Lewis Hamilton takes his sixth pole at the British Grand Prix after a thrilling qualifying duel with Sebastian Vettel
In front of his home crowd, Lewis Hamilton thrilled the fans by collecting a fourth straight pole position at Silverstone. The Ferraris of Vettel and Raikkonen were less than a tenth off pole.
After a suspension failure and big crash in FP3, Brendon Hartley missed qualifying for the second time this year as Toro Rosso needed to change the chassis on his car. Only 19 drivers started qualifying.
Q1
The first time of the opening session was set by Kevin Magnussen on a 1:31.413. First, Gasly beat that, followed by Grosjean. Those three were the only drivers to register a time before the red flag came out.
Lance Stroll spun out and into the gravel at Brooklands. He turned into the corner but the car flicked away from him and got beached in the gravel trap. The Canadian's qualifying was over very quickly.
Raikkonen took over at the top followed by Leclerc and Magnussen before there was more problem for Williams. Sirotkin lost the car at Stowe and ended up in the gravel. Unlike Stroll, he was able to get out and returned to the pits.
At the front, Vettel topped the times from Hamilton, Bottas, Verstappen and Raikkonen and as the top three teams easily got through. Leclerc did a mega job to be 6th ahead of Ricciardo.
A last-gasp lap by Nico Hulkenberg got through to Q2 and knocked out his stablemate Carlos Sainz in the process. Stoffel Vandoorne (almost 0.9s slower than Alonso) and Sergey Sirotkin exited too.
16) Carlos Sainz 1:28.456
17) Stoffel Vandoorne 1:29.096
18) Sergey Siroktin 1:29.252
19) Lance Stroll NO TIME
20) Brendon Hartley NO TIME
Q2
Valtteri Bottas clocked the first time with a 1:26.413. Vettel initially beat that by 0.041. However, Hamilton, who messed up on his opening attempt, regrouped and logged a 1:26.256 to lower the benchmark and went P1.
0.227 covered Hamilton, Vettel, Bottas and Raikkonen at the front following the first runs. Verstappen, Ricciardo, Grosjean, Magnussen, Leclerc and Ocon rounded out the top 10 before the last attempts.
A late flurry of runs saw none of the guys in the drop zone get into the top 10 and only Pierre Gasly improved his time and position. Hulkenberg, Perez, Alonso, Gasly and Ericsson were the five droppers who got knocked out in the middle segment of qualifying.
11) Nico Hulkenberg 1:27.901
12) Sergio Perez 1:27.928
13) Fernando Alonso 1:28.139
14) Pierre Gasly 1:28.343
15) Marcus Ericsson 1:28.391
Q3
It was a mega fight for pole in the pole position shootout.
Sebastian Vettel put the hammer down and went quickest on the opening runs of the final segment. He posted a 1:25.936; a mere 0.057 quicker than Hamilton. Bottas led Raikkonen as the Finns struggled to match their stablemates.
Verstappen, Ricciardo and Ocon were the other three drivers to go out and clock a time in the opening part of Q3. Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean showed good speed to jump Ocon on their single run the final segment and they went P7 and P8 for Haas.
On the second go for the top drivers, Hamilton improved to beat Vettel's benchmark by 0.044s; Vettel failed to improve following a slower first sector. A terrific final lap by Kimi Raikkonen saw him get within a tenth of Hamilton's pole lap. Bottas, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Magnussen, Grosjean, Leclerc and Ocon completed the top 10.
1) Lewis Hamilton 1:25.892
2) Sebastian Vettel 1:25.936
3) Kimi Raikkonen 1:25.990
4) Valtteri Bottas 1:26.217
5) Max Verstappen 1:26.602
6) Daniel Ricciardo 1:27.099
7) Kevin Magnussen 1:27.244
8) Romain Grosjean 1:27.455
9) Charles Leclerc 1:27.879
10) Esteban Ocon 1:28.194