Lewis Hamilton rolled back the years to take pole position for the sprint race at Silverstone.
In strong sunshine, the seven-time world champion’s Ferrari pipped Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli by 0.011sec. Max Verstappen was third fastest for Red Bull with the second red car of Charles Leclerc fourth and George Russell fifth.
While that was a disappointment for Russell after his win in Austria last Sunday, Hamilton was all smiles as he climbed out of his car with the weekend opening up before him.
The 41-year-old’s next task is to convert his pole into victory over Saturday’s 17-lap race as he looks to narrow his 46-point gap to championship leader Antonelli.
The winner is awarded eight points; the runner-up seven, so hardly season-changing.
The two front-row men, separated by 22 years, congratulated each other at the end of the session.
Lewis Hamilton (right) beamed an enormous smile after take pole for Silverstone’s sprint race
This is a potentially massive weekend for Hamilton and his hopes of the drivers’ championship
Lando Norris was sixth best for McLaren, a place ahead of his team-mate Oscar Piastri.
Not the dream afternoon for Norris. He had hoped to turn on a fine display for 16,000 punters inside the ‘Landostand’ at Stowe. The partisans wore fluorescent or papaya t-shirts in his honour, and they sweated it out as his mechanics worked on their man’s car between Q2 and Q3 into which he squoze in 10th position.
A predictable day for Williams, fallen British giants of the grid, as Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon were only 15th and 16th quickest.
It was a familiar story at the bottom of the timings, with the two Haas cars, the two Cadillacs and the two Aston Martins all eliminated from Q1 – in that order from 17th to 22nd.
The Astons of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were a second behind the rest and three seconds off the top. This despite their gleaming factory by Silverstone’s main entrance rebuilt on a lavish scale at the cost of £200million.
