Hamilton pips Antonelli to British GP sprint pole

The home favourite topped every part of sprint qualifying, storming to his third career sprint pole position and his first since China last year with a time 1m28.376s.

Antonelli claimed his fourth consecutive sprint front row start, having looked likely to take top spot before Hamilton’s superb last lap stole it away from the championship leader.

Max Verstappen took third, edging the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc by just six thousandths of a second.

George Russell was a further three hundredths back in fifth, ahead of the McLaren pair of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, with the top seven covered by less than four tenths of a second.

Norris nursed a car issue for much of sprint qualifying after losing a piece of his front brake duct in SQ1, with his team working feverishly between SQ2 and SQ3 before managing to get him out in time to set a lap in the final part of the session.

Isack Hadjar was eighth, ahead of the impressive Racing Bulls duo of Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad, who continued their strong form to be the best of the rest behind the four main teams.

Up front, Hamilton said he was surprised to have qualified on pole given the power advantage of Mercedes and Red Bull.

“We’re ahead of Mercedes. These guys, and the Red Bulls, they have so much power,” he said.

“They’ve been doing amazing all year. But my team just won’t let up. They keep pushing. And that’s what I’m so proud of.

“It won’t always be like this, but we didn’t expect coming to Silverstone that we would be competing for the front row. We really, really didn’t.

“So this is an amazing surprise. I’m ecstatic.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

He added that he believed Ferrari’s race pace was good after FP1 earlier in the day, but expected a tough sprint race.

“I think our pace was good. We did a short sort of longish run in P1. It was not a lot of time. But the car felt good there,” he said.

“I mean, starting from the front row, I don’t remember the last time I started from the front row here.

“Not so easy when you got these guys that can follow you and be close with the extra power potentially. But I’ll do my best to keep them behind.”

In SQ2, Hamilton again set the fastest time ahead of Antonelli, while Lawson impressed by finishing fourth.

Norris, however, was lucky to make it into SQ3, with the reigning world champion scraping through by eight hundredths of a second ahead of Pierre Gasly in 11th as the earlier damage from SQ1 hampered his performance.

Gasly was joined in the drop zone by the Audi duo of Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg, as well as Alpine teammate Franco Colapinto and the Williams pair of Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon.

Hamilton topped SQ1 from Leclerc by just a tenth of a second, while Albon snuck into SQ2 at the death, knocking home favourite Oliver Bearman into the drop zone with the final lap of the session.

Bearman’s time was just one hundredth of a second slower than Sainz in 16th, with both Williams drivers only just sneaking into the second part of sprint qualifying.

Three teams found themselves eliminated in the opening part of sprint qualifying, with Bearman’s Haas teammate Esteban Ocon joining him in the drop zone alongside both Cadillacs of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas and the Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.

The British Grand Prix Sprint gets underway at 12pm local time on Saturday (9pm AEST).

Results: Formula 1 British Grand Prix, Sprint Qualifying