Wolff grins after qualifying: "The empire strikes back"

Toto Wolff enjoyed a successful qualifying session on Friday. Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time, while Valtteri Bottas secured third place. It is the first time since the Spanish Grand Prix that a Mercedes can start from P1.

Mercedes finally back on P1

"The empire strikes back," Wolff grinned at Sky Deutschland. The Austrian was clearly delighted after Mercedes' good result, but he knows that no points will be scored in qualifying: "It's only qualifying, nothing has happened yet. Yes it is pleasant. First of all, the lap would be half a second faster than [Max] Verstappen, without the mistake at the end."

Wolff thinks Bottas would also have had a real chance to beat Max Verstappen in qualifying, but because he had no slipstream, he lacked the speed to be next to his teammate on the front row of the grid.

Difference between FP1 and qualifying

Mercedes arrived at Silverstone with an update package which seems to be working quite well. "You can see how fast that can go. Verstappen was still absolutely dominant in the first practice and then the pendulum swings the other way," Wolff concluded. During FP1 the Dutchman was almost 0.8 seconds faster than the man in second place.