Webber fastest in FP1.
Mark Webber kep෴t Red Bull Racing at the head of the timesheets as the Ger💛man Grand Prix opened for free practice under moody skies at the Nurburgring.
On his team-mate's home turf, the Australian set the early benchmark at 1min 33.082secs, leadin🦩g the field by nearly four-tenths of a second, as the rain held off long enough for all drivers to get as much running as possible. The 90-minute session had been preceded by showers, and featured the odd sprinkling of rain, but remained dry f💃or the duration.
Mark 🦹Webber kept Red Bull Racing at the head of the timesheets as the German Grand Prix opened for free practice under moody skies at the Nurburgring.
On his team-mate's home turf, the Australian set the early benchmark at 1min 33.082secs, leading the field by nearly four-tenths of a second, as the rain held off long enough fꦗor all drivers to get as much running as possible. The 90-minute session had been preceded by showers, and featured the odd sprinkling of rain, but remained dry for the d🃏uration.
Webber's closes🎐t opposition came from Brawn GP's Jenson Button, the championship leader hoping that the team's early summer endeavours pay 🥀off by getting him closer to the Silverstone pacesetters as he looks to preserve a 23-point advantage over team-mate Rubens Barrichello, with an extra couple in hand over Vettel, who carries the momentum of a crushing victory in the Briton's backyard three weeks ago.
The top five pꩵlaces on the timesheets featured as many✤ different teams, with Ferrari's Felipe Massa, Toyota's Jarno Trulli and, most surprisingly of all, Force India's Giancarlo Fisichella all tightly packed, narrowly ahead of the Brazilian's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen. Germans Nico Rosberg and Vettel, and the former's Williams team-mate Kazuki Nakajima rounded out the top nine, just over a tenth shy over Massa and all within a second of Webber's ultimate pace, despite Vettel - the third German with a new helmet design this weekend - losing time to gremlins. Fernando Alonso was tenth.
While Button and Fisichella both enjoyed runs at the sharp end of the field, respective team-mates Barrichello and Adrian Sutil toiled. Th༒e Brazilian laguished at the foot of the list for some time as his BGP001 was attended to in the pits, before rebounding to a semi-respectable twelfth, while Sutil's Force India ground to a halt on the circuit, limiting the German to just six laps and 20th spot overall.
Fellow German Timo Glock was also a📖 lot lower than expected, taking 19th position despite covering 23 laps of his lဣocal circuit. The Toyota driver was a hundredth slower than 18-th placed Heikki Kovalainen, whose McLaren colleague Lewis Hamilton was 13th.
