Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton has taken pole position for the British Grand Prix, the fourth of his career at the Silverstone Circuit.
The British driver set a lap time of 1m29.287s on his second run of Q3 after having his first lap time of 1m29.339s deleted for exceeding track limits. Nico Rosberg lines up alongside him on the front row after finishing the session 0.319 seconds behind, continuing his streak of not qualifying off of the front row of the grid during 2016.
The clarity over track limits and which lap times should be deleted was brought into question by some on social media throughout the session. It emerged that the stewards were deleting times that exceeded track limits at Turns 9, 15 and 18. Such examples were when the times of Renault’s Jolyon Palmer and Kevin Magnussen were deleted early on in Q1.
Max Verstappen finished in third to end Daniel Ricciardo’s run of outqualifying either him or Daniil Kvyat in all previous nine races of the season. Verstappen’s best time was 0.974 seconds behind Hamilton’s, with Ricciardo a further three-tenths behind in fourth.
Kimi Raikkonen out-qualified Sebastian Vettel for only the third time this season for fifth place on the grid, with the German driver six-tenths of a second behind the Finn. Vettel will be demoted to 11th on the grid after receiving a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.
Williams’ Valtteri Bottas finished seventh, with Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg eighth and Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz ninth. McLaren’s Fernando Alonso completed the top ten. Those four drivers and Force India’s Sergio Perez will move up one position on the grid.
Perez finished ahead of Williams’ Felipe Massa in Q2 as both were shock eliminations from the session. Haas’ Romain Grosjean out-qualified Esteban Gutierrez for only the second time in five races for 13th. Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat finished 15th.
There was momentary confusion at the end of Q1 and going into Q2 as it was not immediately clear whether Renault’s Magnussen, who qualified 16th, should have gone through to Q2 and whether Magnussen and former McLaren teammate Jenson Button may have replaced him in the session. Ultimately Magnussen was in the Q2 session.
Palmer qualified in 18th, with the two Manors of Rio Haryanto and Pascal Wehrlein outqualifying the Sauber of Felipe Nasr. The other Sauber of Marcus Ericsson did not take part in qualifying after a massive crash at Stowe in the third practice session which badly damaged his car and sent Ericsson to the hospital for a check-up. Ericsson will have to seek permission to race and has a gearbox penalty after his crash which may see him in 22nd or in the pit lane for a start.
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