British GP: Bottas leads Hamilton, Ferrari off the pace

Bottas used the soft compound Pirelli tyres to clock a 1m29.106s at an overcast Silverstone, 0.379s quicker than Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Championship leader Vettel, who was sixth fastest, headed out of the garage at the start of the session with the screen, which extends along the nose in front of the drivers, attached to his Ferrari.

The German completed a single installation lap and then returned to the garage, where Ferrari removed the device and switched attention to its weekend programme.

The medium compound - the hardest tyre available this weekend - was the rubber of choice for the early installation laps before Kimi Raikkonen fitted the supersofts and set the first time of the session with a 1m32.533s.

He traded quickest laps with the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, with the latter coming out on top initially.

Mercedes then sent Bottas out and the Finn went quickest on the soft tyres with a 1m30.788s.

Hamilton went three tenths faster with his first real effort on the softs but his teammate responded immediately to become the first driver to dip into the 1m29s.

The Finn continued to improve, gradually bringing his time down to a 1m29.106s, which is quicker than last year's pole position time of 1m29.287s.

Red Bull emerged as the Mercedes team's closest challenger, with Verstappen and Ricciardo third and fourth quickest respectively. However, both their laps were set on the supersofts.

Raikkonen was the leading Ferrari in fifth, 1.031s off the pace but four tenths quicker than teammate Vettel, who spun at Becketts and flat-spotted his tyres.

Fernando Alonso, who is running the more-powerful 'Spec 3' Honda engine this weekend, was eighth quickest on the supersofts, a tenth behind Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat.

Felipe Massa, whose Williams team adopted a split approach with its upgrades by running different configurations on his and Lance Stroll's cars, was ninth.

Stoffel Vandoorne made it two McLarens in the top 10, the Belgian just half-a-tenth slower than teammate Alonso.

Antonio Giovinazzi borrowed Kevin Magnussen's Haas and set the 17th quickest time, nearly half-a-second off teammate Romain Grosjean.

Jolyon Palmer missed much of the opening part of the session, with his car up on stands in the garage, but the team eventually got him back out and the Briton ended up 18th quickest after 16 laps.

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Engine	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	Mercedes	29	1'29.106
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	Mercedes	29	1'29.184	0.078
3	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	TAG	26	1'29.604	0.498
4	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	TAG	19	1'29.942	0.836
5	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	Ferrari	19	1'30.137	1.031
6	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	Ferrari	19	1'30.517	1.411
7	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	Renault	21	1'30.895	1.789
8	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	Honda	20	1'30.993	1.887
9	Felipe Massa	Williams	Mercedes	26	1'30.999	1.893
10	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren	Honda	27	1'31.041	1.935
11	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso	Renault	24	1'31.200	2.094
12	Esteban Ocon	Force India	Mercedes	32	1'31.210	2.104
13	Sergio Perez	Force India	Mercedes	33	1'31.297	2.191
14	Romain Grosjean	Haas	Ferrari	24	1'31.610	2.504
15	Lance Stroll	Williams	Mercedes	24	1'31.684	2.578
16	Antonio Giovinazzi	Haas	Ferrari	24	1'32.031	2.925
17	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	Renault	19	1'32.171	3.065
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	Renault	16	1'32.450	3.344
19	Pascal Wehrlein	Sauber	Ferrari	23	1'33.029	3.923
20	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	Ferrari	26	1'33.399	4.293