First career pole for Carlos Sainz in the rain at Silverstone!

No one saw that coming! Not even Carlos Sainz according to his reaction in the car when his engineer told him the news he had been waiting for so long. “How did we manage to be on pole? I was not excpecting that at all !" And yet, here is this first career pole! The Spaniard had often come close, signing the best first run of Q3 three times in Bahrain, Jeddah and Baku. But if the Madrilenian was so surprised this Saturday, it's because he was beaten in almost every round by Max Verstappen et Charles Leclerc. 

Contested in scattered rain which never really stopped, this session ended up smiling on the Spaniard thanks in particular to the involuntary complicity of his teammate. Charles Leclerc actually made a mistake in his last attempt, causing a yellow flag which penalized Max Verstappen, who had literally been flying since the start of the session and seemed to be heading towards a second pole in a row after the one already won in the rain to Montreal. But the beauty of Britain is that the weather is unpredictable and the balance can easily be upset. Sainz will therefore have the championship leader and his teammate Leclerc hot on his heels on Sunday at 16 p.m. 

Latifi 10th on the grid!

Big disappointment on the other hand for Mercedes. The brand with the star and in particular Lewis Hamilton seemed to be in the match with Verstappen for a long time, but the seven-time world champion was ultimately unable to do better than 5th, 1 second behind, when Russell qualified 8th, sandwiched between Fernando Alonso et Guanyu-Zhou. Nice session on the other hand for Lando Norris, who took a good 6th place on the grid, while the overall gap between 5th place and 8th position is only a tenth and a half. The Chinese Guanyu Zhou impressed in these conditions for his first in F1 at Silverstone, with a 9th fastest time.

Carlos Sainz took his first career pole position. © Florent Gooden / DPPI

Besides Sainz's pole, the leader's other surprise came from Nicholas latifi. The Canadian not only made his first appearance in Q2… but also in Q3, as he qualified in 10th position. The pilot Williams notably took out in Q2 the two French Pierre Gasly et Esteban Ocon. The two Normans were respectively 11th and 15th when the rain increased in intensity in Northamptonshire, preventing anyone from improving. The pilot Alpine took all the risks to force destiny, even going so far as to improve his first sector despite Dantean conditions, but the fast sector 2 obviously did not allow him to confirm. Bottas, tsunoda et Ricciardo were also eliminated in Q2. 

From Q1, all the drivers had to start in Intermediates, on a track which began to be watered a few minutes before the session by scattered rain. As in the young categories in the dry, the twenty drivers chained the laps, almost without stopping, but neither Aston Martin, neither Haas did not find the right compromise in terms of settings, since their two drivers were eliminated in Q1. The last qualifying place in Q2 was decided between Nicholas Latifi and Alex Albon, but it was the Canadian who had the last word, for 80 thousandths, eliminating his Thai teammate.