Verstappen secures 5th consecutive pole, McLaren stuns home crowd

F1 Grand Prix, GP United Kingdom, Silverstone Circuit

After an early damp start to qualifying, track conditions improved rapidly and saw Verstappen easily take pole position for the 5th time in a row. McLaren continued their resurgence with a splendid second for Norris and third on tomorrow's grid for Piastri.

Track conditions provided an interesting setup for qualifying with moments of light drizzle wetting the track. The slippery tarmac with wet patches off line made for extra difficulty for the drivers but it proved good enough to use the dry tyres.

Many drivers ventured out quickly with fairly high fuel loads to be able to do multiple laps. As the track gradually improved in the first half of the session, times tumbled quickly with Russell and Alonso repeatedly topping the timesheet. Max Verstappen came out on track a little bit later but joined the front runners and emerged on top of the timesheet 5 minutes from the end.

At that time more rain was falling, triggering many to return to the pits. Most didn't return to the track but Perez only took a tyre change and immediately returned to the track, trying to improve on his time that was only good enough for 14th.

Just as he left the pitlane the session as red-flagged with 3 minutes and 11 seconds on the clock. Kevin Magnussen had come to a halt after his car seemingly switched off while going through Stowe corner. Stuck on track, marshalls had to intervene to get the track clear again.

Perez, of course impacted by the red flag situation got into the pits and immediately went to the end of the pitlane again to queue up and be the first to take the track when Magnussen's car was cleared.

While Perez was waiting and got company by other drivers, Verstappen also wanted to get into the queue but ended up in the pitwall, breaking his front wing while coming out of the box. "I just understeered" was the simple message to his team who then pulled him backwards, replaced his front wing and got him in the queue 10 seconds before the restart. He was right behind Hamilton and ahead of Gasly, the latter being last in the 19-car queue.

In these final minutes, both Williams and Alfa Romeos were looking to improve as they were about to be eliminated. It soon appeared the track had improved with Perez going fastest, then Albon even faster, Sargeant slotting into third, Bottas into second. Norris and Piastri both shot up into the ranking as well. Then both Mercedes improved to second and third. Nearly everybody improved and eventually Perez was eliminated after all, ending up 16th and 0.019s slower than 15th placed Alonso who only just made it through.

As Bottas stopped on track without power, Tsunoda, Zhou, De Vries and Magnussen joined Perez to get eliminated for Q2.

During the break more rain fell but when Q2 kicked off the sun came out and drivers were told no more rain was expected. Moments later, Verstappen got a message some drops might fall in 5 minutes, explaining why all drivers still in contention (apart from Bottas as his car was still being worked on) went out as soon as the session started.

Alonso was the first to set a time but he rapidly got demoted to 11th as the McLarens, Alpines, Ferraris, Mercedes along with Verstappen and Hulkenberg all went faster.

The next string of laps appeared to be even faster with Alonso returning to the top spot. This time Leclerc slotted in behind the Spaniard while Albon went second faster, quicker than Leclerc and Sainz who later ended up in 4th.

Sargeant also improved but yet again had his time deleted for track limits. Stroll also improved on his second effort but he got had his lap deleted, leaving Sargeant in 14th and Stroll in 13th halfway into the session.

Verstappen then went fastest after a cool down lap but he too was quickly topped by Piastri and then Hamilton, much to the joy of the local crowd. Russell moved up into 4th but then dropped back a spot when Norris went fastest of all, half a second faster than Hamilton's best.

Ahead of the start of Q3 race control announced that DRS got enabled again. Q3 seemed like an easy affair for Verstappen as he was 0.633s ahead of the competition on his first lap. The Red Bull driver though as the only one to do so on new soft tyres, meaning that the others were still looking for a change to get closer to pole.

The first one to complete his second lap was Leclerc and he got extremely close to the Red Bull driver. Norris did even better and looked set for pole until Verstappen improved yet again and secured his 5th consecutive pole position. With Oscar Piastri on third, McLaren really had an incredible qualifying session after their early season struggles.