The Saturday in F1 British GP was a close fight at the top and throughout the field, as Max Verstappen once again outdid his car to beat McLaren and Ferrari to pole.
It was a hectic Saturday in F1 British GP at Silverstone, as the field was again closely matched in Q1 where they were separated by just the 0.688s margin from P1 to P19 – discarding Franco Colapinto, who crashed out early. Even Q3 saw the Top 10 cover within 0.893s margin.
It was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who gambled on a skinny rear wing and put it on pole ahead of the McLaren pair, who couldn’t improve by much on their second attempt to allow the Dutchman through. It will be difficult to pass him, considering how hard he makes for his rivals.
Verstappen noted how the balance improved from Friday to Saturday after they worked a bit on the car. Both Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are wary of getting through the Dutchman, but they feel they have better race pace. In fact, they also think Ferrari will be quicker than what they managed in qualifying.
Lewis Hamilton managed to beat teammate Charles Leclerc, after feeling much better in the car. He reckoned his last run got hampered a bit due to understeer and he probably missed out on a front-row start. The Monegasque, though, was livid with himself on the radio after F1 qualifying.
He noted about a problem that he and the team is facing in qualifying, but it is something he can’t talk about. Even though the race pace is good, he thinks that qualifying a bit far off makes it tougher since by the time they arrive at the front, they don’t have enough legs to push through further.
The Ferrari pair was also a bit down after Mercedes’ George Russell was able to beat them both to be fourth. The Brit was relieved to set his best lap on his final lap in F1 qualifying. He was a bit confused by their pace despite the colder weather, but it came around in the final attempt.
His teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli was a bit off from the top half but still managed to qualify seventh. He will have 3-place drop and concedes that seventh is probably the maximum he can hope for. Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda, meanwhile, made it in Q2 but a power issue hampered his final run, where he thought Q3 was possible, in a much better show from the Japanese F1 driver.
Verstappen: “Pretty good. I mean, it was not easy out there to produce a consistent lap time just because of the wind, the gusts as well that you got out there. The car was moving around a lot even just on straights, so sometimes a bit unpredictable in places because of it. But luckily, that last lap came together quite nicely. Just had to commit a lot in the high speed with this low downforce that we have on the car, which we just tried to build up on. Luckily in Q3, that worked out. In some places, quite different. Yesterday, I was just understeering a lot but at the same time also having oversteer in places. It was very difficult to balance. I think today, we definitely improved the understeer and that just allowed me to push a bit more because understeer is slow, especially in F1. So, we just needed to try and minimise that. We’ll just go in there and try to do the best we can. Normally in the race runs, we struggle a bit more on tyre life.
“We looked a bit slow yesterday on the other wing. Plus, I was just understeering to the moon. So, I had to try and reduce a bit that understeer, and it seemed to work. It is light on downforce for sure. You can see that, I guess. But it seemed to hold on and that’s why we decided to stick with it. We’ll see what we get from it tomorrow in the race. I don’t know how that will be tomorrow. We have to wait and see a little bit also how the weather will be in general, if there is some rain or not. The straight-line speed is nice to have but you still need to manage the tyres around here. It’s very tough with all these high-speed corners. But I’m just looking forward to it. I’m not really in a battle, so I’ll just try to have fun and try to get the best possible result.”
Piastri: “It was a good lap. I was very happy with it, but I kind of felt like every run, the track was improving a bit. So, I felt like I probably needed a bit more, which was correct. The second lap was a bit scruffy, couple of moments that caught me a bit by surprise. I mean, I always hate blaming wind, but I need to see if it was the wind. But also, maybe trying a bit too hard in a couple of places as well to make up for it. Overall, pretty happy. It’s been tight all weekend, especially through qualifying, so P2 is not a bad result. It’s hard to know at the moment. I think, for us, what’s been impressive is some of the high-speed performance that they can continue with, even with the light downforce. So, let’s wait and see tomorrow. Of course, I hope that the higher downforce works a bit better in a few areas, but honestly, we really won’t know until tomorrow. It’s also been interesting with other teams, it’s not always just been the higher the downforce you have the quicker you are in all the corners. Some of the corners we’re still slower than the Red Bull and Max. So, it’s not that straightforward, but I think it’s going to be an interesting thing to see tomorrow.”
Norris: “Reasonably smooth. As smooth as I could probably ask for. Most of my laps were all pretty decent. Q1 was the only little nervous one just with how close it was from the front to last really. Otherwise, all good. Most laps always improved and found good lap time. Probably just my final one, would have hoped to find just that little bit more. Just didn’t quite get the grip out of it in some corners, and the right balance, but I’m still happy with the third. I expect everyone, probably more so the Ferraris because they’re the highest downforce of the lot. Their high-speed performance is pretty impressive and a good step better than ours even. So, I would probably more likely say Ferrari, but I just wouldn’t rule out the Mercedes as well. I think they’re quick. George is always there in those kind of races where there are a lot of opportunities and unpredictable weather, things like that. So, opportunity for everyone, but I think the Ferraris are the ones who have been very quick since FP1. Very quick in high speed, and that normally always helps in the rain.”
Hamilton: “I just had understeer at Turn 16 and lost the time that I had. It probably cost me at least a second. I’m really pleased with the progress. I’m really pleased with the direction, my engineer and I have been really gelling a lot better in terms of how we set the car up. I was much happier in the car, and the lap was really, really nice up until just that, literally, that last corner, just a bit of understeer. I don’t know if it was the kerb that put me a little wide, but then I just lost it, I think it was just over a tenth. So that would definitely have been for the front row. I think at the end we’re at low-speed understeer, which is something that’s inherent with this car. I think we’re overdriving to get that extra bit of time. We’re at an actual pure pace, I don’t think the car is naturally as quick. So we’re probably having to go a little bit too far over, which then makes it where the car’s super tricky. So we need a little bit more performance.
“Pretty much all the other sessions, the second run in Q3 has always been a little bit harder. But today I was progressing, which was positive. So I think I’ve I’ve taken a step there. I think there’s still more to get. The up and down conditions definitely were challenging, maybe not as good for us than it was in hotter. Yeah, we are making progress. There’s still more to make, but we obviously had the upgrade in the last race. We are improving our process the way we go about our weekends, and definitely feel like we’re punching out better results. So keep pushing. We are not far apart. The set-ups are different but I am more using that method, so it is more in that direction but he is in his own set-up. He’s got something quite a bit different to me which I didn’t want to use. I was happy with my car. I really don’t know [about the race], I have four really fast cars in front, just going to look forward.”
Leclerc: “More than getting away from me, I’m not doing the job. I think since the beginning of the season, I’ve been performing very well in the races. Looking back at races, there are actually not many races where I would go back to change something that I’ve done inside the car. Unfortunately, when I look back at qualifying, which used to be my strength, there are many qualifyings where I would like to go back and change something. Because every time I get to Q3, for some reason, it is not clicking at the moment. We’ve had good qualifyings, but we didn’t have great qualifyings, and again, this used to be my strength, so I’m not happy with the level that I’m showing. In qualifying, we’ve got issues, for sure. Particularly today, from Q2 onwards, we were a bit fighting with something inside the car, but it’s not an excuse. I need to be better. To keep on track, it was okay.
“The issues are very specific, the ones we have. It’s not a balance issue, it’s not a grip issue. I don’t want to go into the details, but it’s just something very weird that we’ve got to fight with the car. And especially when they are high speed, it makes it even more difficult. I hope we can resolve it, but the good thing, if we can say it’s a good thing, is that tomorrow we won’t have any of this. For sure, we won’t have any problems of that sort. I hope so, but starting P6 again makes it so difficult. Because every time we are starting the race by fighting to come back, and then once we are back at the front, people that have had a clean race just have an advantage on us – so we need to be better in qualifying. I think we had a strong car this weekend – the high speed in terms of balance, in terms of grip.
“We’ve got quite a stable platform also in the high speed, if you look compared to the McLaren, especially. So I think our car has some strength this weekend – again, this one issue that we are having at the moment is also making it a bit more difficult. So I think the car is good, we just need to put everything together, drivers and also maybe issues to challenge for more in qualifying. It [the qualifying issue] is unrelated. We haven’t talked about it too much, it is a problem where in some we don’t have in qualifying and some others we have zero problem with it, but today was a bit of a problem. It is something that I was probably not expecting too much.”
Russell: “Really pleased with that last lap – every lap until that point, we were anywhere from five tenths to eight tenths off the pace. We were scratching our heads a little bit because we thought with the cooler conditions, things would come more towards us. It was only that last lap in Q3 when it did. It’s always good when your best lap of the weekend is the last one. Q1 is a really challenging session for probably all the teams other than McLaren because you are trying to get to Q3 on two sets of tyres and to do that, you need to get through Q1 on one set of tyres and all get through Q2 on one set of tyre as well, so it is always a bit frantic on the pitwall sometimes and from my side of the car, I have got no visibility of what is going on, so I just said ‘chill out a bit, tell me what you thinking, we can get to something’.
“I do think today was probably on the whole, was less competitive than we were potentially expecting. I think the likes of Ferrari have been very competitive this weekend, which was a bit of a surprise. I know McLaren have brought some little upgrades. We didn’t really bring anything, but we haven’t brought anything for a while now. We just need to try and understand that. It is cool but of course, the circuit is so quick. You’re putting so much energy in the tyres, so much temperature in the tyres. The tyres are running hotter here compared to Canada, and Canada was a 50 degree track [temperature]. Here it’s 25 degrees, so that give us a bit perspective.”
The Top 10 featured three midfield F1 teams with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso making a habbit of getting through. The Spaniard was happy that he managed to pull through, but doesn’t expects to score whole lot knowing that he has some faster cars behind in the pack.
Teammate Lance Stroll had a bad final lap to be knocked out in Q1. It was two halves for Alpine and Haas as well, where Pierre Gasly and Oliver Bearman made it in Q3, but Colapinto and Esteban Ocon didn’t. The Frenchman was happy with the recovery after looking shit all-weekend long.
The Brit was angry at himself with the 10-place penalty after the FP3 silly mistake. He was pleased to show the pace in the car in qualifying trim, but will start from far down the order. As for the Argentine, it was another tough run after loosing his car and crashing out.
It was a disappointment for Visa Cash App RB and Williams pairs. Isack Hadjar stated that he simply couldn’t make the step that others managed to be out in Q2, while Liam Lawson’s out lap was not good enough as he was knocked out in Q1 itself after looking like a Top 10 car.
Alexander Albon feels that the team needs to review after he was sent pretty late in the order which hurt his out lap. The Thai reckoned that Top 10 was possible, but the execution wasn’t good. Teammate Carlos Sainz pipped him but missed out on a Top 10 by a small margin in a better run.
The Spaniard will anyhow start in the Top 10 after penalty to Bearman. After double points elation in Austria, both the Sauber cars of Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg were knocked out in Q1. The Brazilian explained his FP3 crash and that his confidence wasn’t hurt. They simply did not have pace.
Alonso: “Yeah, upgrades were tested yesterday with slight advantage to the new package, but small. So it took time to analyse the data and see the differences. A small step in the right direction, we take it for sure, we thought the upgrades that everyone brought here, it seems that you level yourself. You don’t make a big step forward. And yeah, in qualifying is what we saw. A Haas in Q3, quite strong in front of us. Even Alpine into Q3. So we still need to work hard every weekend, but happy with today. To be in Q3 was not that straightforward. Especially after FP3, we missed the soft run with the red flag at the end.
“And we went into qualifying a little bit into the unknown in terms of set-up, front flap, etc, with the red tyre, because we didn’t manage to test this morning. So yeah, all in all, I think we executed well in qualifying. And let’s see what we can do tomorrow. Let’s see, I think Williams are fast. You know, faster than what they’ve shown lately. So I think they will be a threat. Tsunoda starting P11, I think it’s going to be a threat as well. And yeah, Kimi, I think it’s going to be a long race. We cannot underestimate the challenges that we will face tomorrow. But yesterday, in the long run, the car felt good. Tyres felt good as well, so no concerns there. And let’s see if we can score points.”
Albon: “Yeah, I think internally we need to review what went on there, because we put on a set of tyres when Franco crashed, and then we went out on the track when it was quite clear it was going to be a red flag, so, basically we immediately wasted a set in qualifying. We went into Q2 run one on a used set of tyres. Until this point, we were looking good, feeling good, and I actually did a pretty good lap in Q2 run one, considering the used tyres. Then we go into Q2 Run two and try to go out at the very front of the pack, where Max is – and Max’s out lap is about 15–20 seconds slower than ours – so we did Q2 run two on our final new set, basically not even close to being ready.
“Q2 was obviously compromised, let’s say that. We need to review what we did. We generally do go on the early side in quali – we like to go on early – but today was too much. We need to understand why we like to go so early all the time. I mean, we’ve been quick all weekend. We’re quick in Q1, we’re quick in Q2 run one – and then it’s like, yeah, P14. So frustrating. Very frustrating. I think we will be P13 with the Bearman thing, we can do okay from there. At the minute I am just frustrated because we should not be P13. Lets see, we have a good car and we are out of position.”
Gasly: “I am very happy with today’s Qualifying, especially considering how complicated this weekend has been for the team so far. We did not show much pace yesterday or even this morning in Free Practice 3. We stuck together as a team, made some changes, and just tried to maximise the package, so credit to everyone for doing a fantastic job. I am very pleased for them that we reached Q3 as it certainly did not look promising up until then on a track which we knew would be tough for us.
“Conditions have been tricky with the wind gusts, so it has been difficult to be completely happy in the car. We sneaked through Q1 and then the Q2 lap was a really good one to reach Q3. Tomorrow, we start in eighth place and we have given ourselves a chance to score points. The reality is, it will not be easy but we will be ready for the fight. There could be some rain too, so we have to be prepared to take any opportunity.”
Hadjar: “It was a disappointing Qualifying. We’ve had a great car all weekend and a good start to the session today, but then I felt that we reached the limit of the car very early, whilst other teams were able to keep finding pace. I felt I was a bit on the edge and therefore unable to find more lap time. We’ve been struggling a bit on a single lap, so looking at tomorrow, I think the long run is going to be difficult, but obviously we’ll give it our all to fight for points as it will be a long race.”
Bortoleto: “It’s been a difficult weekend for us so far. From the first session, we struggled with overall pace and balance compared to recent events, and the gusty wind made it even tougher – it’s something our car doesn’t cope with well, though that’s the same for everyone. Compared to Austria, where we were strong across all sessions, this circuit just didn’t suit us. Unfortunately, I had a couple of spins during practice, which damaged the upgraded floor, so I had to run the older spec in qualifying. That definitely didn’t help in such a tight midfield, but I still gave it everything I had. I don’t think there was much more left to extract today. Despite the setbacks, my confidence hasn’t been affected.
“Spinning or even crashing is part of the job when you’re pushing the car to the limit – it’s not ideal, of course, and I’m sorry to the team for the extra work. They did an incredible job to get the car rebuilt in time, and I’m really grateful for that. In qualifying, I was already pushing hard from the first lap and felt strong—even in the same corner where I’d gone off earlier. Tomorrow, we’ll try to make the most of any opportunities. If the weather turns chaotic, we may get opportunities to move forward. I’ll give it everything I’ve got.”
Bearman: “I didn’t account for the cold brakes and tyres. So, silly error, one that shouldn’t happen at this level. Exactly, just a misjudgment from my side, really. [I feel] mixed. On one hand, we bought an upgrade this weekend and clearly it’s showing potential because our qualifying pace has not been fantastic recently and now to be in Q3 on merit is a good feeling. I only did one new set of tyres in Q2 as well, which normally only the top teams do. So, we actually had a very, very strong qualifying and the car was feeling great, the best it’s ever felt for me.
“Then, of course, I’m really disappointed in myself because I’ve let my team down today. It is not a relief, I am still angry at myself, very sad. I am just glad that we could show…the good thing today was that we have a good car in qualifying trim which hasn’t been the case more recently. So, I am really proud of the team for bringing a successful upgrade. If we have a car that’s P8 in qualifying, it means we have a very quick race car because normally our quali car is not quite as fast as our race car. So hopefully that stays and we can have a good one tomorrow.”
Colpainto: “I just lost the rear in the last corner. I was going on power and I clipped the wall. Yeah, it was a pity, I think. I’m still struggling quite a lot, but there was definitely something we could have done. Yeah, yeah. To stop out of turn one. So, a bit of a pity. Not a good quali from my side. We found a lot of things, I think, this weekend to make me feel a bit better with the car, closer to Pierre, but of course, we are still far. We need to do a couple of steps for the next couple of races. I just had wheelspin on the kerb, lost the rear, I don’t know I have to watch. I’m not very concerned [about my future]. Of course, there is always talks. I just need to keep working and trying to help the team to improve the car. Today was not ideal. I think we did some good steps, but definitely not what we wanted.”
Here’s how F1 British GP qualifying panned out
