webber fastest in wet 1st practice

Mark Webber set the practice pace for Red Bull as the British Grand Prix weekend got off to a damp start at Silverstone.

The Australian, who won here last year, beat Michael Schumacher's Mercedes with Rubens Barrichello's Williams third.

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton was eighth with team-mate Jenson Button 15th and Paul di Resta 11th for Force India.

The wet conditions caught out Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi but he was unhurt as he crashed coming out of the final corner.

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel - who leads the championship by 77 points - was 13th but the wet weather means little can be read into the times.

The British fans shrugged off a grey and rainy start to the ninth round of the season in Northamptonshire and turned out to fill the grandstands and stand trackside.

The damp weather and track temperatures of just 14C were frustrating for teams eager to find out how their performance will be affected by a new directive from the sport's governing body, the FIA.

A ban on off-throttle blowing of diffusers - where exhaust gases are blown over the rear floor of the car to increase downforce - comes into play for the first time this weekend at Silverstone.

And with Red Bull dominating both championships, their rivals McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes are desperate to find out if the new rule will help them close the gap.

Alonso had said: "Everyone will suffer but we have no idea which team will be affected more or less."

BBC's online F1 editor Andrew Benson explained: "F1's latest rule amendment is causing a bit of a kerfuffle this weekend.

"All engines behave differently and it has become apparent that it is not as easy as you might think to ensure that there is a level playing field.

"Red Bull and their supplier Renault have pointed to a characteristic of the Mercedes engine that the Renault does not have, and which they think gives the teams with the German engine an advantage."

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner told BBC Sport: "This is a very, very complicated issue. What is most important is there is equality of treatment across engine suppliers.

"We'll be affected, for sure. This has only come about because of complaints from other teams but it's one of those things you have to deal with when you're running at the front."

The mid-season rule change has forced the teams to evaluate new ways to regain the downforce during first practice.

Red Bull daubed bright green 'flo-viz' paint over the rear of their car to assess the air flow.

McLaren ran a new rear wing and even sent Hamilton out on a set of soft tyres when the rest of the field were out kicking up the spray on intermediate tyres to gather data for a "dry" set-up.

"This is really, really skilful stuff," commented BBC 5 live analyst Anthony Davidson. "It's like driving down pure ice on a slippery slope."

Ferrari ran Alonso and Felipe Massa on different programmes on Friday as they tested various aerodynamic updates with Alonso trying out a new rear wing. Massa finished fifth overall with Alonso, who had led much of Friday's session, seventh.

Jaime Alguersuari followed up a strong performance for Toro Rosso in Canada and Valencia with the 10th fastest time at Silverstone.

It was also an encouraging morning for Australian Daniel Ricciardo, who spent his first session as a Hispania race driver after being loaned out by Toro Rosso for the rest of the season.

The Australian finished just 0.034secs shy of team-mate Tonio Liuzzi's best time in his first run in the car.

But Kobayashi's session came to less satisfactory end when the Japanese driver lost control of his Sauber coming out of the final Club corner and slammed his car into the tyre barriers.

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula_one/14076596.stm

also cos it doesn't mention it alonso span at stow and the fia are looking at where kamui crashed cos for a second it really looked like it was going to roll