Romain  Grosjean  has  set  the  pace  this  morning  in  free  practice  at  Silverstone,  topping  the timesheets ahead of Mike Conway and ART teammate Luca Filippi. The Frenchman's best time of 1:27.411 was set just ahead of his pitstop for fresh tyres, and was three tenths faster than his closest rivals before the track cooled, putting an end to any possible improvement.

The session started at a frenetic pace and just got quicker: the names at the top of the screens were   spinning   like   a   top,   with   Alvaro   Parente,   Conway,   Andy   Soucek,   Karun   Chandhok, Grosjean, and Conway again putting themselves in P1 before Grosjean claimed the top spot for good.

With everyone changing tyres in the middle of the session as usual it was expected that the times would  continue  to  tumble,  but  cloud  cover  and  Fernando  Alonso's  oil  at  turn  7  put  paid  to  any further improvement, with the latter helping Filippi, Bruno Senna and Parente into gentle spins as they pushed hard at the fast corner. Behind the top three Giorgio Pantano, Kamui Kobayashi, Andreas Zuber, Soucek, Parente, Lucas di  Grassi  and  Senna  will  be  hoping  to  wring  more  from  their  cars  in  this  afternoon's  qualifying session.