screen,

whether it's a warning about debris, I am not sure, a strange message

from race control. Felipe Massa continuing around. About eight 10ths

slower than his team tem-mate on that last tap -- team-mate on that

last lap. Rosberg had to settle for third last

time. Lewis Hamilton had the pace to be on pole position. His first run

in qualifying he ran wide at turn eight, the downhill adverse, that

took his time away. If he had just cruised around that corner he would

have had pole position. As it was, he made a mistake there and on the

next run and that was 9th. Perez having to lock the right front, ran

out of road. The way that Silverstone is designed is you have

a lot of these tarmac run-off areas before the gravel. In the old days,

thinking back to the 1970s, he only needed to run out of road slightly

and you were into all sorts of trouble. Here, he was able to get

away with it. I wasn't around in the 70s, I don't remember catch fencing!

It was gravel traps in my day. Now you have the get out of jail free

cards. From a safety point of view, you don't have cars

cards. From a safety point of view, over the place. Now the cars are

significantly faster in the corners than 25 years ago. Straight line

speeds haven't increased too much what the cornering has a significant

amount. -- but the cornering has. He is talking about the gear shift,

when he is changing up he feels a hit, there is a change in the

acceleration, it is not smooth. When you are changing up while the car is

laterally loaded, coming out of long corners, it was shifting up when it

was loaded. If it has a change in feel, it can create snap oversteer.

We have seen some wet races over the years. Lewis Hamilton's victory in

2008 was a wet race and he was incredibly impressive. He was chased

by Kimi Raikkonen for some of that race. I don't think Lewis Hamilton

will worry too much about the rain. Still a couple of seconds slower

than some of the others we have seen. Adrian Sutil was slow on his

last lap. I think the wettest Grand Prix at Silverstone was 1975. Some

seven leaders, a cloudburst on the 56th lap and cars going off

everywhere. There was an eight car pile-up at Club Corner and there

were only five cars at the finish. We don't want a repeat of that. That

was a win for Emerson Fittipaldi. We see the slow motion of Sutil, it was

the vertical plane of his barge board that came off.

The Saubers doing a few lap, perhaps they think the conditions are going

to be similar and they need to get their drivers dialled in more than

the others. They also have the situation that they are fighting to

get out of the first part of qualifying. So tyre allocation is

not a major factor because they will not get into Q3. If they can get

into Q2, it will be a bonus. They have had a tough time and I have

been under threat from the likes of Marussia on a couple of occasions.

Sauber probably have a bit in hand, as Max Chilton told us, but in these

conditions you have to look for every bit of margin. Sutil runs very

wide out of the last corner. He is promoted up to fifth place. If that

had been qualifying, you would have lost the time. All four over the

white line which would mean it would be taken away straight away. He

wouldn't have been able to keep the fifth position. You push the

boundaries in the last part of the free practice, you see what you can

get away with in case it is your one lap and you know what you can or

cannot do. The green section showing us how slippery it was. He went

beyond it to get some traction. He was very wide in the corner, he

missed apex completely. I am not sure if that was by design or if he

did not turn in early enough. Here is a view of his team-mate,

Gutierrez. That is what happens when you get on the kerb. The car just

snaps and they were fortunate they didn't have a big snap and turn a

hard left into the barrier. David Coulthard raised his eyes sat

alongside me. Everybody who has been in that situation, you know you are

starting to worry a bit. The chequered flag is out on this

session, it has come to an end. Sutil still putting in the laps. He

has improved on his first sector. Sauber have probably done more lap

than anybody, Toro Rosso as well. Kvyat has done 15 in this session. I

wonder if that will give them an opportunity, if the situations are

similar in qualifying. For Daniil Kvyat, less experience than most,

never driven a Formula One car at Silverstone, useful mileage for him.

Let's see this last corner. We'll Sutil changes technique? -- will

Sutil? He kept the two wheels on the circuit but it was a wider line, it

seems to work more for him. Slightly slower on that lap, half a second

slower than his previous lap. He was all four wheels off by about four

metres on the previous laps so carried probably ten, it is per hour

quicker through the corner. -- ten kilometres per hour through the

corner. Vettel, for the first time, I think, in 2014, he has headed a

session. I don't think he has been fastest in any single session. It

doesn't mean much because it has been a wet session, a lot of cars

haven't even bothered to do a lap including Rosberg and Hamilton, the

two favourites. It is nice for Vettel that he has topped the times

at last. Better than Ricciardo being quicker than him. But it doesn't

really mean anything. A lot of this is just getting a feel for what the

circuit is like, what the tyres are like. Something that stood out for

me is that the intermediate or the full wet didn't seem to have a lot

of grip and the circuit is slippery and greasy and not giving feedback

to the drivers. We are still 18 seconds away from a dry weather

time, indicating how slippery it was. The Lotus cars of Maldonado and

Grosjean did well, bearing in mind they lapped pretty quickly. Not far

off the Red Bull pace. Maldonado a bit quicker than Grosjean. Sutil

with a lap towards the end but it would have been a lap he would have

lost because he was all four wheels over. Kvyat did more lap than

anybody else. Bianchi went off in the Marussia,

they have got to get the car back, didn't look like there was too much

damage. Chilton had a gearbox problem, Alonso did not complete a

lap, nor Nico Rosberg or Lewis Hamilton. A shame for the local fans

that they didn't get a chance to see more of Lewis Hamilton in action,

but they will when it comes to qualifying. Looking back at some of

the build-up towards that session, this was before the rain came down.

Lewis Hamilton was getting ready and there were plenty of smiles in the

Mercedes pit garage. Nico Rosberg thought he would be out more than he

was. Jenson Button with his crash helmet, very distinctive, that is

what he is using this weekend. Nico Hulkenberg also getting ready. The

Red Bulls have ended up on top in this session. Let's get down to the

pits and get some reaction from the Williams team. Good old English

summer letting us down again. Yeah, really difficult this morning. The

amount of rainfall was just about equal to the amount of water that

the cars were clearing off the track. Lap times were sitting 117%

of the dry time which is right on the point where you switch from a

full wet tyre to an intermediate. It was really difficult to be able to

learn anything. We did a couple of laps to check tyre pressures and

break warming devices -- brake warming devices. Make sure the

engine is giving what we want. Probably confuse ourselves a little

bit. Continuing the rain and allergy, it was raining bad luck on

you yesterday. A big shout to the mechanics had a very busy day. They

did, they really performed well. There was a lot of damage on

Felipe's cap and to get it out was a real credit. -- Felipe's car. How

will the lack of running help you? I guess today, everyone is in the same

boat, none of us have learned what we would like to learn on a Saturday

morning, it is our final fine tuning for qualifying. Yesterday we lost

most of our time in P1 which really doesn't affect us quite so much. It

puts us a big back on the development for future races -- a

bit back. We did get tyre work done in P2 and that is the important

thing. Good luck this afternoon. Allan McNish has hotfooted it from

the commentary box. Not the most exciting of sessions but the first

time Sebastian Vettel has topped a time sheet. A lot of people in a lot

of trouble, Romain Grosjean gave the crowd something to cheer about at

least. He came into the last corner, it is very greasy, and adverse

camber. As soon as he got one wheel on the kerb and one on the green it

snapped sideways. He pulled the clutch and he was already going down

the gears as soon as he was heading to the pit wall. No harm in reality

but it was very close to tagging the pit wall with the right front of his

wing. We are relieved he did not because there is not a lot of time

between now and qualifying. You can see that it snapped and at this

moment in time he has a ready gone from third to second and then into

first. -- already gone. A lot of rain on the camera lens there.

Hamilton runs wide, he is able to use his run-off area, comes back

onto the circuit and go straight into the pit lane. Not a good day

for Marussia, Jules Bianchi getting locked up and hitting the wall, Max

Chilton with a gearbox problem. It will probably just be a front wing

but they have to take the floor off and make sure the gravel hasn't gone

anywhere else. Before qualifying that is the last thing you need.

Sebastian Vettel topped the timesheets but he also went off a

bit. No damage done. On the intermediate tyre, he lost the rear

and aborted the corner very early. He decided it was better and safer

to go straight across the grass and try to save something and go into

the gravel or the tyre wall. -- than try to save something. Any clues

about who will be quicker? Not at all. The weather will determine a

tremendous amount. The Red Bulls were fast, they will be in the mix,

I would expect Mercedes to be fast as well because Rosberg was

blindingly quick in his first sector and they will always be quick.

Tricky conditions, there will be a lot of mistakes if it is like this

in qualifying. Last year Lewis Hamilton was five tenths of a

second, as he told me. You have about 45 minutes to do what you

want. We are back at 11:55am on BBC Two. We have plenty to entertain you

with. Goodbye for now.