Brendan Lines 2nd July, 2020 70:00am

Lewis Hamilton has scored his 91st pole position of his F1 career – his third of 2020 and seventh at the British Grand Prix ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton’s scintillating pole lap of 1:24.303s is a new Formula One track record at Silverstone.

Hamilton continues to break records with every stride in 2020, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing in quali for the Brit at his home Grand Prix.
“This feeling never gets old, that’s for sure! We made some changes to the car going into Qualifying and it felt worse, so it was a real struggle out there in the first two sessions.” Hamilton said.

“At this track, there can be a headwind, tailwind and crosswind all at different parts of the circuit, so it’s like juggling balls whilst you are on a moving plate,

“Qualifying is a lot about building confidence and after that spin in Q2, I had to take some deep breaths, compose myself and mentally reset – especially knowing Valtteri was putting in fast lap after fast lap,

“Q3 started off well, the first lap was nice and clean, but the second one was even better.

“Hamilton’s off came at Luffield after a rare mistake picking up the throttle swung out his W11’s back end pulling out gravel and the red-flags in Q2.

Bottas was hot favourite to come out and pip Hamilton for the pole having topped the times sheets in Q1 and Q2 — the flying Fin Bottas would have to settle for P2 with a lap of 1:24.616s.

“It’s disappointing to be second but the reality is that Lewis found more time in Q3, I just couldn’t quite catch him. He did a really good job today,” Bottas said after quali.

“But tomorrow is what counts and I think my long-run performance has been really good this weekend. I believe there will be opportunities, and everything is still wide open, so I’m looking forward to it.”

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took P3, but strangely the Dutchman’s time of 1:25.325s is actually slower than his Q3 time in 2019.

The same is for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who made the most out of the low-downforce setup on his SF1000 slotting into P4 with a lap of 1:25.427s, some 0.7s off the Mercs.

Leclerc’s teammate Sebastian Vettel’s miserable weekend continued rounding out the top ten, but starting the race on the more durable Medium tyre could turn the fortunes of the unlucky German.

The McLaren’s were hard to split, drivers Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz at one point posted identical lap times, but in the end Norris became the second Brit in the top ten securing P5 (1:25.782s) and Sainz settled for P7 (1:25.965s).

Lance Stroll didn’t quite capitalise on his FP2 pace, managing to squeeze between the McLaren’s in just P6 (1:25.839s).
An initial run on scrubbed Soft tyres put Esteban Ocon P9 and Daniel in P10.

But the Aussie Ricciardo, found a decent improvement with new tyres on his soft-shod Renault to leapfrog Esteban into P8, with the Frenchman settling for P9 at the chequered flag.

Knocked out of Q2: Gasly P11, Albon P12, Hülkenberg P13, Kyvat P14, Russell P15

It was another disappointing Saturday for Red Bull’s Alex Albon, who despite being just four tenths slower than Verstappen, P12 was all he could manage.

But the big news out of Q2 is George Russell has been served a 5-place grid penalty for Sunday, after failing to slow under yellow flags brought out as a result of teammate Nicholas Latifi spinning out.

A gearbox change for Daniil Kyvat will mean his Alpha Tauri will drop to P19 after serving his penalty from Friday.

Knocked out Q1: Magnussen P16, Giovinazzi P17, Räikkönen P18, Grosjean P19, Latifi P20

No surprise the under performing Ferrari power units in the Alfa and Haas cars has again been the bogey for both teams who make up the back rows ahead of Williams’ Nicholas Latifi.

The British Grand Prix starts 10.40PM ACST tonight.