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Mark Hughes: Trackside View

"You can hear virtually Webber's entire lap"

This is not Interlagos! Grey skies, cool wind and spits of rain: it's more like an October Brands Hatch, minus the smell of burgers and onions. It's Friday afternoon, early in the session and Mark Webber's Red Bull is the only car on the track. From the Senna Esses you can hear virtually his entire lap, fading now as he nears the end of the second sector, the place so quiet you can hear the chat in the grandstands.

But it's not the cheering, partying sounds of a sunny Interlagos. There are no samba drums, no chants. Just routine slightly bored chat. The breeze blows about your ears and here's Webber again, his progress trailed by a sequence of camera flashlights from the grandstand; that's how dull the light is. It's like the calm before what will be an electrifying storm two days later.

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