Lewis Hamilton charges to seventh F1 British GP pole

Lewis Hamilton took his seventh British Grand Prix pole position at Silverstone, three-tenths clear of Mercedes Formula 1 teammate Valtteri Bottas.

Hamilton recovered from a rare mistake in Q2 to turn the tables on Bottas, who had been quicker in the opening two sessions of qualifying.

The six-times world champion posted two laps which would have been good enough for pole, but claimed his third consecutive pole – and the 91st of his career - with a 1m24.303 to end Q3 0.313s clear of Bottas.

It was a dominant display by Mercedes, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen a full second off the pace in third place.

Charles Leclerc took an improved fourth for Ferrari, while Briton’s Lando Norris sealed a top five starting position for his home race in his McLaren.

Racing Point’s Lance Stroll was sixth-fastest as he split the McLaren duo, with Carlos Sainz just a tenth quicker of the Renault pair headed by Daniel Ricciardo.

Sebastian Vettel’s difficult weekend continued as he failed to match the pace of his Ferrari teammate and could only post the 10th-best time, a whopping two seconds off Hamilton’s pole time.

Despite setting an identical time to Stroll, Pierre Gasly only missed out on a spot in Q3 due to the Racing Point driver being the first to complete his lap.

Red Bull’s Alex Albon was the surprise elimination in Q2 after he could only manage the 12th-fastest time, with a scruffy middle sector proving costly on his last flying lap.

The Anglo-Thai racer outpaced the returning Nico Hulkenberg, who was unable to make it two Racing Point cars inside the top 10. Daniil Kvyat posted the 14th-quickest time but is carrying a grid penalty for a gearbox change and will subsequently drop five positions for Sunday’s race.

George Russell continued his fine Saturday form to register his third consecutive Q2 appearance in P15, but the Williams driver is at risk of picking up a penalty for failing to slow sufficiently under yellow flags in the first part of qualifying.

Kevin Magnussen put his Haas car 16th, ahead of the Alfa Romeo duo headed by Antonio Giovinazzi, who outpaced teammate Kimi Raikkonen by two-tenths.

Romain Grosjean was half a second down on Haas teammate Magnussen in 19th, while Nicholas Latifi will start his first British Grand Prix from the very back of the grid after a spin on his final flying effort prevented him from improving further.

FULL RESULTS FROM QUALIFYING FOR THE 2020 F1 BRITISH GRAND PRIX.