Fisichella flies in wet

The Italian had a spectacular start to the season, taking fifth and second places in the opening two grands prix, only to suffer a disastrous weekend at Imola. In his home event, Fisichella struggled with poor handling and was stuck at the rear of the field.

His mood was far brighter after practice at Silverstone however:

'I am quite happy with the car in the dry and extremely happy with it in the wet,' he said.

'In the second half of the morning session I was fastest for most of the time in the rain and so this is a good sign as it looks like this weather will continue all weekend.'

His team-mate Alex Wurz was less convinced, feeling that the poor weather had stopped the team carrying out any useful work.

'This morning in the dry it was hard to evaluate the set-up because of the strong wind around the track,' he explained.

'We got some base work done in the dry but then it started raining and just got harder and harder. It was quite entertaining, but really in conditions like that I can just be a passenger because the car is pretty uncontrollable.'