Di Resta tops practice at Brands

The Scot, who won the race here last season, went to the top of the timesheets in the closing stages as Mercedes finally showed its hand against Audi for the first time this weekend.

Audis had set the pace for most of the session, with Mattias Ekstrom and Timo Scheider taking turns at the top.

But di Resta's effort blew Scheider's away by nearly three tenths of a second. Oliver Jarvis then responded for Audi by getting within one tenth of the Scot's pace, good enough for second position.

Mercedes' Gary Paffett put a lap in at the end of the session to complete a British 1-2-3, bumping reigning champion Scheider to fourth.

Championship leader Bruno Spengler completed the top five, while Ekstrom eventually had to settle for sixth.

Ralf Schumacher had got himself as high as second with just a few minutes remaining. But the German opted to sit out the final few moments of the session, so he was unable to respond as others dropped him back to seventh.

Martin Tomczyk had a difficult session in the fourth Abt Sportsline Audi but eventually managed to set the eighth fastest time, while the 2008-spec cars of Jamie Green and Alexandre Premat completed the top 10.

Pos  Driver             Car       Time     Gap
 1.  Paul di Resta      Mercedes  41.101s
 2.  Oliver Jarvis      Audi      41.166s  + 0.065s
 3.  Gary Paffett       Mercedes  41.313s  + 0.212s
 4.  Timo Scheider      Audi      41.388s  + 0.287s
 5.  Bruno Spengler     Mercedes  41.396s  + 0.295s
 6.  Mattias Ekstrom    Audi      41.413s  + 0.312s
 7.  Ralf Schumacher    Mercedes  41.414s  + 0.313s
 8.  Martin Tomczyk     Audi      41.548s  + 0.447s
 9.  Jamie Green        Mercedes  41.600s  + 0.499s
10.  Alexandre Premat   Audi      41.611s  + 0.510s
11.  Maro Engel         Mercedes  41.647s  + 0.546s
12.  Miguel Molina      Audi      41.710s  + 0.609s
13.  Mike Rockenfeller  Audi      41.765s  + 0.664s
14.  Susie Stoddart     Mercedes  41.820s  + 0.719s
15.  Markus Winkelhock  Audi      41.881s  + 0.780s
16.  Cong Fu Cheng      Mercedes  41.937s  + 0.836s
17.  David Coulthard    Mercedes  41.959s  + 0.858s
18.  Katherine Legge    Audi      41.996s  + 0.895s