Kimi Antonelli is threatening to be the serial party-pooper at this year’s British Grand Prix after taking pole position for Sunday’s race.
The Italian built on his victory in the sprint earlier in the afternoon to lead the field going into the showpiece event in from of 175,000 spectators mostly rooting for the home drivers led by Lewis Hamilton.
The seven-time world champion qualified third, 0.347sec behind Antonelli, the championship pacesetter. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc separated Hamilton and the pole-sitter, 0.175sec off the top.
Antonellis, aged just 19, pressed himself as the star of the day when he passed Hamilton eight laps into the sprint and, with pole, is favourite to romp away to his sixth win of a spectacular season so far. That prospect spells bad news for not only Hamilton, 47 points off Antonelli in the standings, but for George Russell, 43 back, and due to start fourth.
Hamilton said: ‘I am not satisfied, but I’m happy to be up here. Both of these guys (Antonelli and Leclerc) did a great job.
Kimi Antonelli is threating to ruin the British party at Silverstone again this weekend
‘Charles has been making good improvements and we just didn’t have the pace of the Mercedes, which has been a thing for a while. But we are slowly closing the gap and to have both of us up here is great for the team.’
Is a win possible? ‘It’s definitely great to have both of us here,’ said Hamilton. ‘But whether or not we can fully keep up with Kimi we will see, but hopefully we can play with the strategy and work as a team to try to topple them.’
Russell, meanwhile, is struggling at Silverstone this weekend, having finished the sprint in fourth place and looked out of sorts throughout each session. He lost control early in qualifying at Luffield. Thankfully, the long gravel run-off slowed down his Mercedes. He merely clipped the barrier and returned to the pits for a new front wing.
‘That’s very strange,’ said Russell. ‘I’ve never locked up there in my career.’
Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar qualified fifth best, a place ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris and, unusually, two places in front of his garlanded team-mate Max Verstappen.
‘What a disaster,’ said an exasperated Verstappen.
