Vettel and Hamilton battle out early laps at Silverstone On form Vettel is flying in GB Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel headed McLaren's Lewis Hamilton in first practice for the British Grand Prix as the two renewed what many are saying will be the battle for this year's Formula One title. In a session that was very difficult to read, Vettel set the pace on one minute 32.280 seconds, 0.334secs quicker than the English world championship leader. Renault's Robert Kubica and Red Bull's Mark Webber were next as teams gave few initial clues to their true pace. Drivers were familiarising themselves with the new layout of the Silverstone track, with a new 'Arena' section added in towards the end of the lap.  A big bump at the new Abbey right-handed kink where the old track joins the new caused several drivers problems - among them Lewis Hamilton, who ran wide there several times in his McLaren. Several teams were running tests of new parts that they hope will give them a step forward in performance. McLaren have introduced their version of the 'blown diffuser' and spent the first session analysing how it worked. The team hope that the new part, which improves downforce by directing the exhaust gases around the rear wheels and into the floor of the car, will put them on terms with Red Bull in terms of raw performance though the Red Bull is very good on circuits with fast flowing corners - and Silverstone is exactly that... Ferrari introduced their version of the device at the last race. They were analysing the performance of their F-duct aerodynamic device - a system pioneered by McLaren this year that improves straight-line speed and named after the 'F' of Vodafone where it appeared on the McLaren rear wing. Both Alonso and team-mate Felipe Massa tried their cars with and without the device during the session. Lotus's Heikki Kovalainen was the fastest driver among the three new teams, nearly 0.6secs quicker than Virgin's Timo Glock.  Japanese Sakon Yamamoto, who has replaced Bruno Senna in one of the Hispania's for this race, was slowest of all - nearly a second off the pace of his team-mate, the Indian Karun Chandhok.