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Valtteri Bottas claimed pole position for Sunday’s British Grand Prix by the finest of margins from his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton, narrowly edging the reigning champion by just 0.006s.
The Finn’s first lap in the top 10 shoot-out was the lap good enough to grant him his 11th pole position of his career.
Hamilton made a mistake at Brooklands on his first lap and wound up 0.252s slower, he improved on his second run but fell just short of the time he needed.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc will start from third on the grid after finding time on his final lap ahead of both the Red Bull duo of Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly.
Sebastian Vettel could only manage sixth fastest having struggled for pace all afternoon.
Daniel Ricciardo recovered from a difficult Friday to place his Renault seventh on the grid with Lando Norris delivering another superlative performance to eighth for McLaren.
Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon well and truly had the measure of the Silverstone circuit as he exceeded expectations to get into the third phase of qualifying. He made it worthwhile to occupy ninth spot for the race.
Nico Hulkenberg was running on a similar pace to team-mate Ricciardo but he couldn’t improve on his second run and was subsequently dropped to tenth.
It’s an all-Alfa Romeo row six as Antonio Giovinazzi out qualified his world champion team-mate Kimi Raikkone for 11th and 12th, respectively.
Carlos Sainz was unable to pull together a competitive lap in the second qualifying session – his best lap only good enough for 13th.
Romain Grosjean complained of a serious handling issue with his Haas car in Q2. His best time could only place him 14th ahead of Racing Point’s Sergio Perez in 15th.
Grosjean’s team-mate Kevin Magnussen didn’t set a quick enough lap on his first run in Q1 and was forced to go again. The Dane gave up on that lap as well and will start from 16th.
Daniil Kvyat couldn’t keep pace with Albon and will start in a lowly 17th.
Lance Stroll’s torrid run of Q1 exits extends to 14 races despite only missing the Q2 cut-off by 0.072s, a gap that leaves him 18th.
The back row of the grid is once again reserved by the Williams pairing with rookie George Russell 19th for his home race ahead of Robert Kubica in 20th.
