Webber frustrated for F1 fans after practice wash-out at Silverstone

Mark Webber says he felt for the fans at Silverstone on Friday after adverse weather let to severely restricted programmes along the pitlane

Webber said he could sympathise with fans' frustrations about each team's running time, but said F1 team's had their "hands tied" by the conditions.

"It is horrible," Webber said when asked about the fans. "They don't always understand why we don't run, especially when the conditions are going to be pretty similar over the weekend.

"Today though most of us had our hands tied with the weather. We would want to get the practice in to get on top of those conditions, but for us unfortunately there is no point being top of the pops today, doing loads of mileage, loads of wearing tyres out because we don't get any points today.

"It is very frustrating for the fans and we do feel for them."

Webber said the fact rain is expected to continue on Saturday and Sunday actually worsened the situation because it means teams have to think about preserving tyres.

"It wasn't the best day for the fans, [but] we have to have one eye on the tyres a little bit for the rest of the weekend. If the weather was dry for Saturday and Sunday we could do more mileage today, but there is a good chance we might need all the tyres so we have to be careful with how many laps you can do."

Webber added that he would support a change in the rule restricting the number of sets of each tyre available each weekend in order to avoid similar problems at future events.

"If the whole weekend is wet, which can happen here and at Spa or a few other places, there you can have not a lot of tyres in your drawer," he explained.

"We have enough to get through Saturday and Sunday, but we cannot get too aggressive with those on a Friday.

"Today we all feel, all the teams, drivers, engineers, mechanics, we all feel for the fans. It is cold and miserable, it is the middle of the summer, it has been a very, very tough day for everybody and it is just incredibly frustrating because they did not get to see what they would have liked to have seen.

"I just really, really hope a lot of them are back tomorrow, [when] we have no choice. We have to get serious tomorrow and get on with it."