70th Anniversary GP Qualifying: Bottas pips Hamilton to pole in a close fight

Valtteri Bottas took pole at Silverstone on Saturday afternoon after beating teammate Hamilton by 0.063 seconds in a extremely close battle as Mercedes locked out the front row after yet another dominant qualifying this season. The Finnish driver would be delighted at this result especially after signing on for one more year with the Silver Arrows. He will definitely be looking forward to starting the race on pole after the disappointment of last weekend.

Nico Hulkenberg put on a stellar display in the final parts of the qualifying to put himself on the second row for the race tomorrow in third, a tenth of a second ahead of Max Verstappen in fourth. The other Racing Point of Lance Stroll couldn’t extract the maximum out of the car and ended up qualifying sixth, which puts him on the third row alongside Daniel Ricciardo. The Renault driver put in a mega performance in Q3 on medium tyres but he couldn’t quite get on the second row which was looking likely after the first run of Q3. His teammate Ocon in the other Renault did not make it out of Q2 and will be starting 11th, pending an investigation after impeding George Russell during Q1.

Nico Hulkenberg, Racing Point RP20

Ferrari’s dismal form continues. Sebastian Vettel failed to make it to Q3 and will be starting 12th on the grid; Leclerc, who managed to make it to the second row last week couldn’t make it past the fourth row this time and will start eighth. The only direction the team seems to be going is backward and there will be a lot of questions asked back at Maranello.

Pierre Gasly in the Alpha Tauri looks to be set for another impressive weekend at Silverstone after managing 7th place today with an impressive lap. Teammate Kvyat, on the other hand, never made it out of Q1 after an error-ridden lap which saw him finish 16th.

Alex Albon and Lando Norris made up the fifth row in 9th and 10th for which both the drivers would not be overly happy.

It was a very average afternoon for McLaren with Norris at 10th and Sainz at 13th and they will be hoping that the fortunes change come race day tomorrow, especially with the midfield very tightly packed.

George Russell maintained his perfect qualifying record against his teammate after an extremely impressive lap which saw him progress to Q2 and put him fifteenth on the grid while his teammate will be starting P18.

Haas will be disappointed with their qualifying after only one car made out of Q1 with Grosjean in P14 and Magnussen in P17 after making a costly error in Q1.

Alfa Romeo started 1st-2nd-3rd-4th for the first ever British GP in 1950 but fast forward 70 years and they will be starting at the back with Giovinazzi at 19th and Kimi at 20th after a poor showing in Q1.

With Mercedes locking out the front row for the 67th time, it looks set to be a straight fight between the Silver Arrows for victory while the long-awaited podium for Hulkenberg might finally happen. With an extremely close midfield starting all the way from 3rd to 13th, it looks set to be a promising race for the 70th Anniverary Grand Prix.

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