• British Grand Prix - FP2

Hamilton quickest in wet second practice

ESPN Staff
July 6, 2012
Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time after only completing eight laps © Press Association
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Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the second free practice session at Silverstone as heavy rain and accidents punctured the afternoon.

After the wet morning session, teams were reluctant to head out early on as a heavy shower was predicted in the first 20 minutes. Fortunately conditions improves as FP2 went on and Hamilton eventually set a 1:56.345 to post the fastest time of the day. He was just 0.129s quicker than the productive Kamui Kobayashi who completed 16 laps as Sauber analysed updates, with Michael Schumacher third fastest - 0.2s slower than Hamilton.

Once again, times were hard to read in to due to the conditions, but it was not a good session for Bruno Senna who cause a red flag period after an hour of the session. With the rain having eased, Senna was caught out by a puddle exiting Chapel. As he tried to get the power down on to the Hangar Straight the car snapped away from him, and after catching the initial spin he slid across the grass and in to the tyres, heavily damaging the left hand side of the car.

Senna was not alone in being caught out by standing water, however, with Fernando Alonso also going off right at the end of the session. Alonso was running on intermediate tyres in order to save his full wets, and exiting Stowe after the chequered flag had fallen he lost the rear, knocking the front wing off the car against the tyres at relatively low speed.

There was also a spin for Sergio Perez - who finished the session fifth fastest behind Nico Rosberg - while a number of drivers ran wide as they pushed trying to analyse updates during the session. Kobayashi completed 35 laps throughout the day on the same set of tyres to get Sauber data, but all of the teams will be limited in what they can learn from today's running.

Jenson Button was sixth quickest to make it three teams in the top six, with Heikki Kovalainen seventh in the updated Caterham ahead of Kimi Raikkonen.

Having been quickest in FP1, Romain Grosjean only completed an installation lap in the second session, and Mark Webber did similar. Pedro de la Rosa and Daniel Ricciardo also failed to set times.

Fernando Alonso returns to the pits without his front wing © Sutton Images
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