Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen ended the first day of practice for the ninth round of the world championship in eighth and twelfth places respectively and as the reigning world champion pointed out, this is not an accurate reflection on the relative strengths of the teams. However, this was not the best of days for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro.

Although he set the fastest time, the morning session did not go well for Felipe. He was caught out by a long line of oil that had just been left on the entrance to a corner by Alonso's Renault, lost grip and spun backwards into the barrier at high speed. His F2008 had been travelling at 290 km/h prior to the spin. A small fire broke out at the back and the marshals extinguished it, as the driver got out of the cockpit uninjured. The incident was a good example of how, while the level of passive safety of the drivers has increased enormously thanks to the efforts of the FIA, this is still a dangerous sport and the active safety, in terms of how quickly track officials warn drivers of unusual conditions ahead, is a vital part of the overall safety package. The Ferrari mechanics worked flat out in the break between the two sessions to repair the damage and Felipe was able to go out for the final hour of the afternoon session. As for Raikkonen, he found his F2008 had not retained the qualities it had shown here in testing last week.

So, after a long morning of hard work for the mechanics who rebuilt Massa's car, there will now follow a long evening of study for the engineers as they look at all the data to find the best way to move forward prior to tomorrow's final hour of free practice and then qualifying. Our close rivals, McLaren-Mercedes were on strong form, with Heikki Kovalainen quickest this afternoon and Lewis Hamilton third. In between them was the Red Bull-Renault of Mark Webber, while the Australian's team-mate, David Coulthard was fourth, thus pleasing the crowd with two British drivers in the top four. In fifth place was the Williams-Toyota of Nico Rosberg, while in sixth was Sebastian Vettel for the Ferrari-powered Toro Rosso team.

The big news story today came courtesy of an FIA press statement announcing that as from 2010, the British Grand Prix would move to the Donington Park circuit, which last saw F1 cars in action when it hosted the 1993 European Grand Prix.