If anyone was wondering why Mercedes might be tempted to discard the rising George Russell for Max Verstappen in the coming years, look no further than qualifying at the British Grand Prix.
Verstappen took his third Silverstone pole in scintillating style, coming from nowhere between practice and Q3 to snatch the fastest time from the errant McLaren drivers, who should have had the car speed to lock out the front row.
It was a vintage Verstappen performance — one in which the Dutchman summons all his instinct to seemingly transcend the capability of his machinery and deliver something special.
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But having needed some set-up gambles to open his window of opportunity, can he hold on in the race?
Because given the closeness of qualifying, the varied conditions and the sweeping Silverstone layout, Sunday’s grand prix looks more widely open than any so far this season.
VERSTAPPEN SETS SPECIAL LAP FOR SUPER POLE
Red Bull Racing brought another round of upgrades to the car this weekend, in particular to the floor, the most important aerodynamic piece.
The RB21 rolled out for practice on Friday and was all over the place. It understeered in the slow corners and oversteered in the fast ones. Verstappen ended the day half a second off the pace and pessimistic about his chances.
His solution to the problem was to trim the car right back, slimming the rear wing to minimise its influence.
It made the car much harder to drive, but that’s the Dutchman’s remit. Freer to drive on his wits, he unlocked a new level in the RB21’s performance.
“We looked a bit slow yesterday on the other wing,” he said. “Plus I was just understeering to the moon.
“I had to try and reduce a bit that understeer, and it seemed to work.
“It is light on downforce for sure, you can see that, but it seemed to hold on, and that’s why we decided to stick with it.”
Suddenly everything clicked, and Verstappen was alarmingly fast around this high-speed layout carrying such limited downforce.
Unsurprisingly he gained down every straight — he was already more than 0.1 seconds up on Piastri at the first braking zone.
But remarkably he also gained through the high-speed corners.
“I just like the high speeds, where you have to be committed,” he said. “It’s more flowing. That’s really where an F1 car comes alive.”
Piastri gained back his lost time through the long-right hander at Luffield, but Verstappen was faster through the super-fast Copse, so much so that he gained all the way to Maggotts and Becketts, opening up an almost 0.2-second margin.
This should have been where the McLaren car clawed most of the deficit back.
Instead Verstappen got even faster all the way to the apex of Becketts, his advantage peaking at 0.3 seconds.
Some of this is explainable by the headwind into this section, supercharging Verstappen skinnier wing. But still, the Dutchman was clocked 9 kilometres per hour faster at the Maggotts apex — impressive commitment.
It was only when it came to putting the power down through Chapel that he sacrificed some speed, but the loss was limited, and on the brakes into Stowe he was still 0.3 seconds up.
Only the Vale chicane stopped him from dominating the field. The slow complex leading to the finish line cut his lead by two-thirds, leaving him with his 0.103-second pole margin.
It was a remarkable performance that had even the McLaren drivers confounded.
“What’s been impressive is some of the high-speed performance that they can continue with, even with the light downforce,” Piastri said.
“It’s also been interesting with other teams — it’s not always just been the higher the downforce you have, the quicker you are in all the corners; some of the corners we’re still slower than the Red Bull and Max.”
This isn’t the first time Verstappen has found himself unexpectedly on pole this season — arguably all three of his previous P1 starts should have been out of his reach considering McLaren’s speed.
But unlike, say, in Japan, where the narrow circuit meant he could defend his way to the chequered flag, the open Silverstone layout will make it much more challenging for the Dutchman to sail from pole to the flag.
It sets up a fascinating race, with McLaren, Ferrari and even Mercedes — if the weather is cool but not necessarily wet — potentially in the mix.
Colapinto crashes in Q1 – Piastri 2nd | 01:16
WHAT HAPPENED TO McLAREN?
This isn’t the first time this season that some scruffy McLaren performances had opened the door to an unlikely Verstappen pole.
At the end of the first Q3 laps Piastri had been on provisional pole ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris.
But whereas Verstappen found a sensational 0.375 seconds with his second lap, Piastri failed to improve. Hamilton and Norris found 0.034 seconds and 0.157 seconds respectively, the latter effectively correcting for a mistake at Village but making no other progress.
Neither McLaren star, however, was too disappointed, though Piastri admitted to overdriving on his final lap in pursuit of lap time he didn’t really believe was on offer.
“The first time was mega,” Piastri said. “I was trying to think of how I was going to go faster, and I didn’t.
“The second lap was a bit scruffy — a couple of moments that caught me a bit by surprise.
“I always hate blaming wind, but I need to see if it was the wind. Also maybe I was trying a bit too hard in a couple of places as well to make up for it.
“Overall I’m pretty happy. It’s been tight all weekend, especially through qualifying, so P2 is not a bad result.”
The McLaren drivers would be particularly happy knowing that they have a car that on paper should be better set up to tackle the race.
While Verstappen proved that a very low downforce configuration can be marginally faster in qualifying, in race trim it’s usually advantageous to carry more load.
That will be particularly the case on Sunday, with the race believed to be finely poised between one and two stops.
The medium and hard tyres are rated to be just durable enough that a well-balanced car should be able to massage them to the end with just one stop.
However, a two-stop strategy is expected to be only a few seconds slower overall.
For Verstappen — who is carrying less downforce and therefore more likely to damage his tyres over a race stint — stopping twice to unleash more of the car’s pace could see him battle for victory by having to makes passes in the final stint.
With his thinner rear wing and better top speed, Red Bull Racing might end up having struck the faster set-up.
“I can see a proper battle,” Verstappen said. “Even in the long runs there were a lot of cars that were quick; even in qualifying it was all quite tight.
“Quite different lap time gains — some quick on the straight, some quick in the corners — and I think it’s just going to depend on who can keep their tyres alive in the stint.”
Having put McLaren under serious pressure in Spain with an extra pit stop from third on the grid, Verstappen will get another chance this weekend from pole.
FERRARI MYSTERY DISAPPEARANCE
When Charles Leclerc topped final practice just hours before qualifying, Ferrari appeared to confirm itself as a pole contender.
Hamilton’s lost FP3 lap — seemingly certain to put him at the top of the order before a red flag suspended the session — only heightened expectations that the seven-time Silverstone pole getter was on track for a spectacular surge.
But Ferrari suddenly faded in Q3. Despite Hamilton being provisionally second after his first lap and Leclerc running fifth, they slumped to fifth and sixth respectively, jumped not only by Verstappen and Norris but by George Russell too.
Hamilton improved considerably in Village and Loop to spend most of his lap running 0.2 second quicker than his previous best. Had he held that advantage, he would’ve started on the front row and perhaps even challenged Verstappen for pole. Instead a mistake through the Vale chicane and out of the final corner lost him all but 0.035 seconds of his improvement.
It’s worth noting that neither of his Q3 laps was faster than his best Q2 time.
But the Briton was nonetheless positive. His proclamation that he’d made genuine progress in Austria, especially with the team’s latest upgrade, appears to have held at his home race, where he’s been on the pace all weekend.
It left him feeling optimistic for the race, which he’s won a record nine times.
“I definitely feel a lot better in the car this weekend,” he said. “I’ll dream of [the podium] tonight and I’ll try and execute tomorrow.
“I think the weather’s going to be interesting, I’d imagine it’s dry probably for the race but it would be cool if it’s drizzling. We’ll see.”
Despite the qualifying underperformance, Ferrari is genuinely in the mix this weekend. Intriguingly the team is in the fight in a totally different way to the McLaren and the Red Bull Racing machines.
McLaren is faster in the high-speed corners. Red Bull Racing is faster down the straights. Ferrari is quicker in the slow corners — and had Hamilton nailed that final chicane, he could have proved that his car had the right set-up compromise.
Ferrari has had strong race pace all year too, certainly much better than its qualifying pace.
To Hamilton and Leclerc’s detriment they start further down the grid than the car deserves, but if strategy varies and if weather plays a role, the SF-25 is a platform that can deliver on Sunday.
Leclerc goes off: “I’m So F***ING S***!” | 00:28
LECLERC HINTS AT FUNDAMENTAL FERRARI ISSUE
There was an interesting postscript to qualifying from Leclerc, who did manage to improve from Q2 to Q3 but, having been a step behind Hamilton throughout qualifying, ended up in sixth.
Lacking 0.026 seconds to his teammate triggered a round of heavy self-criticism.
“F***, f***, f***, f***, f*** that,” he radioed. “So f***ing shit, I am.
“I am so f***ing shit. That’s all I am.”
It was a remarkable outburst, but it’s what he said afterwards in explaining his qualifying struggles that pricked ears.
“The issues are very specific with the ones we have,” he said, per ESPN. “It’s not a balance issue. It’s not a grip issue.
“I don’t want to go into the detail, but it’s just something very weird that we’ve got to fight with the car. Especially when there are high-speed corners, it makes it even more difficult. I hope we can resolve it.
“The good thing, if we can say it’s a good thing, is that tomorrow we won’t have any of this. For sure we won’t have any of problems of that sort.”
Asked to elaborate, Leclerc said only that he “cannot go into it” and promptly ended his media session.
Ferrari has struggled in qualifying all year, leaving its often better race pace unrequited.
There’s a suggestion now that it’s not just a matter of set-up but related to the power unit, which struggles when the wick is turned up for so long, as it is in qualifying, with the effects especially acute by the end of the hour, by which time the motor has done at least six full-power laps.
Silverstone would be particularly prone to any power-sensitive issues given 77 per cent of the circuit is taken at full throttle. There are also very few big braking zones, which means the battery has limits opportunities to recharge.
Comparing Leclerc’s fastest Q2 and Q3 times shows a small loss of speed down the front and Hangar straights, though the latter is also down to the Monegasque taking longer to get on the throttle.
Hamilton’s laps show similar power degradation on the front and Wellington straights.
With power unit development frozen except for reliability fixes — and with engine manufacturers fully focused on 2026 now anyway — this is unlikely to be something that will be rectified this season unless it can be managed externally with, say, cooling.
Whatever the case, on a day Ferrari had a genuine shot at pole for the first time at a conventional circuit this season, it was an interesting, albeit mysterious, little revelation.