Hamilton stuns to take Silverstone pole position

F1 Grand Prix, GP Great-Britain, Silverstone Circuit

Lewis Hamilton has stunned everyone within Formula One by setting an impressive lap to secure another pole position for him and Mercedes AMG. He outshone his teammate Nico Rosberg who will start in second place by more than 4 tenths.

The sun is out for qualifying at Silverstone and Valtteri Bottas is certainly happy with that as he's the first man out on track.

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The fastest man of the morning, Nico Rosberg only completes his first timed lap 11 minutes into the session and immediately goes fastest, only to be beaten by Hamilton 10 seconds later. Both cars did so on their first timed lap out on the track, showing that they have no problem warming up the tyres quickly.

Alonso meanwhile is doing a few laps on the same tyres, albeit on the harder compound. This morning's running however showed already that Ferrari appears to be equally as quick, if not quicker on the hard tyres. Webber soon also sets a time to move up into 3rd, also on the harder tyre. Vettel follows suit a bit later and ends up just behind his teammate.

With 4 minutes left, Hamilton and Rosberg are ahead of both Red Bulls. Grosjean is 5th, Sutil 6th, Ricciardo 7th and Alonso 8th. Massa is down in 16th, followed by Hulkenberg, Pic, Bianchi and Chilton. Button and Van der Garde have not even bothered to set a time yet.

The final minutes proved intense still with many drivers improving. Mercedes however remained easily on top. Ferrari on the other hand made it through only in 14th and 15th places. Eliminated after the first 20 minutes are Bottas, Gutierrez, Pic, Bianchi, Van der Garde and finally Chilton.

In Q2, Webber is the first to emerge from the pitlane. He is again on the harder tyre. The Mercedes cars are however soon on top of the timesheets again, posting faster times than in Q1. Ferrari on the medium tyres now is going slightly faster as well, but Massa suffered some graining and ends up in 13th place after his first lap.

3 minutes from the end of the session, Vettel goes fastest for the first time today. He's 0.038s ahead of Rosberg thanks to an aggressive lap on a brand new set of medium Pirelli tyres.

In the closing stages, Sutil and Di Resta improve to 3rd and 5th. Alonso ran as well but stayed 8th, ahead of both Lotus cars who only just made it through to Q2. Eliminated are Button, Massa, Vergne, Perez, Hulkenberg and Maldonado.

Performances are generally extremely close with the top 10 split by only half a second. One tenth may gain or lose any driver several places. The fastest teams of the day seem to be Mercedes, followed by Red Bull and Force India, who all have their two cars in Q3. Lotus has as well, but they look far less impressive so far.

As Q3 is kicked off, Webber is once again the first man out, but it's Hamilton who sets the early pace with a laptime of 1:30.096. Rosberg is second, Webber third, followed by Vettel, Grosjean, Alonso and Ricciardo.

The second string of laps more or less retained the same positions, although Vettel managed to move up into third, ahead of his team mate. Alonso on the other hand didn't get further than 10th with 3 cars ahead of him within one tenth. It confirms that Ferrari is clearly struggling at Silverstone, something that was quite obvious since Friday practice already.