Ahead of today's free practice session, the air temperature is 26 degrees C, while the track temperature is 34 degrees. It is bright and sunny once again.

Yesterday's sessions seemed to pose more questions than they answered, however, if we are to take them at face value it would appear that Brawn has rediscovered the form that has been missing for the last three races.

Due to a minor brush with the barriers, Lewis Hamilton had little running in the afternoon session, therefore it is hard to judge whether the Woking team can maintain the form shown in Hungary. Interestingly, the Englishman's car this morning, and yesterday afternoon, is a shorter wheelbase version of the chassis Kovalainen ran. In the morning session, the Finn was in the short wheelbase car while the World Champion was in the 'normal' chassis.

Hopefully, as we look ahead to this afternoon's qualifying session, a few more questions will be answered this morning.

The pitlane lights go green and Adrian Sutil leads the way, the German and his teammate looking good yesterday.

Within five minutes all but Barrichello have been out for an installation lap. That said, moments later the Brazilian heads down the pitlane.

Twelve minutes into the session, with absolutely nothing happening, other than drivers finding ever stranger ways of keeping cool, Hamilton heads down the pitlane to break the deadlock. He is joined by Badoer and Alguersuari.

Hamilton posts the first time of the day, crossing the line at 1:42.103, which is quite impressive considering it's his first flying lap and that its relatively cool, certainly compared to yesterday. Alguersuari posts 43.285 and Badoer 45.939.

As Badoer improves with a 44.074, Buemi goes quickest (42.100), however, Hamilton is on a hot lap having gone quickest in the first two sectors. The Englishman crosses the line at 40.656 as Raikkonen goes third (42.301).

Raikkonen goes second and Sutil third (41.694), as Fisichella goes sixth, ahead of Alonso, Kubica, Alguersuari and Webber.

Badoer tells his engineer Rob Smedley, "please don't talk to me in that corner Rob".

Another improvement from Hamilton who crosses the line at 39.950, while Sutil takes second.

After twenty-four minutes all but Kovalainen and Barrichello have posted a time.

No soon has Raikkonen improved to second than he is demoted by Grosjean and then Sutil, the pace absolutely furious.

As Vettel gets up close and personal to the barriers, Rosberg posts 40.356 to go second, Williams continuing to impress.

As Barrichello finally posts a time (42.683), teammate Button goes second with a 40.052, just 0.102s off Hamilton's pace. Elsewhere, Grosjean gets beautifully crossed up.

Kubica goes quickest in the final sector, crossing the line at 39.939 to go quickest, however, moments later Sutil posts 39.897. Meanwhile, Vettel is costing, finally coming to a halt at Turn 24 and bringing out the red flag. Smoke from the back of the car suggests that it's an engine failure. Indeed, there is a long, long oil trail on the track. The replay shows bits of engine falling from the car as the Renault powerplant detonates.

As we await the re-start of the session, the order is: Sutil, Kubica, Hamilton, Button, Grosjean, Fisichella, Rosberg, Alonso, Raikkonen and Glock.

Kovalainen is slowest thus far, having completed just four laps. The delay while the track is cleaned of oil will not help the Finn's preparations for this afternoon and beyond.

As the oil slick is covered up with cement dust, one has to wonder whether the session will ever get underway again, indeed, whether the dust will make things more hazardous.

With just over seven minutes remaining, Race Control announces that the session will resume at 11:55, which will allow the drivers just one flying lap, two if they're lucky. However, don't forget all twenty (nineteen?) drivers will be on duty. This is a major blow to the driver's qualifying preparations.

There's a traffic jam at the end of the pitlane headed by Kovalainen and Hamilton, everyone appears to be on the super-soft rubber.