Hamilton takes pole at Silverstone

For the third time in his career, Lewis Hamilton will start on pole position at his home Grand Prix. A fairly straightforward qualifying session from Silverstone saw the Briton beat team mate Nico Rosberg by just over a tenth of a second to claim his 8th pole of the season as Lewis looks to end Nico’s good luck streak.

Behind the usual all Mercedes front row, Williams put in an excellent performance to claim third and fourth on the grid. Felipe Massa edged out team mate Valtteri Bottas by mere hundredths of a second, but the three tenths gap back to Ferrari is what the Grove based squad will surely revel in.

Kimi Raikkonen did his best to silence the critics by leading the Ferrari charge, out qualifying Sebastian Vettel by two tenths to make an all Ferrari third row. Vettel for his part complained of being held up by Massa, but the stewards saw no merit in the complaint. Pressure will be on for Raikkonen to put in a strong performance tomorrow and both Ferrari drivers should be in the podium hunt.

Red Bull despite making lots of noise about moving up the grid could only manage seventh with Kyvat and 10th with Ricciardo. The Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz and the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg sandwiched between them on the grid.

Max Verstappen had an off day, nearly a second behind his team mate, the young Toro Rosso driver will start tomorrow’s race in 13th position, back amongst the disappointed Lotus drivers and the Saubers.

McLaren and Manor as usual bring up the rear of the grid. Alonso managed to put a strong lap in just under 1:35. Merhi came in dead last some five seconds off Hamilton’s top time.