The weather has been sort of intermittent today. Silverstone always manages to generate it's own weather and today was no exception. There's always a breeze blowing across the open Northamptonshire countryside and this did it's best to blow cloud across the circuit and keep the temperatures down. Once the last car was back safely in it's garage, the wind drops (but not enough for my Jordan flag to stop flying) and the sun comes out to give me and my fellow Jordanista's (ok, one Toyota and one Mclaren fan) a nice rosy glow. Note to self: Sunscreen...

The first job when arriving at the circuit is to decide where to watch the practice sessions from. We parked up in the main carpark just across from the circuit entrance in plenty of time to find a spot for the first practice sessions. It was decided that the closest part of the circuit was Luffield Corner. An old favourite from the days before media access. Standing on the concrete terraces it was a whole different experience to wandering a largely abandoned circuit during last months test session.

At a test, it's possible to stand at the opposite end of the circuit from the pit lane and hear every gear change and every press of the throttle pedal. Standing on Luffield today, the first inkling that an F1 car was on track was when it screamed up from Bridge into the complex. Talk about snap happy! Three memory cards filled and that was only the practice sessions!

Practice days at the British Grand Prix are very usually less crowded than qualifying and race day. Today there was plenty of room to move and places to sit / stand to watch the session. For the second practice session, we decided to walk to the other side of the circuit and to Stowe Corner. Our trek took us along the Abbey straight and around Club Corner. We stopped at Club to see if there was any decent viewing spots. All taken hours earlier. Also we noted that there was a whacking great grandstand erected where you should have been able to stand and watch, plus an enormous hospitality pavilion. Now, not withstanding Silverstone's usually excellent viewing, this left the main Club Corner spectator area open with an absolutely massive debris fence in the way. There's no way to take photographs through that!

Silverstone don't now open the centre of the circuit to us fans. Surely a better option would be for these gigantic hospitality units to be moved off the outside of the circuit and onto the inside. This allows us mere mortal punters to get a decent spot to watch from. I'll probably send Sir Jackie and the Silverstone team an email after the weekend but we really need to get there EARLY tomorrow and ESPECIALLY EARLY on Sunday! Rant over.

For those at or close to the circuit, it's possible to listen to the commentary provided by the good people at Radio Silverstone. Jordan appeared a couple of times in conversation, especially with Narain managing to lock up more times than a prison guard! The surprise of the day however came when Ian Phillips popped up in an interview. Still at Jordan for a 15th year, it was good to see that contrary to some rumours of late, that some of the old guard are still at the factory. Ian has very much nailed his flag to the Midland philosophy and he was full of praise for the work that was being done.

So, how did our boys do on the track. Well, I was at the circuit so I don't really know! ;-) Practice 1 was not so good for the team. Robert Doornbos was I believe the fastest of the Jordan runners today in the EJ15b and I suppose, that should have been expected. Although when Pedro de la Rosa posted the fastest time of the first session at 1m18s, to hear that the 15b was still nearly six seconds slower was a bit of a disappointment.

It was clear however that the work on the EJ15b appears to have made the car a lot less skittish. The traction control seems more able and sounds totally different to the 15a as it appears to want to put the power down to the track through the tyres rather than the chassis.

Tiago has had to take a penalty for changing an engine after trouble in the first session.

"It was quite a difficult Friday for me." he said afterwards. "We had a little problem on the engine in the first session and had to change it. Therefore I am going to start last on the grid on Sunday and consequently, we have to adapt our strategy. Car-wise, we have improved a lot from this morning and also because the track got better and better. I think we have a good set-up for the car and we are not too far from the teams in front of us and this is a big improvement since the last time we tested in Silverstone."

Narain commented: "I had a useful day comparing different types of Bridgestone tyres. Now, we are going to analyse the information collected during the two sessions and make the right choice for the weekend. The grip of the circuit was pretty poor and green at the beginning but then it improved. Besides, I am generally satisfied with the balance of the car, so now we will concentrate on the race set-up."

EJ15b driver Robert Doornbos said: "I had fun as it is always nice to drive on this very fast circuit, especially in the first part. Today went quite well even though I had some technical problem with the new EJ15B at the beginning of the second session, which cost me a little bit of time, and this is not good for me as I only have two hours on Friday. But in the end, we have found a good car balance and I was able to get a clear lap and pushed."

"It was a busy day for all of us here at our home race." said Adrian Burgess. "Tiago had an engine change, which will obviously put him back after tomorrow's qualifying. However, he recovered fairly well and did a good job in the second session."

"Narain ran through all his Bridgestone tyre programmes in order to help us with our strategy. Robert experienced some technical problems with the new EJ15B car but he managed to get the tyre comparison we needed. We are fairly happy with the position we are in for tomorrow's qualifying."

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