Valtteri Bottas pipped championship-leading Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton to pole position for F1’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone with a flying final lap on Saturday.
Super stand-in Nico Hulkenberg qualified his Racing Point an eye-opening third as a replacement for absent Mexican Sergio Perez, in quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen joined the experienced German on the second row.
The front row lockout was a record-extending 67th for Mercedes and switched around last weekend’s British Grand Prix qualifying, where Hamilton took his 91st career pole and won despite a last-lap puncture while Bottas failed to score.
