F1 British GP: Carlos Sainz secures maiden pole position

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, in his 150th Grand Prix start, finally secured his maiden pole position in a wet qualifying session ahead of the British Grand Prix.

Q1

10 minutes prior to the session going green, the rain began to fall. As a result, the drivers quickly bolted out into the pit lane on the green-ringed intermediate tyres as the field expected the track condition to get worse. Williams’ Nicholas Latifi headed the queue as the pit exit light went green.

As the field trundled around the track, only the two Alpine drivers: Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, were still sat in their garages.

Naturally Latifi set the first time with a 1:52.555 but it wasn’t long before a Ferrari driver went to the top of the timings with a 1:47.521, quickly followed his teammate by Carlos Sainz. Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton soon split the two Ferrari’s but Red Bull’s Max Verstappen soon went to the top of the table. But this was short-lived as Leclerc improved his time and went fastest with a 1:43.028.

Before the session reached its eight minute mark, Both Alonso and Ocon finally ventured out onto the track.

As the track condition started to get better, and a drier line started to form, Mercedes’ George Russell went to the top of the timing board but he was soon dethroned by Verstappen who went a second quicker with a 1:40.452.

Eliminated:

20. Lance Stroll, Aston Martin

19. Mick Schumacher, Haas

18. Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin

17. Kevin Magnussen, Haas

16. Alexander Albon, Williams

Q2

Latifi was once again the first driver to wait at the pit exit for the light to go green. In a similar fashion to Q1, the heavy hitters remained in their garages as the midfield drivers returned out to the track.

After the first set of runs, Verstappen returned to the top of the timing board with the quickest lap (1:41.486), just over a second quicker than his teammate Sergio Perez.

But as the rain continued to fall, after a slight lull in the weather, the track times started to reach their limit on the Inters as Verstappen improved his time by eight-tenths.

Due to the conditions, Hamilton, Russell, Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri) and Yuki Tsundoa (Alpha Tauri) returned to the pit lane. However, both Alpha Tauri drivers soon returned back out onto the soaked British track.

McLaren’s Lando Norris, who was in a position to safely progress into Q3, reported over his respective team radio that he had started to aquaplane across the track. The poor track conditions was soon evident by Ocon, who looked to try and obtain a place in Q3, but his car squirmed on the exit of turn five as he tried to get his accelerator down the Wellington Straight.

Eliminated

15. Esteban Ocon, Alpine

14. Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren

13. Yuki Tsunoda, Alpha Tauri

12. Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo

11. Pierre Gasly, Alpha Tauri

Q3

The rain seemed to stop as the session moved into Q3. As a result, both Ferrari’s lined up at the pit exit – headed by Sainz, ahead of Leclerc, on the inters. Despite the fact no one could improve their lap times at the end of Q2, all of the remaining 10 drivers ventured back out onto the Silverstone circuit with the intermediates.

However, over Ferrari team radio, Sainz’s race engineer reported there was a possibility for a brief shower at the end of the session.

As the defending world champion came around Stowe, turn 15, the RB18 couldn’t deal with the demand of acceleration out of the corner and the #1 Red Bull found himself in a spin. Fortunately, the reigning world champion was able to regain control of his car before it ended up in a barrier.

However, after the first set of runs, Verstappen found himself with the second slowest time, ahead of Hamilton. While Latifi was yet to set a lap time. It wasn’t long before the defending world champion jumped to the top of the timing board with a quick 1:42.996 lap.

However, after he put in a blistering lap, Sainz managed to top the timing board with a 1:40.983 to secure his first ever pole position.

Top 10

10. Nicholas Latifi, Williams

9. Guanyu Zhou, Alfa Romeo

8. George Russell, Mercedes

7. Fernando Alonso, Alpine

6. Lando Norris, McLaren

5. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

4. Sergio Perez, Red Bull

3. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

2. Max Verstappen, Red Bull

1. Carlos Sainz, Ferrari

That’s it for the article: ! With the grid set, who do you think will win tomorrow’s race? Let us know in the comments!

Read more Formula 1 here!

• F1 British GP: Max Verstappen tops final practice ahead of qualifying
• F1 British GP: Carlos Sainz goes fastest in dry FP2
• F1 British GP: Valtteri Bottas tops wet practice session
• Nelson Piquet apologises for ‘ill thought out’ comment

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