Maiden pole for Sainz in soaking Silverstone
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It was Carlos Sainz that found the pace in the wet, as he managed to grab his maiden pole position, ahead of reigning champion Max Verstappen and then Charles Leclerc rounded out the top 3. The rain played a huge part in qualifying, as it changed the scenario's across all three sessions.
First Pole for Sainz.
The reigning world champion found himself in a spin at the beginning of Q3, and it quickly became quite clear as Verstappen would consistently be fastest but couldn’t quite get a lap together. When he finally did he was on the provisional pole. He was then quickly followed by Lewis Hamilton and then George Russell. Once again the session became a race against the weather as no one quite knew if the track would get better or if the rain would get harder. It was eventually Sainz who took pole, ahead of Verstappen and then his teammate Leclerc, as Sergio Perez who was fourth, followed by Hamilton, Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso, a disappointing eight for Russell, 9th for Guanyu Zhou and Latifi rounded out the top 10.
It's raining, It's pouring
As Q1 started so did the rain, and all cars went out on intermediates right at the start, bar the Alpines who stayed in the garage for the first part of the session. Valterri Bottas was the first of the cars to lose grip, as he went for a quick spin, although managed to keep going. Although Russell, Leclerc and Verstappen all touched the top during the session it was eventually the Dutchman who topped the first session. As he was followed by both Mercedes in P2 and P3 respectively. The track was rapidly improving at the end of the session which saw a tight end to the session and those that were unfortunate not to make the most of the conditions were Alex Albon, Kevin Magnussen, Sebastian Vettel, Mick Schumacher, and Lance Stroll as they failed to make it into Q2.
Latifi shocks again
Conditions only got worst throughout the second qualifying session meaning that we could have seen the best of times set early in the session. During this, the world saw Latifi put his car in the top 10 and stay there as intermediate running turned into full wet running. Unfortunately, this meant the end of qualifying for Pierre Gasly, Bottas, Yuki Tsunoda, Daniel Ricciardo, and Esteban Ocon. Although on the over end of the timesheets we saw a flashback into last year as it was Verstappen followed by Hamilton. While Ferrari’s managed third and fourth