Antonelli beats Ferrari duo to Silverstone pole position
Kimi Antonelli just went on after winning today's Sprint Race to beat everyone for tomorrow's pole position. Antonelli's qualifying was flawless, finding improvements where he needed to, thereby keeping Ferrari duo Leclerc and Hamilton at bay.
Qualifying got underway quickly with most cars out there early on. The Ferrari duo soon emerged on top of the timesheet again, followed by Antonelli as he demoted Lindblad for third. Halfway into the session Hulkenberg slotted into fourth, topping Norris, Verstappen, Hadjar and Piastri.
Meanwhile there was trouble for Russell as he strangely slid off the track at Luffield, understeering badly and locking the inside front wheel. He stopped a fraction after breaking his front wing to the tyre barrier and luckily for him he could reverse out of it and return back to the pits to get a new front wing and some new tyres. Toto Wolff's raising eyebrow reaction was similar to Russell's, who noted "That was very weird, I've never locked up there in my entire career".
In any case, the Mercedes mechanics quickly turned things around and sent Russell back out with 5 minutes remaining. The clean lap he was subsequently able to do was good for 5th, mainly due to a below average first sector.
Two minutes from the end both Red Bulls improved their earlier times, good enough for Hadjar to go fastest. Lawson later also moved up into second while Colapinto spun off in Becketts, flying and sliding over the grass after losing the rear before safely pointing his car back in the right direction to return to the pits.
That was elimination for the Alpine driver, along with Ocon, the two Cadillacs and the two Aston Martins.
Q2 similarly saw immediate action on track, this time with Verstappen setting one of the first laps. Again, Hadjar proved a tenth faster than him, but the duo were quickly demoted further down by the Ferrari duo. Russell later slotted in between the Ferraris and so did Antonelli past halfway the session, taking third ahead of Leclerc.
Everybody went out for a second run towards the end of the session, shaking up the order again with Antonelli then going fastest ahead of Leclerc as he demoted Hamilton from top spot. Hadjar and Verstappen both improved too, but maintained 5th and 6th while Verstappen continued to complain of engine issues.
Piastri pointed to a lack of grip earlier in the session but still ended Q2 in 7th, 2 tenths up on his teammate. The McLarens got through to Q3 together with the Racing Bulls, leaving out Bortoleto, Gasly, Hulkenberg, Bearman, Sainz and Albon.
That of course left 10 cars remaining to fight for pole position for the British Grand Prix. The McLaren duo were up first with both clearly not enjoyed the amount of rear grip they would like. The Red Bulls both proved faster moments later, again with Hadjar beating Verstappen, this time by 4 tenths.
The Ferraris who came after that were faster still with Leclerc out first but Hamilton marginally faster around the lap. Russell beat Hamilton's time 30 seconds later but it was eventually Antonelli who emerged on top.
Lawson and Lindblad meanwhile opted to sit out the early outings, instead gambling on a single flying lap late in the session.
As cars went out for the second lap, Antonelli soon found out he was first, much to his displeasure. Still, nothing much to be about it, so he went on with it, up on his first lap in all three sectors, resulting in a 0.274 second improvement.
Russell couldn't do much about it but Charles Leclerc found an improvement and moved up to second place, followed by Hamilton who shoved Russell down another spot.
Hadjar failed to improve but maintained 5th while Norris got 6th, demoting Verstappen to 7th. Piastri was 8th, Lindblad 9th and Lawson 10th.
A perfect day for Antonelli, who after winning the Sprint Race earlier today, was now fastest to secure the best possible spot to start Sunday's Grand Prix.
