The Williams F1 Team hosted an action packed Partner Day at Silverstone yesterday as a way of paying tribute to its loyal stable of partners.

The event was a chance for friends of Williams F1 to enjoy an exclusive day of access all areas activities and for team personnel to personally thank them for their continued support. It was hosted in Silverstone's new Wing Complex overlooking the International Pits straight, with guests treated to a drive around the famous circuit in a Renault Sports car by the team's drivers, a pit-stop challenge, and a full-size Formula One car simulator challenge.

Today saw the recently crowned Formula 2 Champion Luciano Bachetta get his first taste of Formula One when he drove the Williams FW33 around the famous Silverstone circuit.

Luciano secured the 2012 Formula Two Championship at the season finale in Monza last month. He led the championship from the season opener at Silverstone, collecting five race victories and ten podiums on his way to the title, including a record breaking four successive victories in the first two rounds.

Although it has not yet been officially ratified as a Guinness World Record, there's no doubt that today, a new world record was established for the biggest parade of Ferraris ever organised. 964 Ferraris took to the Silverstone circuit to beat the previous record of 490 cars dating back to 2008 at Japan's Fuji Speedway Circuit.

Felipe Massa was the guest of honour, leading the parade at the wheel of a 458 Spider. "It was a really unforgettable experience," commented the Scuderia Ferrari race driver, against a backdrop of the 800 cars. It's a great honour for me to be here for such a special event, with so many cars all brought together on one race track, which produced an unprecedented spectacle for all Prancing Horse fans."

Indian racing star Karun Chandhok and his JRM Racing enjoyed a solid qualifying session in preparation for the fourth round of the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship, the 6 Hours of Silverstone. Karun Chandhok qualified in seventh position, just half a second from fourth and the fastest privateer car, marking the strength and depth of the competition in this year's series, and just how far JRM Racing has come since entering the championship at the start of this year. This came in spite of a gearbox issue in the earlier practice, which cost the team almost all the running in the morning.

Karun started on Michelin intermediate tyres following a heavy rainstorm between practice and qualifying, completing four laps with a best time of 1:53.957. He then moved to the slick tyre for his flying laps. He completed six further laps on the dry tyres, improving to a 1:46.758 to put the #22 HPD ARX 03a into seventh overall. An even quicker time was on the cards, but traffic put paid to a further improvement.

The Porsche 911 GT3 RSR was the fastest GT sports car in the gripping qualifying for round four of World Endurance Championship in Silverstone. On the storied British circuit, which was slowly drying up after heavy rain, Porsche works driver Richard Lietz (Austria) clinched his first pole of the year for Porsche in the GTE Pro class in the very last lap against strong opposition from Ferrari and Aston Martin. Contesting Sunday's race for the Felbermayr-Proton team, he shares driving duties with his works driver teammate Marc Lieb (Germany), with whom he has already won the race in Spa-Francorchamps this season.

"Everything came together perfectly," said Richard Lietz. "We were already running at the front with wet tyres but I noticed that we could go faster with slicks on the drying track. On my last lap I was held up slightly, but the conditions were then so good that it was still enough to set pole. I'm thrilled that we've found our former speed. We had to wait a long time for this. We're learning more and more about the car with each session."

The Mercedes team had a poor race at Silverstone as their cars did not seem to be in the fight for a podium finish right from the onset, as they struggled to get their tyres to work under perfect racing conditions at Silverstone. Michael Schumacher put up a brave fight to bring home some points as he finished in 7th place, whilst his fellow German teammate Nico Rosberg showed flashes of pace but could not keep it going long enough to finish in a points scoring position as he ended the race in a poor 15th place.

The qualifying fortunes for the German marquee brand were contrasting ones as Michael Schumacher demonstrated his mastery of the wet qualifying with a scintillating 3rd place. The veteran German endured a tricky Q2 up until red flags were shown, but pounced upon the restart to drive a stunning lap to aid his progress to 3rd place on the grid. His teammate though had a qualifying session to forget as Rosberg went off at Vale during Q2 which did not help his cause to get into Q3. The young German ace said he was surprised at the relative lack of pace in his sister Mercedes as he had performed better in the practice sessions, and thus had to settle for 11th place on the grid.

Mark Webber oozed class as he stamped his authority mid-way into the season as he took a gripping victory at Silverstone in a typically flawless race from the Aussie. Sebastian Vettel made it an excellent points scoring race for the Red Bull team as he finished on the last step on the podium in 3^rd place having held off the charging pack comprising Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen behind him.

The Red Bull team had a nearly flawless qualifying session as Aussie Mark Webber was right in the thick of the action in the fight for pole position, having been bumped out of pole by just under five-hundredths of a second by Fernando Alonso. The mercurial Sebastian Vettel was for once overshadowed by his teammate and later said that he had a tough day at the office. However Red Bull looked very strong for the race as 2^nd and 4^th place on the grid hardly counts as a calamity.