F1: Rosberg edges Hamilton in first British GP practice

Nico Rosberg was quickest in first practice for the 2014 Formula 1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, 0.731s faster than Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.

The session was red-flagged for 16 minutes after Felipe Massa crashed his Williams at Stowe, and track activity resumed with 47 minutes remaining.

Both Rosberg and Hamilton set their quickest times on the medium-compound Pirellis early in the session before completing the balance of their running on the harder of the available compounds. Hamilton did look as though he might overhaul his teammate at one point, going fastest of all in the first sector, but he had to back off because Marcus Ericsson spun at Becketts, bringing out the yellow flags.

Fernando Alonso was best of the rest for Ferrari, 0.839sec off Rosberg's quickest with a lap set right at the end of the session following a rear wing change.

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo was fourth quickest but had to cut his session short after reporting gearbox problems. He was three tenths faster than teammate Sebastian Vettel, who put in all but one of his laps after the session resumed following the red flag.

Jenson Button was fastest of the two McLarens, who were split by the Toro Rossos of Daniil Kvyat and Jean-Eric Vergne.

Caterham's Marcus Ericsson was the slowest of the drivers to complete a meaningful number of laps, a second off the pace of Max Chilton's Marussia.

Both Marussia drivers reported understeer as well as oversteer, and Chilton observed that he had more oversteer than Jules Bianchi in high-speed corners.

Williams, frontrunner in Austria two weeks ago, was unable to show its hand or even run through its normal FP1 program. Susie Wolff's much-anticipated appearance for the team came to a frustratingly early halt when an internal component failure caused her engine to shut down after completing just four laps. Then Felipe Massa ran wide on the exit of Stowe after seven laps and spun back over the track, making a heavy impact with the inside wall.

Technical problems also confined Caterham's Robin Frijns and the Lotus of Pastor Maldonado to the garage early in the session, though Frijns was able to take to the track with 10 minutes remaining.