British Grand Prix: As it happened

The spiritual home of Formula One sees the grandstands filled this weekend, as sport welcomes back capacity crowds and the introduction of a new qualifying format for the British Grand Prix. Join The Roar for live updates and rolling blog coverage from 11:50pm.

Sprint Qualifying made its much-anticipated debut, amongst a shakeup of the traditional weekend format which saw the regular hour-long qualifying session held on Friday. To the delight of the crowd, a high intensity 17 laps was produced.

Less practice time has been a challenge for some around the 5.8km driver favourite track, but it has created excitement around the unknown, especially surrounding the championship battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.

Mercedes have brought upgrades with them to Silverstone to combat the Red Bull juggernaut, which has won the last five races on the bounce – a feat which the energy drinks giant hasn’t achieved since 2013.

Hamilton started at the head of the field for the Sprint, but was beaten to Turn 1 by Verstappen, who then went on to claim pole position ahead of the Brit and his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.

McLaren capitalised with their faster race cars to move their drivers onto the third row of the grid, including a sixth place start for Daniel Ricciardo – who’s struggled in regular qualifying lately.

Fernando Alonso also shot up the field and was running as high as fifth, before his soft tyres fell away leaving the two-time world champion in seventh.

Those who experienced woe in the inaugural Sprint were Sergio Perez, who spun out on his own and almost ended up in the barrier.

The Mexican will start from the rear of the field as a result, while Carlos Sainz who came into contact with George Russell – dropped to the rear and worked his way back up to eleventh.

One benefit of the Sprint format is that drivers will have a free choice of starting tyre for the 52-lap grand prix.

Expect a two-stop strategy considering the blistering speed seen during the Sprint on the medium compound and the late blowouts in the race last year.

This should see interesting strategies from both Red Bull and Mercedes at the front and it remains to be seen the impact Perez being down the order will have for the championship leaders.

Capacity crowd, a mouth-watering title fight and the young Brit on the brink of his first points for Williams; there’s a lot to look forward to for this British Grand Prix.

Tune in from 11:50pm AEST for live blog coverage on The Roar.

Race information

Lights out: 12:00am (AEST)
Venue: Silverstone, Northamptonshire
TV: Fox Sports
Online: Kayo Sports, Foxtel

Grid

1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull), 2. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), 3. Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes), 4. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), 5. Lando Norris (McLaren), 6. Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren), 7. Fernando Alonso (Alpine), 8. Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin), 9. George Russell (Williams), 10. Esteban Ocon (Alpine), 11. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), 12. Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri), 13. Kimi Räikkönen (Alfa Romeo), 14. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), 15. Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo), 16. Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri), 17. Nicholas Latifi (Williams), 18. Mick Schumacher (Haas), 19. Nikita Mazepin (Haas), 20. Sergio Perez (Red Bull)

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