Hamilton survives Q3 scare to claim home pole

Lewis Hamilton will line up on pole position for Sunday’s British Grand Prix, after the Mercedes driver set the fastest mark in qualifying on home soil at Silverstone.

It was not plain sailing for the triple world champion, who saw his first time in Q3 being deleted for exceeding track limits at Copse.

This gave Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg provisional pole but Hamilton recovered to clock a 1:29.287, which is nearly three seconds faster than his 2015 benchmark of 1:32.248.

Team-mate Nico Rosberg slotted into second 0.319s adrift, as Mercedes extended its free practice dominance into Saturday afternoon.

Red Bull again was its nearest rival, albeit over one second off Hamilton’s pace, with Max Verstappen outqualifying Daniel Ricciardo for the first time since being promoted to the team ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.

Ferrari had a messy session with mistakes from both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn span and ran wide in Q2 but still managed to advance through the final part of qualifying where he logged the fifth fastest time. His German team-mate, who is set to serve a five-place grid penalty for taking a new gearbox, finished sixth, ahead of Valtteri Bottas in the lead Williams.

Carlos Sainz starred again in the Toro Rosso with the Spaniard hoisting his STR11 up to P8 in Q3. Nico Hulkenberg was the only Force India driver involved in the final part of qualifying, with the former Le Mans winner securing ninth. Fernando Alonso hooked up a beautiful lap in Q2 to make it one McLaren-Honda into the final 12 minutes of action at Silverstone.

Sergio Perez narrowly missed out on making the cut for the pole position shootout, lapping a tenth slower than his Force India team-mate in Q2. The Mexican headed Williams’ Felipe Massa and the two Haas of Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez. Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat could only manage the 15th fastest mark, six tenths adrift of Sainz’ Q2 mark, but the Russian was fuming for being impeded by Kevin Magnussen on his final flyer.

The Dane made it one Renault in the middle segment of qualifying but his sole Q2 attempt left him nearly eight second off the pace.

Jenson Button was the highest profile driver knocked out of Q1, with the 2009 world champion sat in the McLaren-Honda as Magnussen bumped him into the drop zone for a mere 0.059s.

Fellow Brit and Renault rookie Jolyon Palmer also failed advance to Q2 for his maiden grand prix appearance at Silverstone. After scoring his first ever championship point in Austria, Pascal Wehrlein saw Manor team-mate Rio Haryanto draw level in their qualifying battle. The Indonesian was 0.053 faster to make it 5-5 on Saturdays so far this season between the two rookies.

Following his heavy crash in FP3, Marcus Ericsson was sent to the hospital and could not take part in qualifying, which rendered his five-place grid for his C35 needing a new gearbox moot. The surviving Sauber of Felipe Nasr finished 21st and last amongst the drivers in action this afternoon. The Brazilian sophomore was nearly 0.4s off Wehrlein ahead of him.

AS IT HAPPENED: Qualifying for the British Grand Prix

FEATURE: Home sweet Home – Eric Silbermann on Silverstone

Chris Medland’s 2016 British Grand Prix preview

Romain Grosjean on predicting race results and collisions between team mates, in his latest column for F1i

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Pos Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3

01
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
1:30.739
1:29.243
1:29.287

02
Nico Rosberg
Mercedes
1:30.724
1:29.970
1:29.606

03
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
1:31.305
1:30.697
1:30.313

04
Daniel Ricciardo
Red Bull
1:31.684
1:31.319
1:30.618

05
Kimi Raikkonen
Ferrari
1:31.326
1:31.385
1:30.881

06
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
1:31.606
1:30.711
1:31.490

07
Valtteri Bottas
Williams
1:31.913
1:31.478
1:31.557

08
Nico Hulkenberg
Force India
1:32.349
1:37.770
1:31.920

09
Carlos Sainz
Toro Rosso
1:32.115
1:31.708
1:31.989

10
Fernando Alonso
McLaren
1:32.281
1:31.740
1:32.343

11
Sergio Perez
Force India
1:32.336
1:31.875

12
Felipe Massa
Williams
1:32.146
1:32.002

13
Romain Grosjean
Haas
1:32.283
1:32.050

14
Esteban Gutierrez
Haas
1:32.237
1:32.241

15
Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso
1:32.553
1:32.306

16
Kevin Magnussen
Renault
1:32.729
1:37.060

17
Jenson Button
McLaren
1:32.788

18
Jolyon Palmer
Renault
1:32.905

19
Rio Haryanto
Manor
1:33.098

20
Pascal Wehrlein
Manor
1:33.151

21
Felipe Nasr
Sauber
1:33.544

22
Marcus Ericsson
Sauber