Lewis Hamilton overcame the challenge from both Ferrari drivers to claim a dramatic pole position for the British Grand Prix in front of his home crowd.
In a thrilling battle for pole, mere hundredths of a second split the Mercedes driver and championship rival Sebastian Vettel in Q3 with the German claiming the initial advantage after the first runs.
On his second flying lap, however, the man from Stevenage found just enough to move ahead by 0.044s, a margin he would keep as Vettel failed to improve.
The action wasn’t over though, as Kimi Raikkonen went fastest of all in the first sector but Hamilton’s strength in the middle sector proved decisive as despite also setting the best final sector, the Finn fell 0.098s shy in third.
Valtteri Bottas pointed to a poor final sector as the reason for his three-tenths deficit in fourth, although a great lap from Max Verstappen would still see the Dutchman four-tenths slower in fifth.
Daniel Ricciardo lost DRS on the Wellington Straight during his first lap in Q3 yet still wouldn’t improve on his second effort leaving the second Red Bull driver a further four-tenths back in sixth.
The majority of the lead midfield places went to Ferrari-powered cars as Haas secured the ‘best of the rest’ position for the second straight weekend with Kevin Magnussen in seventh and Romain Grosjean eighth.
Charles Leclerc made his second Q3 appearance in three races for Sauber in ninth as Esteban Ocon broke a run of 11th place starts and completed the top 10 in the Mercedes-powered Force India.
The Frenchman’s effort in Q2 to make the final part of qualifying was his fastest lap of the session, just pipping Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez, who were both within a tenth, and dropping them to P11 and P12 respectively.
Fernando Alonso once again extracted the most from his McLaren in 13th, finishing eight-tenths ahead of teammate Stoffel Vandoorne in 17th as the Belgian described his car an “undrivable”.
Pierre Gasly was a little nervy on his first laps in qualifying following the scary suspension failure for Brendon Hartley in the sister Toro Rosso in final practice.
The New Zealander wouldn’t be able to take part in the session and the FIA requested all parts be changed on Gasly’s car before he could go out, however, the Frenchman would do well in the circumstances in P14.
Marcus Ericsson made Q2 in the second Sauber but could do no better than 15th, still, it was enough to dump Carlos Sainz out of Q1 in 16th in the second Renault.
Williams endured a miserable session with Lance Stroll crashing out at Brooklands in the opening minutes, causing a red flag, and then Sergey Sirotkin would survive a spin at Stowe emerging from the gravel trap.
The Russian also survived an investigation by the stewards for failing to immediately pit when the red flag was shown but still, the British team will have their cars start 18th and 19th with Hartley bringing up the field.
Full results from qualifying can be seen below:
