Hamilton leads way but times mean little in soaked conditions

Lewis Hamilton mastered Silverstone’s treacherous conditions to fire up hopes of another wet-weather British Grand Prix triumph akin to 2008.

Throughout the course of the two 90-minute practice sessions the rain was unrelenting, and for a lengthy period at the start of the afternoon run the drivers took shelter in their garages.

At least the fans were eventually treated to some action, as opposed to many other tracks around the world when rain falls which has resulted in the teams opting not to run knowing drier weather is on the way.

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But with more rain forecast across the weekend as Britain’s sorry summer evolves into the wettest on record, there was a case to at least get laps under their belts and gather data.

With puddles to negotiate on the Northamptonshire circuit, there were obvious dangers, with Bruno Senna and Fernando Alonso among those caught out.

Both hit standing water, leaving them helpless in uncontrollable cars, and with Senna the major casualty as he ploughed into a wall in his Williams with 30 minutes remaining, bringing out the red flag for a 10-minute hiatus.

As for championship leader Alonso, the Spaniard could do nothing as he slid off the track and on to the grass, his brakes of no use on such a wet surface, leading to him hitting a barrier and losing his front wing.

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At the top of the timesheet it was Hamilton who led the way in his McLaren, but with times relatively meaningless given the conditions, even for a Friday.

The 27-year-old, who won by 68.5 seconds four years ago for arguably the greatest victory of his Formula 1 career, posted a time of one minute 56.345secs.

Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi, who completed the most laps early on with 19, also posted an afternoon-high of 16, with his best 0.129secs within Hamilton.

Seven-time champion Michael Schumacher, renowned for his skills in the rain over the years, was exactly two tenths of a second behind Hamilton, while team-mate Nico Rosberg was 0.222secs off the pace.

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Sauber’s Sergio Perez was the best of the rest, but almost a further second down, followed by Jenson Button in his McLaren, the 32-year-old 1.603secs behind his team-mate.

The remainder were over two seconds off, led by Heikki Kovalainen in his Caterham and Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen.

As for Alonso, he was 10th, with Force India’s Paul di Resta 11th, but three seconds adrift, with reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel narrowly behind in 13th, while Senna was 17th.

Lotus’s Romain Grosjean and Daniel Ricciardo in his Toro Rosso, one and two in the first session, opted not to set a time in FP2, along with Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Pedro de la Rosa for HRT.

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Silverstone officials have described yesterday’s traffic chaos as “a nightmare” as haunting memories of the 2000 British Grand Prix mudbath came flooding back.

Thousands of fans were left stranded in traffic jams outside the Northamptonshire circuit as the two practice sessions unfolded under constant rain and leaden skies.

In fairness, no fault can be directly attributed to Silverstone. Instead a combination of horrendous weather in recent weeks and record crowds in and around the track have played their part.

With camping grounds sodden, some unofficially-run sites were forced to turn people away, creating a backlog.

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It is a similar situation with Woodlands, Silverstone’s own site, which is full to capacity this year with 16,000 people.

Additionally, there have been many attempting to get in without having booked, turning up on spec as in the past.

Another issue is that given the nature of the ground, rather than campers driving in under normal conditions, they are having to be towed in by tractors one at time to ensure they do not get stuck.

At 1.30pm, following a visit to Silverstone’s traffic management centre, there was still a tailback of five miles along the main A43 that runs past Silverstone, and by that stage the situation had eased slightly.

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For those with long-enough memories, the scenes recalled those of 12 years ago when fans were pictured pushing their cars out of muddy fields as the April race was deluged with rain.

Offering an honest approach to the dismal scenario, Silverstone’s director of communications Katie Tyler said: “It’s a nightmare.

“What’s so frustrating is we’d almost got over the hangover of 2000, but it seems we’re about to go through it again, certainly with (yesterday) happening.”

After what happened in 2000, Silverstone was forced into drastic action, resulting in the creation of a bypass and the majority of the fields turned into hardstanding car parks.

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But even Tyler concedes the best laid plans cannot accommodate when a British summer becomes soaked with rain.

“For 10 years it’s worked,” added Tyler. “This is the first year we’ve had such bad problems, which is largely down to all the fields giving out.

“We try to plan for every scenario, but at the end of the day we are surrounded by fields and the cost of Tarmacing the whole site is not feasible.

“A lot of the fields are historical and ancient ground which you can’t Tarmac.”

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Fearful of a backlash, Tyler said: “We know we’ve got a problem, we know it’s serious.

“We’ve the best people on the job, and we’re doing all we can, with people discussing what we do (last night and today).”