Allan McNish
BBC Radio 5 live Formula 1 analyst

The pit lane has been resurfaced - just in front of the garages - and it is holding the water much more than some of the older tarmac...

Sainz improves to 1:31.515. His team-mate Kvyat is the only other time to post a time and he's around three and a half seconds slower.

"I think it's raining a little harder again," Valtteri Bottas is told by the Mercedes pit wall.

Verstappen's engineer asks for a "radio check".

"I am not going to do a radio check - It's too slippery" says the Dutchman...

Image source, Getty Images

A 1:42.973 for Sainz. That's around 21 seconds off the pace in FP2 yesterday.

Vettel ducks his Ferrari into the pits after just one lap. The Red Bulls also come in too.

Carlos Sainz's Toro Rosso stays out so we might get a timed lap here.

Allan McNish
BBC Radio 5 live Formula 1 analyst

It's drier that I expected it to be through Curva Grande.

So, straight out have gone Ricciardo, Verstappen, Sainz, Hulkenberg, Vettel, Raikkonen, Kvyat and Palmer.

The delayed FP3 session is under way. Sixteen minutes of splashing around to come.

"Sorry to send you out to get wet!" says Daniel Ricciardo's engineer from the pit wall.

Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen will be the first cars to tackle these conditions in the Red Bulls.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Monza

McLaren were a surprising seventh and eighth fastest on this power track on Friday afternoon, both Stoffel Vandoorne and Fernando Alonso (0.021secs adrift) using the ‘Phase 3.5’ Honda engine introduced at Spa. But there was “no miracle”, a source said. McLaren simply run their engine as powerful as it will go on Friday, while everyone else has plenty more to access. And Alonso and Vandoorne were also practising the slipstreaming they will use on Saturday in an attempt to maximise the Belgian’s grid position, while Alonso has a 35-place grid penalty.

The focus at McLaren was more off-track, as the team bosses held meetings with senior figures at Renault to try to sort out their plan to switch engine suppliers for next season. Executive director Zak Brown emphasised that not everything was in their control - a reference to the fact that Honda also have to be persuaded to take their leave. Nothing is resolved yet and time is running out.

Image source, EPA

Ferraris are Red.

Red Bull are Blue.

Verstappen retired again.

And Alonso did too.

Thanks Fabs

Image source, Getty Images

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo has found one way to pass the time.

Image source, Getty Images

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Monza

Image source, EPA

Mercedes showed good pace on Friday but Lewis Hamilton was a long way from satisfied with where he was after climbing out of the car. “P1 was really good. P2 was a little tricker with the track being hotter,” he said. “The balance of the car was a bit inconsistent, so it is harder to guess where we have the car for Saturday and Sunday so my mind is moving pretty fast.” One thing that was not especially worrying him was the speed of team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who is clearly having a better weekend than in Spa a week ago. “Valtteri had lots of tows during the lap and I just didn't have a good lap,” Hamilton said. “It wasn't a very clean lap. It’s OK. It’s not a very important lap.”

OK, so this is good news. Race control has decided the track has dried enough for the cars to go out in just under 10 minutes or so.

They will only have 16 minutes of running but how many cars will go out?

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Monza

Image source, Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel was just 0.14 seconds off the pace on headline lap times on Friday but the underlying speed of the cars seemed to tell a different story for Ferrari. Lewis Hamilton did not get a good lap in and appeared to have the potential from ideal sectors to be able to put together a one minute 21.1 lap - which would have put Vettel nearly 0.5secs off the pace. And on the race-simulation runs, Vettel was 0.8secs off the fastest Mercedes on average on the super-soft tyre and 1.2secs off on the soft. Those margins are too big to be fully representative, but big enough to suggest Ferrari have plenty of work to do.

“We know they are very strong around here the last couple of years,” he said. “It is an engine track, a power circuit. But today was maybe not the best day to read. Our day has been a bit mixed. We need to improve a little bit here and there, then we should have a better day tomorrow. We are OK. There are a couple of things we need to of better - car balance, stability and braking which is important around here to get the confidence because you are on low downforce and you need to have the confidence to throw the car in without thinking. We are not quite where I think we can be.”

Race director Charlie Whiting has given this update to BBC Sport on the track conditions.

"The track is still too wet to let cars loose on it. We looked at it at 09:50 BSTand felt it was definitely not safe, a lot of aquaplaning, especially on the back straight, the risk of aquaplaning is very high."

Safety car out again? "Probably another 15 minutes. If it stops raining it will probably drain very quickly but at the moment it is incessant and the radar is showing it is unlikely to move very far."

And if the rain continues? "We would not run FP3, that's all and then we would hope it would clear up a wee bit for qualifying.

"If it is like this we would not start qualifying and if it went on and on we would ultimately try to reschedule for tomorrow morning but I really don't think it will come to that."

Water is wet.

Monza is wet.

No cars are on track.

Rain.

Craig Woollard‏ sends us this bleak, minimalist effort.

Profound.