Hamilton grabs pole at Silverstone

Lewis Hamilton dominated in the qualifying session for the Formula 1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone Circuit and for the sixth time, this year won the pole position. Again, it was a battle of two Mercedes’ in which the Briton proved to be faster.

Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson missed qualifying after the bad accident he had during free practice and underwent medicals in the hospital. Luckily, the Swede driver was unhurt and will start the race on Sunday.

Ericsson crashed during practice at Silverstone

His teammate Felipe Nasr failed to qualify for Q2, just as Manor’s pair of Rio Haryanto and Pascal Wehrlein. What was very disappointing for the local crowd was the fact that two British racers failed to go through Q1 – Jolyon Palmer again finished the day in the first round, just as former champion Jenson Button in McLaren. Nico Rosberg was the fastest in the first round with a lap time 1:30.724, only 0.015s ahead of his teammate Hamilton.

Nico Rosberg, Mercedes

Mercedes’ was even more dominant in the second qualifying round but this time, Hamilton was the one who set the best lap time – 1:29.243 Rosberg was 0.727s behind while Kevin Magnussen, Daniil Kvyat, Esteban Gutierrez, Romain Grosjean, Felipe Massa and, surprisingly, Sergio Perez, were eliminated from the last round.

Hamilton led during Q3 but his result was annulled with four minutes to go because of exceeding track limits. The reigning champion managed to set another best time in the final lap and take pole position. Nico Rosberg will start from the second position while a pair of Red Bull’s will start from row 2 – Max Verstappen from third and Daniel Ricciardo from the fourth position.

Fernando Alonso, Silverstone

Kimi Raikkonen in Ferrari will start from fifth place while Sebastian Vettel has dropped five places down and will start from the 11th position because of the gearbox change.