Free practice 2: Rubens stays on top

As in the first hour, the slippery track caused in a plethora of spins. The first driver to take to the grass was David Coulthard, who had a wild moment on the exit of Club when the track was at its wettest. The Scot did well to regain control of the car after spinning through 180 degrees, and he soon had it pointing in the right direction.

His lead was followed by Olivier Panis, who paid a visit to the gravel trap at Brooklands after a low-speed rotation. Felipe Massa continued to keep the small number of spectators who braved the elements entertained. First of all he had a hairy moment when he ran wide and onto the grass through the fast Bridge right-hander and later in the session he had a quick spin on the way into Club.

Giancarlo Fisichella performed a near carbon-copy pirouette just minutes later and was almost collected by team-mate Takuma Sato. Both Minardi drivers lost the rear of their PS02s at Abbey, with Yoong ended his session for good after he stalled following a second spin at the same place.

As the session wore on - and the rain held off - so a drier line started to emerge. After missing the whole of the first session following his spin, it was no surprise that Michael Schumacher was the main man on the move. Just after the half-hour mark he popped his Ferrari up into second, displacing Kimi Raikkonen who had taken that slot with a good run just minutes earlier.

Barrichello lowered his own best time to 1m31.925s with just over 20 minutes of the session remaining, which pre-empted improvements from everybody. Schumacher usurped his team-mate at the head of the times with an effort of 1m31.881s, while the strength of the Bridgestone intermediate was highlighted by Fisichella and Jacques Villeneuve nabbing third and fourth.

With just over 10 minutes of the hour remaining rain started to fall again. However, this didn't prevent Barrichello from once again hauling himself to the head of the times with a stunning lap half a second better than his previous best. Juan Pablo Montoya threw in a quick run right towards the end to take fourth, while Sato did an excellent job to end the day in fifth.

It was a bad session for Toyota, with Mika Salo ordered by his doctor to rest after picking up a stomach bug and Allan McNish ending his first day as a driver at the British GP stone last.

Once again the only sound coming from the Arrows garage was from the mechanics' stereo and the team's participation in Sunday's race is becoming increasingly unlikely.