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British GP: Rosberg edges Hamilton in first practice

Nico Rosberg was quickest in first practice for the 2014 Formula 1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, 0.731s faster than Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton

The session was red-flagged for 16 minutes after Felipe Massa crashed his Williams at Stowe, and track activity resumed with 47 minutes remaining.

Both Rosberg and Hamilton set their quickest times on the medium-compound Pirellis early in the session before completing the balance of their running on the harder of the available compounds.

Hamilton did look as though he might overhaul his team-mate at one point, going fastest of all in the first sector, but he had to back off because Marcus Ericsson spun at Becketts, bringing out the yellow flags.

Fernando Alonso was best of the rest for Ferrari, 0.839s off Rosberg's quickest with a lap set right at the end of the session following a rear-wing change.

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo was fourth quickest but had to cut his session short after reporting gearbox problems. He was three tenths faster than team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

Vettel put in all but one of his laps after the session resumed following the red flag.

Jenson Button was fastest of the two McLarens, who were split by the Toro Rossos of Daniil Kvyat and Jean-Eric Vergne.

Caterham's Marcus Ericsson was the slowest of the drivers to complete a meaningful number of laps, a second off the pace of Max Chilton's Marussia.

Both Marussia drivers reported understeer as well as oversteer, and Chilton observed that he had more oversteer than Jules Bianchi in high-speed corners.

Williams, frontrunner in Austria two weeks ago, was unable to show its hand or even run through its normal FP1 programme.

Susie Wolff's much-anticipated appearance came to a frustratingly early halt when an internal component failure caused her engine to shut down after completing just four laps.

Massa ran wide on the exit of Stowe after seven laps and spun back over the track, making a heavy impact with the inside wall.

Technical problems also confined Caterham's Robin Frijns and the Lotus of Pastor Maldonado to the garage early in the session, though Frijns was able to take to the track with 10 minutes remaining.

Pos Driver                Team                  Time       Gap     Laps
 1. Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m35.424s           25
 2. Lewis Hamilton        Mercedes              1m36.155s  +0.731s  22
 3. Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m36.263s  +0.839s  23
 4. Daniel Ricciardo      Red Bull-Renault      1m36.623s  +1.199s  21
 5. Kimi Raikkonen        Ferrari               1m36.703s  +1.279s  23
 6. Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m36.921s  +1.497s  20
 7. Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m36.963s  +1.539s  25
 8. Daniil Kvyat          Toro Rosso-Renault    1m37.175s  +1.751s  29
 9. Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Renault    1m37.227s  +1.803s  25
10. Kevin Magnussen       McLaren-Mercedes      1m37.231s  +1.807s  30
11. Sergio Perez          Force India-Mercedes  1m37.720s  +2.296s  22
12. Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m37.910s  +2.486s  21
13. Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber-Ferrari        1m38.056s  +2.632s  18
14. Daniel Juncadella     Force India-Mercedes  1m38.083s  +2.659s  23
15. Giedo van der Garde   Sauber-Ferrari        1m38.328s  +2.904s  19
16. Jules Bianchi         Marussia-Ferrari      1m38.917s  +3.493s  12
17. Felipe Massa          Williams-Mercedes     1m39.461s  +4.037s   7
18. Max Chilton           Marussia-Ferrari      1m39.814s  +4.390s  24
19. Marcus Ericsson       Caterham-Renault      1m40.597s  +5.173s  19
20. Robin Frijns          Caterham-Renault      1m42.261s  +6.837s  11
21. Susie Wolff           Williams-Mercedes     1m44.212s  +8.788s   4
22. Pastor Maldonado      Lotus-Renault         no time              2

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