British GP: Hamilton edges out Vettel to top FP3

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in final practice for the British Grand Prix, beating Formula 1 championship rival Sebastian Vettel by just 0.032 seconds on Saturday morning.

With the session commencing with an 80 percent chance of rain, most drivers opted to get out on track early on before the bad weather had chance to hit, which it finally did in the final 20 minutes.

Valtteri Bottas, who has been hit by a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change, led the way in the opening runs on soft tyres, setting an early benchmark of 1m28.827s in the first 10 minutes.

His Mercedes teammate Hamilton then took the top spot with a 1m28.747s on the yellow-marked rubber, which stood as the best time until the Briton equipped supersoft tyres just shy of the halfway mark and set a 1m28.063s to go seven tenths clear of the pack.

Bottas was only able to come within 0.151s of Hamilton on his first run on supersofts, and it was Ferrari driver Vettel who emerged as the three-time champion's closest rival as he slotted into second, just 0.032s adrift.

With the rain arriving some 15 minutes later, Hamilton's effort stood as the best time of the session - and the weekend so far - with Vettel staying second and Bottas third, the Finn albeit improving marginally to a 1m28.137s to end up less than a tenth off the pace.

Kimi Raikkonen was fourth fastest in the second Ferrari, a full 0.669s behind Hamilton on the supersoft tyres, and nearly eight tenths up on fifth-placed Nico Hulkenberg in the Renault.

Best of the Red Bull drivers was Daniel Ricciardo in sixth, 1.549s slower than Hamilton, followed by the Haas of Romain Grosjean and Max Verstappen, whose best time was set on softs.

The Dutchman did attempt a supersoft run, but left it too late and was caught out by the rain, running off-track at Brooklands and quickly returning to the pits.

Felipe Massa's Williams and Stoffel Vandoorne's McLaren completed the top 10, the latter eclipsing teammate Fernando Alonso by 0.050s.

Besides Verstappen, the only other drivers not to set their best time on supersofts were Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz, who was 17th fastest, and the second Williams of Lance Stroll, who propped up the timesheets, 1.4s slower than Massa.

All drivers headed out in the closing stages of the session on intermediate tyres, an extra set of which being supplied by Pirelli for the session, with Ricciardo spinning but avoiding the wall exiting Club and Marcus Ericsson pirouetting on the approach to Vale.

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