British GP: Hamilton quickest again, as Rosberg hits trouble

Before the session, Rosberg's car suffered the leak that required the floor being removed to be rectified.

He got into the car, and looked all set to join in, but was then instructed to climb out again with 53 minutes remaining, and Mercedes announced his session was over before it had even started.

In contrast, Hamilton lapped over half a second faster than his pole time from 2015 to outpace the Red Bulls by four tenths.

Story of the session

Hamilton set the early pace on 1m33.505s on the medium-compound tyres.

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was the first to run the soft tyre before the 30-minute mark, producing a 1m32.570s to go P1.

Hamilton did likewise, and set the new bar at 1m31.660s, nine tenths clear, although he did complain he was struggling to synch first gear.

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo then went second fastest on 1m32.051s, trimming Hamilton's advantage to 0.391s. Ricciardo, who suffered a problem with his gearbox at the end of the session, also produced a strong medium-tyre long run.

Max Verstappen took third for Red Bull on 1m32.286s, a lap that included a faster first sector than Hamilton.

Vettel slipped to fourth, ahead of freshly re-signed teammate Kimi Raikkonen, who was just under two tenths off him.

Fernando Alonso was a strong sixth for McLaren, ahead of Valtteri Bottas's Williams. Romain Grosjean was eighth for Haas, from McLaren's Jenson Button.

Besides the non-running Rosberg, Button was slowest for much of the session, 4.4s off the pace. "It's very strange power on application of the throttle," he reported of his Honda engine's power delivery.

After the issue was fixed, Button added: "It's just unbelievably low grip."

Felipe Massa's Williams rounded out the top 10, ahead of Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso and Esteban Gutierrez of Haas.

Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat – who ended the session 13^th – suffered a broken front wing when he spun at the final corner on his first run of the session, which required marshals to venture on to the track and retrieve debris. Later on, he ran wide on to the grass at Becketts: "So hard to drive," he complained.

Teammate Sainz also suffered a big slide at Brooklands.

Felipe Nasr was 14^th for Sauber, ahead of the Force Indias of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez.

Austrian GP star Pascal Wehrlein was 17^th for Manor, ahead of both Renaults and a Sauber. Jolyon Palmer was 18^th, ahead of Marcus Ericsson and Kevin Magnussen. The second Manor of Rio Haryanto was 21^st and almost a second adrift.

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Engine	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	Mercedes	36	1'31.660
2	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	TAG	30	1'32.051	0.391	0.391
3	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	TAG	36	1'32.286	0.626	0.235
4	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	Ferrari	40	1'32.570	0.910	0.284
5	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	Ferrari	38	1'32.736	1.076	0.166
6	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	Honda	31	1'33.040	1.380	0.304
7	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	Mercedes	38	1'33.493	1.833	0.453
8	Romain Grosjean	Haas	Ferrari	32	1'33.614	1.954	0.121
9	Jenson Button	McLaren	Honda	20	1'33.763	2.103	0.149
10	Felipe Massa	Williams	Mercedes	29	1'33.801	2.141	0.038
11	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso	Ferrari	27	1'33.840	2.180	0.039
12	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	Ferrari	31	1'34.000	2.340	0.160
13	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	Ferrari	35	1'34.139	2.479	0.139
14	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	Ferrari	25	1'34.154	2.494	0.015
15	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	Mercedes	35	1'34.321	2.661	0.167
16	Sergio Perez	Force India	Mercedes	36	1'34.356	2.696	0.035
17	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	Mercedes	40	1'34.549	2.889	0.193
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	Renault	41	1'34.610	2.950	0.061
19	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	Ferrari	35	1'34.722	3.062	0.112
20	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	Renault	40	1'34.959	3.299	0.237
21	Rio Haryanto	Manor	Mercedes	36	1'35.841	4.181	0.882
22	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	Mercedes	0