Romain Grosjean set the pace this morning in free practice at Silverstone, topping the timesheets ahead of Mike Conway and ART teammate Luca Filippi.

The Frenchman's best time of 1:27.411 was set just ahead of his pitstop for fresh tyres, and was three tenths faster than his closest rivals before the track cooled, putting an end to any possible improvement.

The session started at a frenetic pace and just got quicker: the names at the top of the screens were spinning like a top, with Alvaro Parente, Conway, Andy Soucek, Karun Chandhok, Grosjean, and Conway again putting themselves in P1 before Grosjean claimed the top spot for good.

With everyone changing tyres in the middle of the session as usual it was expected that the times would continue to tumble, but cloud cover and Fernando Alonso's oil at turn 7 put paid to any further improvement, with the latter helping Filippi, Bruno Senna and Parente into gentle spins as they pushed hard at the fast corner.

Behind the top three Giorgio Pantano, Kamui Kobayashi, Andreas Zuber, Soucek, Parente, Lucas di Grassi and Senna will be hoping to wring more from their cars in this afternoon's qualifying session.

Provided by the GP2 Series Media Service