» 2013 British GP: Ricciardo fastest in rain-hit opening practice session

Daniel Ricciardo has set the pace – if you dare to call it that – in a rain-affected opening practice session for this weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

In typically British ‘summer’ conditions, the Australian navigated his Toro Rosso around the former airfield circuit with a fastest time of 1:54.249, set in the closing minutes of play, while half the field didn’t even attempt to post a lap-time.

With official tyre supplier Pirelli bringing a prototype version of its Hard compound tyres for the teams to try out on Friday, Murphy’s Law struck once again when the heavens opened on Friday morning, lashing the venue with a sequence of rain showers.

Conditions remained too wet for any dry-tyre running, consigning the field to the odd exploratory lap on the Wet compound Pirellis.

Indeed, it wasn’t until the final fifteen minutes of the ninety-minute session that the timing screens clocked a completed lap, with Ricciardo setting the benchmark of 2:00.029, steadily lowering that effort over the remainder of his run.

His time at the top was briefly interrupted by Lewis Hamilton, but the Englishman was overhauled in the dying minutes by Sauber’s Nico Hülkenberg and Williams’ Pastor Maldonado, before Ricciardo took to the top one last time.

Behind the leading quartet came Esteban Gutiérrez in the second Sauber. The Mexican was lucky to avoid a sizeable accident on his final run, courtesy of a wild moment at Copse.

Valtteri Bottas was sixth-quickest in the second Williams, while Jean-Éric Vergne and Giedo van der Garde followed, with Max Chilton, Jules Bianchi and Felipe Massa being the final runners to record lap times.

The only major incident of note came in the final minutes of the session, with Charles Pic losing control of his Caterham on the approach to the final corner, knocking off his front wing against the barriers.

Friday afternoon’s second free practice session kicks off at 2:00pm local time.

2013 British Formula 1 Grand Prix – Free Practice 1 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR8	1:54.249		10
2.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber Ferrari C32	1:55.033	+ 0.784	7
3.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault FW35	1:55.354	+ 1.105	7
4.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W04	1:55.458	+ 1.209	5
5.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber Ferrari C32	1:55.825	+ 1.576	9
6.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Renault FW35	1:56.361	+ 2.112	7
7.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR8	1:57.891	+ 3.642	4
8.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham Renault CT03	1:58.859	+ 4.610	6
9.	Max Chilton	Marussia Cosworth MR02	1:59.719	+ 5.470	7
10.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia Cosworth MR02	1:59.876	+ 5.627	8
11.	Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari F138	2:06.534	+ 12.285	6
12.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W04	no time		3
13.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM06	no time		4
14.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Renault E21	no time		1
15.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-28	no time		1
16.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes VJM06	no time		4
17.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F138	no time		4
18.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault RB9	no time		1
19.	Sergio Pérez	McLaren Mercedes MP4-28	no time		1
20.	Charles Pic	Caterham Renault CT03	no time		3
21.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault RB9	no time		4
22.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus F1 Renault E21	no time		0