Reuters
Silverstone (England), July 9: Lewis Hamilton put in a sensational late lap under intense pressure to seize pole position for his home British Formula One (F1) Grand Prix from Mercedes teammate and title rival Nico Rosberg here Saturday.
The triple World Champion had just one chance to secure the top slot after an initial effort in the final top 10 shootout was deleted because he exceeded the track limits at Copse corner.
With championship leader Rosberg on provisional pole, and Hamilton 10th as the clock ticked away and fans held their breath, the home hero pulled out all the stops to secure his 56th career pole and fourth here.
“I was sitting in the garage and knew I couldn’t let the guys down and I’m grateful I got the final lap in,” said the Briton after setting a time of one minute 29.287 seconds.
Huge cheers went up around the circuit as Hamilton lit up the screens, with a 1,40,000 crowd expecting to witness his third successive British Grand Prix win Sunday and fourth in total.
Rosberg, who has an 11 point advantage over Hamilton after nine of 11 races, was due to line up in second place but was summoned to see stewards for an alleged rules breach at the start of qualifying.
Dutch teenager Max Verstappen out-qualified his Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo for the first time since his promotion to the senior team from Toro Rosso, with the pair filling the second row with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen fifth.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel qualified sixth but will have a five place grid penalty for the second race in a row due to a gearbox change.
Hamilton was not the only driver to have a lap deleted for exceeding the track limits, with Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg suffering the same fate and dropping to eighth behind Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz.
Force India keep Perez, Hulkenberg
Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg will remain at Force India for the 2017 Formula 1 season, team boss Vijay Mallya has confirmed. “We are very happy with Nico and Checo (Perez). Both are signed for 2017. And really I haven’t thought about it beyond that,” Mallya said Friday evening here at the team bosses’ media interaction. “In any case, we are pretty early, much earlier than normal in announcing the names. I think it will end all speculations.
