Championship leader and home crowd favourite Lewis Hamilton achieved his 46th career pole position at the fast and challenging Silverstone circuit.
Nico Rosberg had to settle with second place after leading the way through the first two segments of qualifying, but Hamilton had the advantage thanks to his first runs in Q3, which proved enough to take pole by 0.113 seconds when neither improved later on.
Mercedes ended up with a clear seven-tenth gap to the rest of the field, as Williams got the better of Ferrari to be best-of-the-rest at Silverstone.
Williams locked out the second row of the grid, with Felipe Massa improving on his second Q3 run to edge out team-mate Valtteri Bottas by less than a tenth.
Kimi Raikkonen outqualified Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel for only the second time this season by setting the fifth quickest time.
Vettel dropped time in the final sector on his first Q3 run and was then held up in traffic on his final effort so was unable to improve.
Red Bull Racing’s Daniil Kvyat edged out the sister team of Toro Rosso as driven by Carlos Sainz Jr by just 0.013 seconds to take seventh.
As for team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, the honey badger wound up slowest of the top ten runners after losing his best lap in Q3 to a track-limits offence at Copse corner and a late improvement on his single new-tyre run by Nico Hulkenberg in the Force India.
The second revised VJM08 of Sergio Perez missed out on a chance to make the top ten shootout after running wide at Copse on his best lap.
Perez ended up in P11, just a few tenths clear of Romain Grosjean, until the Lotus driver had his best time deleted for a track limits offence.
Fortunately for Grosjean, his second best lap was still good enough for P12, ahead of a frustrated Max Verstappen.
The Toro Rosso rookie complained about a lack of rear grip throughout qualifying, which ended disappointingly after the STR10 showed strong form throughout free practice.
Verstappen was close to dropping out in Q1 after having his best time deleted for exceeding track limits at Copse, then struggled to P13 in Q2.
Pastor Maldonado was also penalised for exceeding track limits in Q1 and Q2 and wound up P14, fractionally slower than Verstappen but over three tenths clear of Marcus Ericsson.
Sauber team-mate Felipe Nasr, the McLaren-Hondas of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, and both Manor Marussias filled the bottom five places on the timesheet.
Both Nasr and Alonso agonisingly missed the Q2 cut by less than a tenth of a second, thanks to Maldonado having his best time scrubbed for running off the track at Copse.
So another front row grid slot for Mercedes and a popular qualifying result for the British crowd favourite Lewis Hamilton.
Can the reigning world champion score a win at his home race on Sunday? He looks at ease in the W06 Hybrid all season and race victory at Silverstone will certainly be a highlight.
Qualifying positions, Silverstone:
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m32.248s
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m32.361s
3 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m33.085s
4 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1m33.149s
5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m33.379s
6 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m33.547s
7 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull-Renault 1m33.636s
8 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso-Renault 1m33.649s
9 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m33.673s
10 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m33.943s
11 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m34.268s
12 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Mercedes 1m34.430s
13 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso-Renault 1m34.502s
14 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Mercedes 1m34.511s
15 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1m34.868s
16 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 1m34.888s
17 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 1m34.959s
18 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 1m35.207s
19 Will Stevens Marussia-Ferrari 1m37.364s
20 Roberto Merhi Marussia-Ferrari 1m39.377s
Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton gave the British Grand Prix crowd what they wanted by powering to pole position in a one-two with Mercedes team mate and title rival Nico Rosberg on Saturday.
The pole was Hamilton’s eighth in nine races and the 46th of his career for the championship leader, who took a home win at Silverstone last year and has a 10 point advantage over the German.
Brazilian Felipe Massa qualified a strong third for Williams, ahead of Finnish team mate Valtteri Bottas, with the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel lining up together on the third row.
Hamilton’s first flying lap in the final phase of qualifying proved good enough for pole, with Rosberg complaining afterwards that there was a problem with the left front wheel of his car.
“It’s a special day,” said the Briton, now third on the all-time list of pole-setters behind Michael Schumacher and the late Ayrton Senna.
Champions Mercedes have now taken 20 poles in a row, four short of Williams’ all-time record set in 1992-93.
“It’s special when you get the pole position here on your home turf and you see all those fans out there, so many people have come today,” added Hamilton, who has now been on pole three times in Britain.
“They really do motivate me,” he said of a crowd that exceeded 100,000 on Saturday and is expected to reach a record 140,000 on Sunday.
The 30-year-old saved the best for last, struggling on Friday when Rosberg was fastest. He was only fourth fastest in the opening phase of qualifying and third in the second with the German again ahead of him in both.
“It’s not been the smoothest of weekends, been a bit up and down in terms of setup and balance,” said the champion.
“Once we got to Q3 (the final phase) I could just go all out and get that lap in.”
Rosberg, winner of three of the last four races and on pole at Silverstone last year, was just 0.113 of a second slower than Hamilton’s best time of one minute 32.248 seconds.
“The last run, nobody or not many improved,” he said. “There was something wrong with my left front so I had big understeer — something very wrong,” he said.
Stewards warned drivers before qualifying that they would be keeping a close eye on those gaining an advantage by using the runoff and they deleted lap times set where the driver had exceeded the track limits.
Eleven of the 20 drivers fell foul of the stewards as a result, including Raikkonen and Vettel.
Honda-powered McLaren’s miserable season continued with Spain’s Fernando Alonso qualifying 17th and Jenson Button 18th in his home grand prix.
Despite that, Alonso said it was still the struggling team’s “best qualifying of the year”, given the gap to Ferrari of just 1.5 seconds on a fast and long track.
Source: Reuters
Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg has commented that “something was very wrong” during the Q3 part of qualifying at Silverstone. Autosport.com has the news story.
Nico Rosberg said he was beaten by team-mate Lewis Hamilton to pole position for the Formula 1 British Grand Prix because “something was very wrong” with his Mercedes.
The German lost out to Hamilton by just over a tenth of a second after neither driver improved on their second runs in the final part of qualifying.
While Rosberg conceded Hamilton had done a better job on their first flying laps he felt “big understeer” on his W06 hampered his own attempt at the end.
“The last run was something strange, nobody improved, or not many at least,” he said.
“There was something wrong with my left front – something was very wrong, we need to look into what it is.
“The first lap was really good, not much to say – Lewis was quicker, which is annoying, but [there is] not much you can do.
“Today it was all to play for in the second run. The chance was there because it was so close.”
Hamilton said clinching a third pole position for his home grand prix was a breakthrough after trailing his team-mate on Friday.
The Briton, who briefly thought he had lost out to Rosberg when he aborted his second flying lap in qualifying, said he was “incredibly happy” to be starting the race from first on the grid.
“It’s a special day, it’s always special when you get pole on your home turf,” he said. “It’s been a bit up and down so far this weekend in terms of set-up and going into qualifying I made a change to the car that was not spectacular for one lap in qualifying but should be good for the race.
“It made the races a lot harder last year to get past Nico to win – I did, but it was harder. So that [getting pole] was a focal point.
“The support has been incredible every year. You know so many people spend a fortune coming here, and they are there to support you.
“You want to make sure you put the icing on top of the cake.”
This was a difficult qualifying session for McLaren-Honda and the 2005/06 world champion expects more woe… Autosport.com has the details.
Fernando Alonso is not expecting McLaren-Honda’s fortunes to improve over the remaining three European weekends of this year’s Formula 1 calendar, after a disastrous British Grand Prix qualifying session.
An ERS issue in practice threatened Alonso’s participation in qualifying at Silverstone, and once he managed to make it out he could only manage 17th.
That was one place better than team-mate Jenson Button, as McLaren failed to get one car into Q2 for the first time since April’s Chinese Grand Prix.
“We struck the maximum, a couple of tenths in front of Jenson,” said Alonso. “I could not be much quicker than that.
“It’s going to be like this in Hungary; in Belgium it will be worse, in Monza it will be worse because of the power effect. It is the way it is at the moment.
“It sounds strange, but this is the best qualifying of the year for us. Being only 1.5 seconds off the leader [in Q1], on the new mediums as Ferrari had as well, and on the second longest circuit of the calendar.
“In total time we are closer to the top. It’s the best news, but we need to keep improving because obviously it’s not enough.”
Button, who was a quarter of a second slower than Alonso, admitted it was another “really tough day, especially in front of the home crowd”.
“Even though the public and the fans know our situation, you still always hope for more at your home grand prix, but it wasn’t our day,” said the Briton, who has never finished on the podium at Silverstone.
“It’s difficult for both of us, we’re both used to fighting for wins and being at the front, and it’s tough for everyone in the team.
“Us sticking together and developing together is really key. It’s a massive bonus for us all we have so much experience we can bring together.”
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen is keen to point out that the performance from the Scuderia is not falling back compared to their rivals. Autosport.com has the news story.
Kimi Raikkonen has dismissed suggestions Ferrari is falling back in Formula 1’s competitive order after being outperformed by Mercedes and Williams in British Grand Prix qualifying.
Ferrari lost out in the battle to be best of the rest behind Mercedes at Silverstone, with Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel ending up on the third row behind Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas.
When asked if Saturday’s performance showed Ferrari is losing ground, Raikkonen said: “I don’t think so – I don’t see that we are sliding back.
“Every race is different. We didn’t get exactly what we wanted today, but in these windy conditions we know it’s not easy for us.
“But it’s not like a disaster. There’s no point to talk about if we are sliding back.”
Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene hinted last time out in Austria that Pirelli’s tyre compound selection for Silverstone would hurt his team, and Raikkonen believes that is one of the factors behind its performance this weekend.
“It depends on the conditions, the circuit layout, and which tyres are used,” said the Finn.
“It wasn’t an ideal day for us but I don’t expect this to suddenly be the true story.
“It’s not something to worry about like it’s going to go on all year, but we can see that we have big work to do.”
Vettel accepted Ferrari does not appear to have enough pace this weekend, and he expects the Mercedes-powered Williams cars to be tough to battle with in the race.
“We were simply not quick enough,” he said. “We didn’t extract the best out of our car.
“We know it’s difficult to pass a Williams on track – they are very fast on the straights.
“We’ve had races where we were quicker but we’ve been desperate to pass.
“They are not the best cars to have in front, but hopefully we can have a good opening lap and turn it around.”
Raikkonen also played down the significance of defeating Vettel in a straight fight in qualifying for the first time this year.
“I’ve always said it doesn’t make me any happier – I don’t care if he’s in front of me when we are in these positions,” said Raikkonen.
“Yes, it makes a difference if you are P1 and P2, but it doesn’t make me happy to be in front of him in the positions we are.
“Maybe people look at it differently but it doesn’t matter.”
Formula 1 rookie Max Verstappen said he had no explanation as to why his high qualifying hopes for the British Grand Prix ended in a Q2 exit.
Following Toro Rosso’s race pace in Friday practice, Verstappen suggested the team were the second quickest behind all-conquering Mercedes.
The Dutch 17-year-old complained throughout Q1 and Q2 regarding the handling of his car and ended up only 13th, while Sainz qualified eighth.
“I could feel at the start of qualifying the car was not behaving like it should be,” said Verstappen.
“After the first two corners I had so much oversteer and wheelspin I destroyed the rear tyres. For the rest of the lap I had no rear tyres left.
“It was very strange. I can’t really given an explanation as to what went wrong – oversteer, a lot of traction problems compared to P3 and the other practices.
“Something definitely was not right there. Normally you always improve, so we really have to analyse what went wrong because we don’t want this in the race.”
Verstappen has suggested a change of floor between P3 and qualifying may be to blame, but feels he should not have lost as much time as he did.
“We had a little bit of damage in P3, so we had to change the floor and maybe something went wrong there,” added Verstappen.
“We were expecting seventh and eighth, so to be 13th is a bit strange.
“Despite that I’m still confident for the race. If we have some good first laps and the race pace is good then maybe we can overtake a few others.”
Spaniard Sainz’s qualifying was in stark contrast to that of Verstappen, with the 2014 Formula Renault 3.5 champion delighted to end up eighth.
“You may be a bit surprised after seeing us P5 and P6 (in FP3), but I will say ‘sorry, I could do no more’,” he said. “We extracted the maximum.
“If you see Ferrari as a reference, then to be a tenth off of [Sebastian] Vettel, that for us is something big bearing in mind the power deficit.”
Source: Autosport.com
This was a great qualifying session for Williams with P3 and P4 for Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas respectively. Rob Smedley admitted it was quite a surprise to see the performance gap over Ferrari. Autosport.com has the story.
Williams performance chief Rob Smedley said he was surprised by how much Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas outperformed Ferrari in British Grand Prix qualifying.
Massa was third quickest, with Bottas fourth, as the Brazilian finished 0.837s seconds behind pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton but three tenths ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in fifth.
“I said pre-weekend that this is a circuit that would suit our car with all the high-speed sections,” said Smedley.
“So we knew if we did all the numbers and all the modelling, it looked like we would have a reasonable chance against Ferrari.
“I’m pleasantly surprised about the size of the gap. They didn’t seem to pick up anything through qualifying.
“They got that first qualifying run in and then were pretty much stable from there on in.
“Whether or not they used all the power unit energy or availability in first qualifying I don’t know.
“But we have a plan for going through qualifying and for making sure we were putting ourselves in the best position for Q3 and we worked through that.”
Bottas and Massa admitted there was plenty of work to do after Friday practice, with getting the tyre temperatures into the range on one lap a particular problem.
“I think it is fair to say we weren’t stunning, ever by our standards on a Friday,” added Smedley.
“We never top timesheets on Friday as it is all about doing our homework correctly and making sure we get through the test programme.
“But last night, I sat down with the guys to try and ascertain how much we are looking for and the areas we are actually looking to improve.
“We knew we weren’t particularly strong in managing the tyres and the cars weren’t comfortable for the guys to drive either.
“We went through things corner-by-corner and it was clear we had a huge amount potential left on table and the single lap time didn’t look very good.
“So we went about attacking both areas – the tyre management and putting the corners together and I think you’ve seen today that we got both those things spot on.”