Lewis Hamilton set the fastest ever lap around Silverstone to beat Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas to pole position at the British Grand Prix. Hamilton, faster on both runs in the final session, was 0.313 seconds clear of Bottas while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen pipped Charles Leclerc’s improved Ferrari to third. The Mercedes cars were expected to fly around the high-speed Silverstone sweeps and so it proved, with Hamilton ending qualifying 1.022secs quicker than Verstappen. Hamilton said: “There is a relatively big gap between us and third place but it doesn’t matter. Hamilton said he had missed the 100,000-plus fans who would normally flock to Silverstone for this weekend but said: “Hopefully back home they enjoyed it today.”. Verstappen said that there was no way of challenging the Mercedes, but Red Bull will be just as concerned that while Hamilton’s time was 0.7secs quicker than Bottas’ pole from last year, Verstappen himself was a fraction slower than he was in 2019. “Very early in qualifying there were just way too fast,” he said. Verstappen had to fight to beat Leclerc, in Ferrari’s best qualifying performance of the year.

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