Red Bull Racing and Lotus have made last minute alterations to their testing schedule at Silverstone.
Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo had been set to drive for Red Bull on Wednesday afternoon, but his slot has now been moved to this afternoon after yesterday’s session was completed by Antonio Felix da Costa who completed 82 laps in total on route to setting the third fastest time of the day.
With Ricciardo’s stint now this afternoon he ironically will replace Mark Webber, who will now not take part in the testing session at all.
Webber announced he would be retiring from Formula One ahead of the British Grand Prix and Australian Ricciardo could well end up being the man to replace him within the team.
The other man heavily linked with taking Webber’s race seat for 2014 is Lotus?s Kimi Raikkonen and he too has been withdrawn from the testing session.
The 2007 Formula One World Champion had been scheduled to test on Friday, but that plan has now been scrapped with development driver Nicolas Prost replacing him.
Prost got 72 laps behind the wheel of the Lotus setting the eighth fastest time of the day.
‘Once details of what race drivers were allowed to do here became apparent, we would have only been able to conduct a very limited programme with Kimi,? Lotus trackside operations director Alan Permane told formula1.com.
?If we were to run him, it would compromise the other development work we want to do with the car here. By running Nico again we?ll be able to build on the work already carried out and hopefully be in the best position to develop the E21 ahead of Budapest, whilst also conducting the necessary tyre testing for Pirelli.’
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