Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer at Sivlerstone

Lewis Hamilton beat team-mate Nico Rosberg to the fastest time as Mercedes dominated first practice.

He was just 0.033 seconds quicker than Rosberg as the dust settles on the controversy following their collision at Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix. Force India's Nico Hulkenberg was third fastest, 0.8secs behind the Mercedes.

Even at this early stage, the margin between Mercedes and the rest suggests they will be in a world of their own this weekend, a continuation of the recent trend that has seen any sense of a threat from Ferrari evaporate.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Silverstone has been good to Lewis Hamilton in recent years. 

Winner in 2014 and 2015, the Briton is going for a third victory in a row in front of his own fans and fourth overall - equal with Nigel Mansell.

Hamilton was on top in first practice, finishing with a slender advantage over Nico Rosberg. 

Will he keep that up this afternoon?

Right, we are going to park things up for lunch but will be back in action at 13:30 BST, with second practice at 14:00.

Fancy a bit of lunchtime reading? Have a nibble at Andrew Benson's FP1 report, and I'll see you in a couple of hours.

Cheerio.

11) Kvyat 12) Button 13) Bottas 14) Massa 15) Grosjean 16) Palmer 17) Nasr 18) Leclerc 19) Ocon 20) Ericsson 21) Wehrlein 22) Haryanto

I say uneventful, Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari crawls back to the pits with his car sounding not unlike the banger I had at 18, spluttering noisily. 

"I think I failed something in the gearbox, I struggled to go forwards," he says.

More gearbox woes for Ferrari?

1) Hamilton 2) Rosberg 3) Hulkenberg 4) Vettel 5) Ricciardo 6) Raikkonen 7) Verstappen 8) Perez 9) Sainz 10) Alonso

Three minutes to go and it looks like the rain will stay away. Everyone is out on the track apart from Nico Hulkenberg and Max Verstappen.

Although, maybe all is not completely well with Nico Rosberg's Mercedes.

"It says fuel use high and I don't know what that means," he says, before later adding: "Problems with ERS deployment."

Image source, Reuters

We're firmly into long-runs territory now, so there's unlikely to be any major changes on the timesheet.

So far so good for Mercedes. Their drivers are P1 and P2, and haven't crashed into each other. Happy days.

Marcus Ericsson has left it very late to get his first flyer in as he becomes the 22nd driver to complete a timed lap with a 1:36.003 putting him P20, ahead of Pascal Wehrlein and Rio Haryanto.

The atmosphere appears to have changed a little at Silverstone. Those grey clouds have got a little darker, could there be some spots of rain before the end of the session?

Image source, Reuters

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer

One of the ironies of the Mercedes “final warning” situation is that, fundamentally, it has come about because of Nico Rosberg’s inability to deal with Lewis Hamilton’s better race craft. So while there is no question Mercedes - like everyone else - consider Rosberg to blame for Austria, it is Hamilton’s driving that could be most affected by the demand to give each other more space. 

“It depends how you interpret what is said,” Hamilton said. “When I sit in the meeting, the first thing I say is: ‘I am not going to stop being the racing driver. It is what you hired me to do, what I have grown up to be, and like Ayrton (Senna) said if you are not going for a gap you are no longer a racing driver. They always say: ‘We don’t want you to change that.’

“However, there are rules of engagement and the team, all these people, over a thousand people, rely on us to navigate through whatever personal goals we have in the right way so both cars finish.

“The people making those rules unfortunately can’t comprehend how difficult it is and underestimate how easy it is to make mistakes because of the split-second decisions. The good thing is they have not told us we can’t race, it is in our hands, which it was before but there are bigger implications if we allow what has happened a few times now to happen again.”

Into the final 15 minutes and Lewis Hamilton still leads Nico Rosberg by 0.033s. Behind them it's: 

3 Hulkenberg 4 Vettel 5 Ricciardo 6 Raikkonen 7 Verstappen 8 Perez 9 Alonson 10 Button 

Niche knowledge. I knew his name reminded me of something. 

Plenty of great Silverstone memories coming through on #bbcf1, external, although none involving Jacques Villeneuve's purple hair disappointingly. 

I'll rectify that.

Image source, Rex Features