“That’s right Max, he always ruins everything for others,” Lando Norris complained with an ironic smile, who was left without the pole at home, which would have been the first of the course, by a sigh of 241 thousandths. Max, that is to say, Verstappen, the insatiable two-time champion, frustrated his privileged starting position at the British Grand Prix in a last lap in which he had to squeeze his speed to maintain his hegemony on Saturdays: it is his seventh pole position ( out of 10 possible), the fifth in a row.
The Spaniards were discreet in the Silverstone classification: Carlos Sainz, who had them on the radio with Ferrari and his partner for having to give him priority, signed fifth place, and Fernando Alonso, ninth, his worst starting position this season (as in Barcelona), because his Aston Martin “suffers a bit on the circuits with fast corners”.
Like a week ago in the Sprint race in Austria, Saturday at Silverstone was marked by the effects of rain. Five drivers (Leclerc, Sainz, Sargeant, Magnussen and Hulkenberg) went into qualifying on intermediate tires, seeing that the track was still wet. But the two Ferraris changed them on the first lap for those with soft slicks.
The uncertainty of the water and the improvement of the track enlivened Q1. Hamilton was the first to suffer the consequences of the wet asphalt with a spin at Stowes.
Verstappen did not flinch and set the first reference time before the rain that the radar announced began to fall.
But in these mixed conditions Alonso squeezed his driving and snatched the best time from the Dutchman with a superb lap a second and a half faster. Russell loomed up, but the Spaniard from Aston Martin returned to crush the time, separating the Mercedes by 6 tenths.
The rain came timidly and Verstappen accelerated towards provisional pole position with the best time, 11 thousandths faster than the Spaniard. There was a rush to secure the pass to Q2.
A red flag with 3m11s to go as Magnussen’s Haas stopped at the pit-lane entrance added more excitement: everyone put on new soft tires for a single lap of the sprint.
The nerves and rush visited the Red Bull garage when Verstappen broke the front wing for slipping when leaving the box and crashing against the curb of the pit-lane. A silly incident that left the Dutchman the penultimate in the caravan to access the track. The Red Bull man entered with only 1m45s on the clock and had to hurry so as not to run out of time.
Norris led the express classification by one lap, with Leclerc second, Verstappen was 5th, Sainz 12th and Alonso narrowly came in 15th, by just one hundredth of a second over Checo Pérez, 16th, outside the top 10 for the fifth time in a row. Drama for the Mexican, increasingly questioned at Red Bull.
The rush and the tension to pass left another episode of rivalry between Leclerc and Sainz. The Monegasque used irony to make an overtaking of the Madrid player ugly to win the position. “Nice, Carlos, nice, good overtaking in the last corner,” Charles told him over the radio.
In Q2, with no rain now, the track gradually improved and the times dropped with each lap. A circumstance that offered a good entertainment with six changes of provisional poleman in the 12 minutes of the sleeve.
An impetuous Verstappen ended up pointing the best turn, ahead of the two surprising McLarens; Sainz was fifth and Alonso, seventh. Stroll did not go to Q3, 12th.
In the moment of truth, the duel between the 10 fastest, Verstappen took out his hammer to crush the clock. On the first try he dropped his closest pursuer, Hamilton, to six tenths of a world. Equality was manifested in a compressed table with five riders within a tenth of a difference, from 2nd to 6th (Alonso).
The emotion shot up in the second attempt when Norris achieved provisional pole position, being the only one capable of lowering Verstappen’s time. But the Dutchman did not throw in the towel and on his lap he overtook the Englishman from McLaren by 240 thousandths to secure his seventh pole of the season, the fifth in a row.
The Spanish did not fare too well. Alonso set the fifth fastest provisional time, but the rivals lowered him to 9th place, and Sainz, who came to third, was relegated to fifth (last year he took pole and achieved his first F1 victory).
