• British Grand Prix - FP2

Rosberg heads Webber in dry FP2

Nico Rosberg showed Mercedes retains its one-lap pace advantage at Silverstone © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• British Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Nico Rosberg
• |
• Sebastian Vettel
• |
• Mark Webber

• Teams:
• Mercedes
• |
• Red Bull

Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of a dry second practice session for the British Grand Prix, beating Mark Webber's Red Bull by 0.3s.

Sebastian Vettel was third quickest at the end of a busy session as teams tried to make up time following the lack of running in FP1. The British fans will have been encouraged to have seen Paul di Resta fourth quickest ahead of Lewis Hamilton, while there were timely performances from both Toro Rosso drivers with Daniel Ricciardo sixth and Jean-Eric Vergne seventh.

Track conditions were much better than this morning's washout, but Felipe Massa was still a casualty of the session as he lost control at Stowe Corner and wiped the front end of his car off against the wall, with the Ferrari coming to a stop at the pit lane entrance. It was the third consecutive race weekend in which Massa has had an accident and restricted him to just seven laps of running.

Massa's team-mate Fernando Alonso got through 32 laps but was only 10th quickest. However, the Ferrari was much more competitive in race trim, with the Red Bull equally strong on the long runs. Mercedes seemed to look after its tyres reasonably well over longer stints but couldn't quite match the pace of Red Bull.

Interest at Lotus surround the testing of the team's drag reduction device (DRD) on Kimi Raikkonen's car, with Raikkonen not showing his hand on low fuel but setting quick times late in the session on hard tyres. The team is expected to race the device for the first time this weekend after being pleased with the progress made during an aerodynamic test at Idiada. Romain Grosjean - ninth quickest - was not without upgrades either as he ran updated bodywork on the E21.

Another team running at Idiada this week was McLaren, but neither of its drivers troubled the top ten with Jenson Button 11th and Sergio Perez just behind Raikkonen in 14th place. McLaren still appeared to be struggling with the ride of its car over the bumps as it ended the session 1.5s off the pace.

Chris Medland is assistant editor at ESPNF1

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