Rosberg upbeat about Williams's progress

The German, who endured a tough race in France nearly two weeks ago, finished as fifth quickest in the afternoon session at Silverstone.

Today's performance left Rosberg upbeat and he believes the team made solid progress in last week's test at the British track, where he expects Williams to fare better than in France.

"After today, I think we can definitely say we had a productive test here last week as we seem to have made good progress," said Rosberg. "Our main objective for free practice was to focus on tyre comparisons and we seem to have collected some positive results from that.

"In terms of performance, we should be a step ahead of where we were in Magny-Cours, but we really will have to wait and see."

Teammate Kazuki Nakajima did not enjoy such a positive day after crashing out during second practice, when he lost control of his car and hit the wall.

He still managed to finish as ninth quickest.

"It was going fairly well before the accident," he said. "I lost the rear at the exit of turn 12 and just spun into the wall. It's annoying to make such a mistake because it cost me important track time.

"We'd been having a good run before that, and making good progress for tomorrow, so I also apologise to the team. I will now just keep my head down and look ahead to qualifying."