It's Friday, it's raining, it's Silverstone

The main news on Friday morning is the not wholly unexpected press release from Beechdean Mansell announcing that Nigel won't, after all, be racing this weekend. The decision is based on "doctor's orders", and the release states: "Nigel has not been cleared medically to recommence driving duties, but he will provide the team with his vast technical and racing knowledge, something that was used to great effect in Hungary three weeks ago."

The news will, of course, be a disappointment to those fans who may be travelling to Silverstone especially to see him, and also to the race organisers, who have used his image extensively in promotion for the event. The revelation comes just a few days after the team made known that there is every expectation that Nigel Mansell and his two sons, Greg and Leo, will be back again in 2011, although it isn't clear yet what car they will be campaigning.

Lola Preview
On Wednesday Lola cars hosted what is now a traditional pre-Silverstone media preview at their factory in Huntingdon. Team members, drivers, suppliers and journalists were invited to the event, which also formed the basis of a sportscar forum for the Midweek Motorsport programme broadcast on-line by Radio Le Mans. The discussion was hosted by RLM's own John Hindhaugh, and can be listened to as a podcast by following this link: Lola Silverstone Preview.

During the day Lola revealed a large-scale wind-tunnel model of the 2011 coupé design, including the backbone rear fin that will be a characteristic of Le Mans prototypes next season. Lola also announced that the company has been investing heavily in alternative and complimentary energy systems, and has developed instillation techniques to accommodate KERS and Hybrid Technologies into the Lola Coupe for next year, in line with the new regulations.

Other Friday-morning news includes confirmation that the Atlas eFX Saleen won't be participating in the GT1 race this weekend. After the extent of damage sustained by the car in Hungary, this was only to be expected. It is a sad end to a historic car, since that same chassis took class honours in the Sebring 12 Hours in 2001 for Franz Konrad, beating the much-favoured GM Corvettes. The Saleen S7-R was designed and developed by RML in Wellingborough, and has been at the top of the GT1 game for almost a decade. Some achievement.

First Practice

The day's first practice started at just after one-twenty-five, with the skies dull and overcast, the track damp, and the promise of rain to come. It didn't take long. The session had been less than ten minutes old before the drizzle began, and it never really let up after that. Not the perfect beginning, especially as the forecast for Sunday is for a much brighter day, but it did give the organisers a chance to try a practice run on their safety car procedure.

Twenty minutes of the hour gone, and the #007 Aston Martin headed off into the gravel - and there's lots more of the stuff round the Silverstone circuit these days, thanks to the extended trackside margins. It was Adrian Fernandez at the wheel, and normally we'd have seen a red flag while the car was extracted. Not this time. For the first time that many people can recall, the safety cars were deployed during a practice session instead. The team managers had been advised beforehand that this might happen, but it was still a surprise to see the two Audi TTs circulating with their lights ablaze. Stranger still was the fact that many of the teams left their cars out on track behind them, presumably because they'd been asked to, but also in order to gain some useful data on things like fuel consumption and typical SC laptimes.

The true purpose of the exercise was to give the race officials some idea of the gap necessary between the two safety cars, in order to make a re-start fairer. To that end, the red Audis stayed out a little longer than was strictly necessary, and then the session resumed.

From early in the hour Danny Watts topped the times in P2 for Strakka Racing , and never really looked challenged. An early rival was the #35 Oak Racing Pescarolo, with Guillaume Moreau once again demonstrating his talent. Another to show strongly was young Thor-Christian Ebbesvik in the #41 Bruichladdich Ginetta-Zytek.

Tommy spent most of the session aboard the RML Lola #25, and held third quickest in class for much of the second half, until Moreau came back again towards the close with a quick lap to regain second, with Ebbesvik third and then Tommy fourth, but the Brazilian seemed satisfied with that. It's early days, and conditions were far from ideal. He was also pleased with the feel of the car, and with almost half the session gone, headed back to the pitlane. Mike then took to the track for the last twenty-five or thirty minutes, and by then there was even standing water in some areas.

Overall, it was Scotsman Allan McNish who dominated the session for Audi in the #7 R15, although Anthony Davidson fought back in the final minutes to regain second for the #1 Peugeot. It proved to be a difficult hour for Drayson Racing, after their successful ALMS run of late, and eleven seconds off the pace was not where they wished to be.

First Session - LMP2 Times

Second Practice

The afternoon's second session got under way at five, and Tommy was among the first group to take to the track. Nick Leventis in the Strakka HPD was first to set a P2 flyer, however, and topped the charts, but only for a moment. Tommy's first across the line was a 1:52.814, improving on his earlier-session best by a few tenths, but demonstrating that the tweaks were working.

With almost ten minutes gone, Tommy came on the radio to report a car, possibly an Aston, off the track and into the barriers. It turned out to be the Signature Plus #008, Mailleux in the cockpit. The session was red flagged a few moments later with Tommy still listed as quickest in LMP2 and Olivier Pla second in the #40 Quifel ASM Ginetta Zytek.

While the stoppage was cleared, Mike swapped places with Tommy, and prepared for his second shot at the new Silverstone layout. The session resumed at just after half-past. “When we started out today we had a car that was still largely set up for the Hungaroring, but a little on the soft side," said Tommy. "It certainly wasn’t the easiest to drive during the first session, but the team made some substantial changes to the car between the two, and we made a significant step forwards as a result. Now I think we’re well on the way to having a good racecar.” Tommy has never raced on the new Arena circuit, but he has at least tested here, albeit in one of Mike’s older cars. He was here a few weeks ago to give the 2001 MG Lola EX257 a shakedown, although the track then was also too damp to push.

The #35 Oak Racing Pescarolo looked set to miss the session. Late in the earlier period, as Guillaume Moreau handed over to Richard Hein, a fire took hold in the cockpit. It was quickly extinguished, but not before some components suffered quite badly from the flames. It was not expected to appear again before Saturday's third session.

The Drayson Lola, uncharacteristically slow in the first session, had been suffering from a traction control problem. The #11 car's pace was much improved by the time the second session resumed, with Paul Drayson taking first stint and running 9th in class, although would close in tenth.

With a light drizzle falling, Olivier Pla laid down a new best for P2 of 1:50.864 - still some four seconds off Danny Watt's first-session pace, but a significant improvement for the #40 Ginetta Zytek. Overall, Stephane Sarrazin had regained the initiative for Peugeot - Oreca in this instance - almost two seconds clear of the #8 Audi, and a second quicker than Allan McNish's fastest from session one.

With twenty-five minutes officially remaining, Mike pitted to hand over to Ben Collins, just as Leventis got into his stride in the Strakka HPD, and jumped up to third in P2 with a 1:53.171. With heavy spots of rain along some sections of track, finding a dry line and a faster time was proving difficult, but the situation didn't last, and with about ten minutes to go the drizzle eased and times started to improve again.

Leventis handed over to Jonny Kane, who wrung a 1:50.927 to pip Tommy's earlier time, and then posted a 1:49.616 before pitting. Ben's times, meanwhile, were steadily improving, despite the intermittent rain. From fifty-eights, he was down into the fifty-fours before the chequered flag came out. At the time he was one of the quickest in P2.

“It was spitting with rain for my first few laps, so I was driving very cautiously. The conditions cut down on my learning time as well, and that’s important, because this new layout at Silverstone is very challenging. It feels so completely different from the way it used to be, even though several of the old corners are still there. From Copse through to Stowe, it’s all very familiar, but you arrive at Vale, and from there on, it’s all new. I’m not sure if it’s actually better, in as much as I really loved the old Abbey, and Priory too, both of which are no longer part of the Grand Prix circuit. They were also good corners for racing, whereas I’m not yet sure if the new layout is going to achieve that. We’ll find out on Sunday, when I’m really looking forward to driving here in the dry, and also in daylight!” The Silverstone 1000 Kilometres will be Ben’s third race with RML, but both the previous two were night races, and Ben invariably drove the last stint.

“We really threw Ben in at the deep end,” concedes Phil Barker, the team manager at RML. “We asked him to learn the techniques of driving a car that was new to him on circuits that he’d never raced on before. Under the circumstances, his performances have been excellent, and he’s consistently gone quicker and quicker.”

With two minutes to go, a new fastest lap overall came from Nic Minassian in the #1 Peugeot 908, a full second and a half faster than Lapierre in the #4 Oreca example. Top Audi, as usual; Allan McNish in the #7, but 2.3 seconds adrift.

No time was added to the session for the red flag period, and the session ended at six o'clock, but Guillaume Moreau was there to see the flag fall; the #35 Oak Racing Pescarolo appearing in the dying moments of the session to post a single flyer of 1:52.534 to move sixth.

"The track wasn’t perfect," added Phil, "but it was dry enough to allow us to push the car, and through that see that we’d made some right decisions between sessions. Tommy is now happy with the car, and we can work on that, focusing on further areas for improvement.”

Second Session - LMP2 Times

That concluded the day's action on track, with the next period due on Saturday morning at nine o'clock.

Radio & On-line: Radio Le Mans covered all the Friday action at Silverstone, some of which remains available as podcasts to listen to or download from the website. Click the link below to access the live feed feature, and also the archive recordings.