"There are yellows at Turn Seven," Red Bull tell Verstappen.

"Yeah, it's because of me!" comes the amused reply from the Dutchman.

"Forget it, it's raining," says Red Bull's Max Verstappen in response to his team's urgings to stay on a hot lap.

"It's raining everywhere," says Romain Grosjean, who has just popped his Haas into seventh place on a supersoft tyre run.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer at Silverstone

McLaren executive director Zak Brown held a news conference shortly before final practice. Not a lot of concrete detail came out of it, on the basis of McLaren’s engine situation, whether they stay with Honda or move to Mercedes customer engines, as they hope privately to do.

But I specifically asked Brown whether they had the resources to switch to a customer deal and keep Fernando Alonso if that was the scenario, and he said that would not be a problem. Brown had dinner with Alonso on Friday evening - apparently the Spaniard picked up the bill - and asked to rate the chances of Alonso still being in F1 next season, Brown said: “Very good.”

The McLaren's are dicing with the fringes of the top 10 in this session - P10 for Vandoorne and P11 for Alonso in this session.

They are some two seconds off the Mercedes, however.

"I'm getting some vibration from the engine. Fourth gear, high revs," says Brit Jolyon Palmer, who is sitting in 12th place at the moment

We've not had cause to chat about the Renaults much this weekend but Nico Hulkenberg has just given us all a jab in the ribs with a fine supersoft-shod lap to take fifth place, albeit 1.4s down on Hamilton's benchmark.

Ok, that's interesting.

Vettel's Ferrari does not go quicker than Hamilton but it's mighty, mighty close.

The German cuts the beam just 0.032s slower than the Mercedes man, and ahead of Bottas.

The Mercedes and Ferraris both set those times on the supersofts.

But wait, Vettel is on a hot one...

Bam. There we have it. The supersofts do their thing and Hamilton duly posts the quickest time of the weekend with a 1:28.063.

These guys will be thrilled.

Image source, Reuters

Rain getting heavy in turns three and four, says Kimi Raikkonen.

Gary Rose
BBC Sport at Silverstone

Image source, .

The future of Silverstone is very much on the minds of the fans arriving this morning, with many having memories of the circuit that go back decades.

David, on the right here, first attended an F1 race at Silverstone in 1958, just eight years after the very first one.

"I was 11 but I remember Stirling Moss on the grid. I'd be devastated if the British Grand Prix left Silverstone. I went to races at Brands Hatch, so I've experienced the race at other tracks but this is its home now."

Son-in-law Nick goes every other year to Silverstone, camping at Woodlands.

"Camping is part of the British Grand Prix experience," he says. "Where would you camp if it was a street circuit in London? Hyde Park!?"