George Russell scored an incredible pole position at his home Grand Prix ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris. Max Verstappen was only fourth.
Q1
As uncertain weather was the undisputed protagonist of the weekend, as it usually is at Silverstone, the first part of qualifying got underway with no rain but a slightly damped track.
The first drivers went out with intermediate tires. Max Verstappen was the fastest, ahead of Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton. With ten minutes to go, a few teams decided to switch to slick tires, namely Charles Leclerc and Valtteri Bottas.
The conditions were extremely tricky, and Sergio Perez, who had just fitted the soft tires, finished in the gravel during his out lap. He tried to rejoin the track, but he could not do so, meanwhile, the session was red-flagged.
Everybody queued up in the pit lane as rain was expected in less than five minutes after the green flag. A few drivers managed to set the lap with dry conditions, but at the end of the session, the rain came again, and due to that, Verstappen almost crashed the same way as Perez did.
Despite the tricky conditions, the slick tires were still good enough to improve the lap times. After a chaotic end to Q1, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished in P1 and P2. Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were third and fourth, Zhou Guanyu also did a great job as he qualified in P8. The only driver of a top team that was eliminated was Perez.
Valtteri Bottas (P16), Kevin Magnussen, Esteban Ocon, Perez, and Pierre Gasly were the drivers who didn’t make the cut.
Q2
Verstappen had some damage to his floor after he heavily went on the gravel in Q1, but he could still drive. Norris was the fastest driver after the first attempt, ahead of Sainz and Piastri.
Verstappen was only in P6, showing that maybe the damaged floor could prove to be an issue for him in qualifying. The track was becoming faster and faster as time passed, so everybody was improving.
Norris went first-fastest, ahead of Russell and Fernando Alonso. The real plot twist was Leclerc, who got eliminated and qualified in P11. With him, Logan Sargeant, Yuki Tsunoda, Guanyu Zhou, and Daniel Ricciardo were also eliminated in Q2.
Q3
The fastest driver of the first attempt was Russell, who was just 0.006s ahead of Norris. Hamilton was third, with Piastri fourth. Verstappen was only fifth, and Nico Hülkenberg was ahead of Sainz in an incredible P6.
In the end, Russell remained the fastest driver. Hamilton was second, and Norris third. Verstappen was only fourth, with Piastri, Nico Hülkenberg, Carlos Sainz, Lance Stroll, Alexander Albon, and Fernando Alonso behind.