Ricciardo leads Silverstone test

The Australian warmed up for the seventh round of the series by lapping the International circuit in a 1m14.470s best, which placed him nearly two tenths of a second clear of the rest of the field.

Ricciardo was one of only a handful of drivers to set his best time in the second session and he was particularly fast in the first and last portion of the circuit. His Carlin team-mate Max Chilton, who claimed pole position for both races on the Grand Prix circuit here back in May, topped the times in the first session and that was good enough to leave him second overall.

Chilton just pipped Hitech's Renger van der Zande, who was quickest of all in the middle part of the lap and set third fastest time overall, 0.051s further back. The Dutchman reported a good feeling with his Dallara-Mercedes, but expects to find more speed in qualifying tomorrow.

By contrast, van der Zande's Hitech team-mate Walter Grubmuller, who is also Ricciardo's nearest title challenger, endured a difficult day at a circuit he has not shown strongly at in the past. He wound up only ninth fastest.

Both of Double R's leading drivers enjoyed decent days at a good circuit for the Woking-based squad. Colombian rookie Carlos Huertas set fourth fastest time, just 0.151s slower than van der Zande, while team-mate Daisuke Nakajima rounded out the top six.

The pair sandwiched Spa winner Adriano Buzaid (T-Sport), who set a time good enough for fourth in session one, on old tyres, but struggled with a set of new rubber later on and did not improve, so he wound up fifth.

Team-mate Wayne Boyd struggled with understeer in his Dallara-Volkswagen as he set seventh fastest time, just under a tenth clear of Fortec's Riki Christodoulou. Carlin's Canadian driver Philip Major produced his strongest pre-race testing performance of the season so far to complete the top 10, which was covered by just over a second.

Pos Driver                   Team               Car            Time
 1. Daniel Ricciardo         Carlin             D/V       1m14.470s
 2. Max Chilton              Carlin             D/V       1m14.635s
 3. Renger van der Zande     Hitech             D/M       1m14.686s
 4. Carlos Huertas           Double R           D/M       1m14.837s
 5. Adriano Buzaid           T-Sport            D/V       1m15.059s
 6. Daisuke Nakajima         Double R           D/M       1m15.329s
 7. Wayne Boyd               T-Sport            D/V       1m15.336s
 8. Riki Christodoulou       Fortec             D/M       1m15.427s
 9. Walter Grubmuller        Hitech             D/M       1m15.488s
10. Philip Major             Carlin             D/V       1m15.553s
11. Henry Arundel            Carlin             D/V       1m15.676s
12. Hywel Lloyd              CF Racing          D/H       1m15.834s
13. Gabriel Dias             T-Sport            D/H       1m15.935s
14. Daniel McKenzie          Fortec             D/H       1m16.037s
15. Victor Garcia            Fortec             D/M       1m16.141s
16. Jay Bridger              Litespeed          M/H       1m16.857s
17. Stephane Richelmi        Barazi Epsilon     D/M       1m17.127s
18. Michele Faccin           West-Tec           D/H       1m17.332s
19. Kevin Chen               Double R           D/M       1m18.168s
20. Max Snegirev             West-Tec           D/H       1m18.475s
21. Victor Correa            Litespeed          S/H       1m19.042s
22. Satrio Hermanto          Litespeed          S/H       1m19.277s