Hamilton holds off Antonelli for Silverstone Sprint pole

Lewis Hamilton delighted his home crowd with pole position for the Sprint at the British Grand Prix, as he beat Kimi Antonelli by just 0.011s.

The seven-time world champion had downplayed Ferrari’s chances arriving at Silverstone but topped FP1 and then continued that momentum through all three sections of Sprint qualifying. The gap was steadily reducing as each session went on, but Hamilton produced the lap he needed right at the end to post a 1m28.376s.

Mercedes' Antonelli had been Hamilton’s closest challenge in SQ2 and put down the benchmark shortly before the Ferrari driver, and will line up on the front row as part of an enticing grid for the Sprint race.

That’s in part due to Max Verstappen edging out Charles Leclerc to third place, with just 0.006s between the two on the second row. Verstappen was over 0.3s off the top two, but is well placed to challenge in the shorter race on Saturday.

George Russell had to settle for fifth in his Mercedes ahead of the McLaren pair of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, but in truth it could have been any one of the five starting third, as Verstappen down to Piastri was covered by just 0.075s.

It was only a further 0.063s back to Isack Hadjar in eighth, while Racing Bulls’ strong form continued as Liam Lawson was within 0.1s of Hadjar in ninth – just over half as second off Hamilton – and Arvid Lindblad secured a top-10 starting position for the Sprint at his home race.

Norris goes from sixth but had only managed to squeeze through to the final part of Sprint qualifying by a 10th place in SQ2, with Pierre Gasly within 0.1s from eliminating the defending champion. It had been Russell who was sitting 10th prior to starting his final lap, having to respond to the impressive Racing Bulls pace.

The Audis were the only two that still had to complete laps with Norris having dropped to the edge of the cut line, but fell around 0.3s short, while Franco Colapinto was half a second off teammate Gasly, and ahead of the Williams pair.

It was a neat and tidy SQ1 as three teams had both drivers drop out in order, although it was perhaps a surprise to see Haas eliminated at the first hurdle. It did take late laps from the Williams drivers to dislodge Oliver Bearman and knock out one of the British drivers in the opening part of the session, with Bearman just 0.010s away from a spot in SQ2.

For Esteban Ocon the gap was over 0.6s, with Sergio Perez offering some encouragement for Cadillac by how close to the Haas he was able to get, lodging a best lap just 0.062s slower than the Frenchman. Valtteri Bottas was another quarter of a second back, and then it was another significant margin to the now-traditional back row of Aston Martin drivers, with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll the best part of two seconds adrift of the time needed to advance.

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