Carlos Sainz shines in Silverstone deluge to take British F1 GP pole

Carlos Sainz claimed the first pole of his career at the British Grand Prix with a superb lap at Silverstone in extremely tricky wet conditions. The Ferrari driver beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen into second with his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc in third. Sergio Pérez was fourth for Red Bull.

Mercedes’ hoped for resurgence is still to quite manifest itself, with their car certainly improved but still six-tenths back from pole, Lewis Hamilton in fifth and his teammate George Russell in eighth.

Heavy rain had begun just before qualifying began and intensified as the session continued but Sainz delivered a superlative run under the looming grey clouds at Silverstone in the first wet running all weekend. With the track still very wet but the rain abating to open the final shootout the drivers started by putting in repeated laps looking for the optimal conditions as the times came down.

Verstappen looked to have the early advantage pushing so hard on an early lap that he spun in the final sector, just holding the car on track but it looked to be a fine sighting run. He followed it with repeated quicker laps as he and Leclerc exchanged the lead in a thrilling fight. The Dutchman appeared to have the edge only for Sainz to time his best lap of the day to perfection, with a time of 1min 40.983sec. Verstappen roared in behind him giving it his all but could not match him and was seven-hundredths of a second back.

This first pole was a deserved result for the Spaniard who has promised much in the past and delivered some superb runs over a single lap but this season has struggled to master his car. It has been some time coming with this his 151st grand prix and he was understandably delighted at having finally broken his duck.