Lewis Hamilton has qualified on pole position for his home Grand Prix at Silverstone narrowly beating his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg by .113 of a second giving him his eighth pole of the season.
The Englishman will be looking to beat Rosberg for the first time in Europe this season. Mercedes powered Williams qualified third and fourth with Felipe Massa beating Valtteri Bottas. Kimi Raikkonen beat his team-mate Sebastian Vettel for fifth place the grid.
Hamilton’s pole lap was set early in Q3 after Rosberg complained of a problem on his left front wheel of his car. He said “It is a special day when you get pole on your home turf,” Hamilton said. There are so many people here and they really do motivate me.”
Hamilton has never won his home race from pole in two attempts but has taken victory twice.
Daniil Kyvat will start ahead of his team-mate after Daniel Ricciardo in seventh had his fastest lap removed for exceeding the track limits at Copse. He had been fractionally quicker than the Russian.
Carlos Sainz qualified in eight place beating Nico Hulkenberg in Force India’s redesigned car for this weekend’s Grand Prix.
Eleven drivers lost their fastest time after a warning before qualifying that they would be keeping a close eye on those gaining an advantage by using the runoff.
McLaren had another difficult day with world champions Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button qualifying 17th and 18th.
Alonso tried to remain positive about the potential of McLaren-Honda still as relentless as his performance in a Grand Prix, said it was “the best qualifying of the year”.
