Nico Rosberg will start from pole position after a topsy turvy qualifying at the British Grand Prix. It’s the German’s fourth pole for the year and once again he was lucky to gain a big advantage over his key championship rival and teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Rain was present throughout all three qualifying sessions which meant the times were a bit all over the place. Both Ferrari drivers and both Williams drivers missed progression to Q2, which will add extra spice to the race as they try to charge past slower cars.
But it was the final session which held the main drama. All drivers except Sebastian Vettel set times in the early part of Q3 with the results seeing Lewis Hamilton (1:39.232) on provisional pole ahead of Rosberg.
Midway through the session rain became heavy in parts of the track and drivers sat it out in pit lane waiting as late as they dare before reemerging for a last gasp effort.
Hamilton and Rosberg crossed the line to start their final laps with moments to spare, the provisional pole sitter ahead of his teammate. Rosberg desperate to push for P1 was right on Hamilton’s tail. The first two sectors were slow for Rosberg, but he kept pushing. In the final sector he made up significant time and landed pole position (1:35.766) with a time more than three seconds faster than Hamilton’s who had aborted his final lap.
Other drivers to benefit from pushing right until the end were Vettel (1:37.386) and Jenson Button (1:38.200). Nico Hulkenberg (1:38.329) was the first of the late runners to show there was time to be made up in the final sector and briefly held provisional pole.
In the wash up Hamilton finished in P6 and looked bitterly disappointed with that outcome as he emerged from his car after quali.
Daniel Ricciardo was in P4 after the first round of laps early in the session but chose not to set another lap and he will line up from P8 on the grid. It’s fair to say Daniel was surprised at how much faster his opponents could go.
“I didn’t expect it to go quicker at the end of the session there, as the rain kept coming,” Ricciardo said. “We really thought the track wouldn’t get quicker, Vettel only went out as he didn’t have a time at that point. We have to learn from it I guess – I’m gobsmacked how much faster the circuit got, it must dry a lot quicker here than I thought. We’ll move forwards from there tomorrow.”
The final grid, which has been affected with a number of penalties, can be seen after the break along with the full text from the post-qualifying press conference.
