Welcome (or welcome back) to live coverage of Friday practice from Silverstone. FP2 is coming up in just under half an hour, and it's still wet. Very wet.

The rain continues to fall, although conditions aren't as bad as they were for FP1 according to Laurence in the paddock. GP2 practice was eventful - three red flags due to cars spinning and stalling - but we hope for a smoother session this afternoon

The weather, coupled with a crowd of 80,000 people means that many are still stuck outside the circuit. Traffic is a huge problem, but Silverstone said that it is braced for the issues

For those who want a visual idea of the conditions in FP1, here you go:

© Sutton Images

OK, so he's on the grass, but it gives you an idea of the conditions for spectators around the circuit and the on-track spray was even worse than this splash.

It was Romain Grosjean who was quickest in the wet this morning but no-one could challenge his time the longer the session went on as the rain got heavier. Hopefully we'll see some intermediate tyre running as teams only get three sets of full wets for the weekend and won't want to use them up.

We always appreciate you comments and questions during these sessions, so if you want to get in touch during FP2 you can do so either by using the link above to email us, or you can tweet us @ESPNF1

We're back to the full compliment of race drivers for the second session. Nico Hulkenberg is back in the Force India, Bruno Senna returns to his Williams and Narain Karthikeyan takes over his HRT from Dani Clos

The track and air temperature has not changed since the first session, 17C for both. And the FIA's wet/dry graph has stayed well and truly on wet!

If you want to catch up on what happened in FP1 you can read our report here. It won't take you all that long.

Still plenty of standing water all around the track. Force India only covered four laps in total during FP1 so I think that's one team we will see. I'm not sure who else will rejoin in a hurry after the installation laps though

The session has begun, and there's still no hint of an engine...

Alonso's in his car, although the tyres are yet to go on

I can hear an engine. Brace yourselves...

It's not going to be Petrov, though, as his engineer tells him they aren't going out straight away in case the rain eases a bit. But they do want to run

Here we are... Timo Glock heads out on track

At Toro Rosso Ricciardo is watching onboard footage from FP1

Alonso heads out on track too

And Kimi joins them

Nice touch from Hamilton - he's currently sticking orange stars on to his helmet in the McLaren garage. They're Maria de Villota's logo. He joins the two HRT drivers with them on his helmet, while the starts are also on the wing mirrors of the Marussia cars

Alonso pits after a bit of oversteer out of Chapel. Senna is out there for the first time today, while Glock has started a second lap

Raikkonen continues on to a second lap as well

Glock's first lap time is a 2:11.964

Daniele asks: "In case we will have a full wet race, do you think that it's possible to make all the race without changing tyres?"

Just about - the rear tyres will last (Pirelli's Paul Hembery tweeted a picture of Kobayashi's rears which had done 19 laps and were still new) but the fronts may wear a bit. It would be one stop at the most unless the track started to dry

Senna is told "If it's too wet, abort. Kimi's come in". He continues though, so clearly happy enough with the conditions

And Senna goes fastest with a 2:10.215, while Glock has now done a 2:10.700

Both drivers are running close together and slowly. Senna with a big slide in the Arena section and he radios in to say there's too many puddles so he's coming in this lap

We're running 14 seconds slower than this morning. Both Glock and Senna pit so the track is empty for now

Remember Hamilton's victory in 2008? Well, Senna won that day as well in GP2, so he's handy around here in the wet

Ted emails in to ask: "Is it true they only get 3 sets of rain tires for the whole weekend?"

It is Ted, but that's three sets of the full wet tyre. They also get four sets of the intermediate tyre, which can operate in slightly less wet conditions almost through to a fully dry track

Glock rejoined after a launch out of the pit lane, but he's back in now

Siddhesh asks: "Given whatever little has been seen of the cars, what updates have the big teams in Mclaren, Ferrari, Lotus and Mercedes brought to rival the update we saw from Red Bull at Valencia?"

McLaren has a large upgrade - which is likely to feature new exhausts, floor, and front and rear wings (though we haven't had that confirmed) - which it hopes will close the gap. As for the others, they will all have parts but I've only seen a new front wing at Lotus. The teams will be hoping that they can get enough data from today to work out if their new parts are delivering the performance they expected

Still just 11 laps completed in total by four cars

Navlig emails in to ask: "I'm from Brazil and have a question: Valsecchi and Razia have chances F1 in 2013?"

Valsecchi and Razia are first and second in the GP2 championship - which won't have gone unnoticed - but it's still early in the season. If they maintain their current form then some of the midfield teams will take notice, but as is the way with modern F1 they are likely to need to bring some sponsorship with them to secure a seat

The rain continues to fall and the track remains empty. Vergne and Ricciardo are chatting on the Toro Rosso pit wall

Mehul asks: "What happens if the conditions remain the same over the weekend? Will we have a race or will it be abandoned?"

There's no trouble with the circuit itself - although the amount of rain we're currently seeing would cause a red flag in a race - but the main issues are surrounding entry and exit for traffic. There will be no abandonment, but the new four-hour limit after the lights go out could come in to force

This is riveting stuff, we're seeing a lot of shots of fans walking in mud. As a Brit I can only apologise for our weather. Please don't hold it against me.

Maldonado wants to go out on track - he's in his car with his helmet on. Massa and Hamilton are at the back of their garages relaxing, so less eager to do some running

And right on cue Rahulan has a good idea: "Going by the current conditions, I guess we can have another column in the driver position table: Driver Inside the car/Outside the car"

Craig asks: "If it is this wet on Sunday won't they just run a few laps behind safety car until they red flag it. And is it true that in the past they raced in worse conditions than they do now, is it because of modern aero or tyres what makes it more difficult or is just increased safety?"

If it's like this on Sunday then yes that is likely to happen - it could even be a delayed start before a safety car start. In a sense they did race in worse conditions, but the attitude now is to pre-empt a serious incident rather than react to one

Oooh, I've just seen a shot of a puddle on the track and the rain falling in it is quite light...

Hamilton has at least walked down the pit lane to give the crowd something to look at. He's actually looking at what other teams are doing, checking out the front of the Lotus and their pit stop lights

Carlos asks: "Will be the second free practice session stopped for heavily rain reason?"

Unfortunately not, there's a schedule of session that must be adhered to, so the clock will just keep running

Hamilton has just told Sky Sports that he wants to be out on track but he doesn't have enough tyres, and as a result the main thing to focus on is saving the tyres for the race rather than just entertaining the fans

HRT on Twitter: "It stopped raining but there's still a lot of water on the track and no one seems to like the idea of going out"

It's ironic, because the tarmac car parks are completely full, yet we have 3.666 miles worth going unused right now...

One change from earlier, the air temperature has dropped to 16C. Big news.

Vettel's father is in the paddock joking with a Red Bull employee. He heads for the garage - go and tell your son to do some driving!

Vettel appears to have found Webber's face on his car. It's in the cockpit looking right at him from the left hand side. Must be a bit off-putting

Rakesh asks: "What if there is very heavy rain on Saturday? Will qualifying still take place? If qualifying is cancelled, what will be the order for the race day? Same as car numbers or the current standings?"

If qualifying needs to be cancelled it will take place on Sunday morning - as happened in Japan in 2009

Mike says: "They should have some jet blowers on stand-by to remove the standing water from the track as they do in NASCAR in America"

Unfortunately that only really works on the ovals, where it's easier to drain the water off the track. In better news, though, we haven't had rain for a few minutes and it looks a bit brighter...

Marc says: "They should just let the fans go on track with their cars to dry up the track!"

Great idea. But I fear we'd have A LOT of accidents if they did that. Plus a lot of the cars are stuck in fields right now!

Rejoice! There's a car on the track! Kobayashi has gone out again. He was our hero from FP1 and now he's at it again in this session

Still full wet tyres needed as there's a lot of standing water. Pic has joined him out there too

Right, let's do this properly...

Kobayashi sets the fastest first sector...

And the fastest second sector

This is going to be a quick one...

A twitch in the final corner...but KOBAYASHI GOES FASTEST!

How was that?

It was a 2:04.198 from Kobayashi. He's also started a trend as Alonso, Perez and Massa have since joined him and Pic on track

Alonso is on intermediate tyres. This will help him work out when the track becomes good enough for inters and also means he saves his full wets

Alonso and Massa run through the pit lane for practice starts. Massa is on the full wets so it's good data for Ferrari to compare

Perez is on a quick one. Well, relatively speaking

And Perez does a 2:00.395 to go fastest. Kobayashi is flying though...

And Kobayashi dips under the two minute mark with a 1:59.405. We're getting closer to this morning's times

Bjorn said the coverage of Kobayashi's lap was "hilarious". Glad we could find some way of entertaining you.

Perez now quickest on a 1:59.089

It's a Sauber battle at present, Kobayashi then beats it with a 1:58.894. He's now just over two seconds off the quickest time from this morning

Solomon asks: "Why can't they just issue extra sets of tires given that this 'wet' situation is unique. Isn't entertaining the crowd an important factor as well in F1?"

It will depend on how many tyres Pirelli has brought with it - if they manufactured backups then that's a lot more wastage if the weekend is dry. Bit of a catch 22, but Formula One does tend to learn eventually and we may see the regulation changed in future

Button and Vettel out on track, while Perez - who had set the fastest first sector - runs off the track at Brooklands

Hulkenberg goes wide at Stowe

Senna has gone off and damaged the car quite heavily

Senna aquaplaned out of Chapel on to the Hangar Straight. It's one of the fastest parts of the circuit and he's then bounced across the grass and hit the tyres hard. The whole left hand side is damaged, with the rear wing off the car too

You have to feel for Senna - he misses out on FP1 regularly so Bottas can drive but then it means he has to play catch up. He actually caught the car as the rear snapped away on the water, but then that pitched it sideways across the grass and then he's a passenger

This is why we see little running. It's just a slight mistake as the wheels spin in the wet conditions

While we're under the red flag the clock keeps running, so there's 26 minutes left in this session and counting

Senna's car is now off the circuit. Fortunately the tractor to crane it away can deal with the wet grass and mud easily

That crash may just cause a few teams to air on the side of caution though and stay in the garages

Frank Williams wheels himself out the back of the Williams garage. If nothing else that crash has just cost a lot of money.

We're green again and Kobayashi is once more the first man out. The track is drying a touch and Kamui is making himself an honorary Brit for the weekend.

Watching Kobayashi getting power oversteer in the wet actually looks to me like he's really enjoying this. Almost as if he prefers sliding the car through the corners in the wet than normal dry running

A busier track again with both McLarens, Mercedes, Toro Rossos, Alonso and di Resta out there too

Kobayashi goes quicker still with a 1:57.613. I actually think he'll go quicker than Grosjean did this morning

Alonso is actually on the intermediates again, and he's four seconds down through the first two sectors

Rosberg goes second on a 1:58.237

Alonso does a 2:03.380, so the 5.7s off the pace

Hamilton needs over 180 degrees of opposite lock through Vale, but he continues adjusting something on the steering wheel as he does so

Kobayashi is still running on the same set of tyres he used this morning - 29 laps for them now as Sauber learns about its new upgrades

Schumacher runs wide at turn three. He's now within 0.6s of Kobayashi

Hamilton goes fastest with a 1:56.345 - the fastest time we've seen today

Kobayashi then a tenth off, so he's beaten Grosjean's time from earlier too

Vettel on track and fairly committed through Maggotts and Becketts...

Vettel backed off in the final sector

Kovalainen the latest to go wide at turn three

A timing error says Maldonado just did a 20 minute lap - a 20:20.624! It was more a 2:10

Rosberg now third, just 0.222s slower than Hamilton

Maldonado pushing on despite Senna's crash. The spray is an issue but conditions are improving

Hamilton with the fastest first sector, but he's stuck behind an HRT now. On-board the visibility isn't as bad as earlier when following another car

An email without a name says: "You guys are doing a great job.KEEP IT UP!!!"

Thanks, the conditions are tough but we're braving them the best we can. (OK, we're warm and dry)

You know a wet weekend is expected when Raikkonen is out setting competitive lap times during a wet practice session. He goes seventh, 2.5s off the pace

Navlig asks about Webber's lack of running. He's just left the garage for the first time, but he's on intermediates so was saving tyres

Alonso is getting quicker on the intermediates. He's just 3.2s off the pace now as he dips under the two minute mark

Vettel is also on inters now, and he's cut Glock up in to Vale. He might get a word from the stewards for that. He holds Glock up all the way to turn three

Now Button is stuck right behind Vettel - the inters still a bit slow. Massa going very slowly too, and it looks like he went off the track

Button is so close behind Vettel through Maggotts and Becketts that you sense he's a little annoyed

Button, Vettel and Massa all pit. Alonso still out there on mediums, but Webber only did one lap

Raikkonen on inters and he hits a puddle of water that forces him wide at Brooklands

Massa has an identical moment to Raikkonen - too much standing water for the inters to clear

Grosjean has done one lap all afternoon and is not in his car. Ricciardo and Webber also haven't set times, while de la Rosa hasn't been out at all

Alonso goes wide at Abbey on the inters, while Perez has been across the grass at Woodcote

The session has ended, but Kobayashi is going quickly...

Perez spun exiting Luffield and took to the grass on the inside of Woodcote

Alonso is missing a front wing I believe...

And I'm right. He's spun exiting Stowe and wiped the front wing off the car. He slide for a while on the inters and then bounced off the tyres, but it wasn't all that dramatic. It stopped Kobayashi from improving though

So Hamilton ends the session on top from Kobayashi and Schumacher. Rosberg, Perez and Button ensure it's only three teams in the top six, while Kovalainen is seventh for Caterham

Everyone set their best times on the full wets except for Alonso, who was tenth on the intermediate tyres - 2.6s slower than Hamilton

At least we saw some running and some action after that lull. No prizes for guessing who completed the most laps - Kamui Kobayashi take a bow

Will we get some dry running during FP3? Probably not, but any data gathering will be important. Make sure you return to our live coverage for that, but for now stick with ESPNF1 for all the reaction as Laurence goes news hunting in the paddock. Thanks for all your comments and questions which helped the session fly by despite the lack of running. Bye for now.