Wet start to 6 Hours of Silverstone

TOYOTA Racing TS030 HYBRID at Silverstone

Friday at Silverstone started off quite wet with persistent rain falling and chilly conditions. Free Practice 1, first session of the season opening 6 Hours of Silverstone, kicked off with air and track temperature in single figures, around 8°C. Read more for our complete Friday report and photo gallery.

Free Practice 1

An evening downpour on Thursday night continued today, leaving the circuit in quite wet conditions. Our first drivers out on track during Free Practice 1 were Alex Wurz in the #7 car and Stéphane Sarrazin in the #8 car.

Wets and intermediates were tyres of choice in the field with lap times of low 2 minutes as the benchmark. As cars pounded around Silverstone, the track began to dry a little. Alex threw caution in the wind with a 1:59.950 holding onto P1.

Cars #7 and #8 on track

After an hour of FP1, we were in P1 with #7 and P5 with #8. Nicolas Lapierre and Sébastien Buemi, cars #7 and #8 respectively, took over the helm and headed out onto the still wet circuit.

With 30 min left of the session, #7 car was down to P2 while the #8 car moved up to P4. Sébastien then went on to set the #8 car’s session best 1:56.650 in P3 before stepping out and handing over to Anthony Davidson.

We ended Free Practice 1 in P3 with car #7 (1:56.549) and P4 with car #8 (1:56.650) after both completing 33 laps.

Free Practice 2

It was really quite wet

The dreaded rain came back just before Free Practice 2. As we occupy the last two garages in the pit lane, both our cars lead the way our following each other with Nicolas in #7 and Sébastien in #8.

Nicolas in the hot seat

Nicolas set the first time of the session with a 2:00.862 before being the first to head below 2 minutes with a 1:58.670. First time for Anthony in #8 came in at 1:58.052 before shaving nearly 3 seconds off to go P1.

The sun finally broke through some heavy clouds as Anthony left the pits after a short stop for both cars. Times dropped below 1:50 with #8 in P3 and #7 in P4.

With the first half hour completed, we were Nicolas in #7 was P3 and Anthony in #8 P6. On lap 14, Anthony moved up to P5 with 1:45.520. During the next pit stop, Anthony handed the #8 car over to Sébastien and Nicolas handed over to Alex in the #7 car. Changing weather conditions struck again as drops of rain started falling in the pits as Alex headed back out.

After one hour in Free Practice 2, our #7 car was in P3 with 1:43.843 set on lap 13 while #8 stayed P6. 20 minutes more track time and, as the rain started to pour down again, both cars came in to complete the session and a last round of pit stop practice. The two cars completed 29 and 27 laps for #7 and #8 cars respectively.

Impressive Silverstone Wing

Here’s what our drivers thought about today’s sessions:

“The changeable conditions were not ideal but it’s the same for everyone. Still, it was an interesting day and we were able to go through some tests. Now we have to wait and see, particularly in terms of the weather; the forecast is a little bit better for the remainder of the weekend. The main focus now will be on the few laps we could complete in the dry. We will analyse the data we gained and try to optimise the package.”
– Alex

“It’s nice to be back in a competitive session with TOYOTA Racing. It’s a pity the weather wasn’t really kind, but that’s the same for all teams. The tyres were behaving very well in the wet and it felt like we have a very good car. Also with the intermediate tyres we had a nice balance and we could push quite hard, so the lap times were looking strong. We will study the set-up now and make the most of our car for the rest of the weekend.”
– Stéphane

New for 2013: Driver Video Diary

We’ll be back on track tomorrow bright (hopefully) and early at 09:00 GMT for final Free Practice. Qualifying starts at 12:40 GMT and runs for 20 minutes for LMP1 and LMP2 cars. Rule change this season means two drivers from each car must set two timed laps. The grid will be determined by the average time of the four timed laps in total.