Rosberg's former team-mate
Mark Webber was next on the timesheets, the Aussie concentrating his efforts on various aero and mechanical development programmes, with
Red Bull Racing successfully getting through more mileage than had even been planned. With rain forecast for Wednesday, Webber will remain in the cockpit and will switch his focus to British Grand Prix preparation, looking at car set-up and evaluation of the
Bridgestone tyres on offer.
Nelsinho Piquet wound up seventh-quickest for
Renault, the young Brazilian buoyed by having scored the first points of his fledgling
F1 career at Magny-Cours with seventh place – beating double world champion team-mate
Fernando Alonso for good measure along the way – and spending a productive day conducting basic set-up work ahead of the race, completing a total of 68 laps with just a few unscheduled interruptions to the programme. Piquet will return on Wednesday, with Alonso set to take to the track on the final day.
Home favourite
Jenson Button was eighth-fastest in his
Honda, with
Force India tester Vitantonio Liuzzi less than two tenths behind after completing a marathon 108 laps, the most of any driver present as the experienced Italian worked on set-up and tested out a major aerodynamic upgrade for the VJM01, before countryman
Giancarlo Fisichella takes over on day two.
“Today was a long day with a lot of laps,” Liuzzi related afterwards, after improving his lap time by more than two seconds come the close of play. “Fortunately the weather stayed dry and we could get some consistent running. The guys did a really good job and the car was very reliable. As a result it was a good day of testing.
“The new parts we ran gave a positive impact on the car, and Giancarlo and Adrian [Sutil] will have some more bits to test for the rest of the test. We covered a lot of miles and did some quick laps and the balance of the car felt better. The new package is working well so far, and hopefully in the next two days we will improve the speed as well.”
