Valtteri Bottas led a Mercedes 1-2 in the opening practice session ahead of this Sunday’s British Grand Prix.
Bottas was fastest with a 1m29.106s, 0.078s quicker than team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Bottas’ time, which was faster than Hamilton’s 2016 pole position time, was set on soft tyres.
The Red duo led by Max Verstappen were third and fourth fastest on the super-soft tyres, while the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel completed the top six.
Vettel struggled with the balance of his Ferrari, as he spun at Becketts and flatspotted his tyres.The German ran the new shield cockpit protection device on his installation lap.
Daniil Kvyat was seventh ahead of Fernando Alonso who made full use of Honda’s new ‘spec 3’ engine. Team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne made it two McLarens in the top 10 with the 10th quickest time.
Felipe Massa was ninth quickest, just under two seconds off pacesetter Bottas. Sainz was 11th in front of the Force India pair, Esteban Ocon getting the better of team-mate Sergio Perez by just 0.087s.
Frenchman Romain Grosjean set the 14th fastest time, nearly half a second quicker than Antonio Giovinazzi who took over from Kevin Magnussen for FP1.
Jolyon Palmer’s woes continued as problems with his Renault grounded him in the pits for a large portion of the session, however, he eventually got out on track to set the 18th fastest time.
