Formula 1 · Qualifying Report

Antonelli Grabs Silverstone Pole as Hadjar Crashes the Front-Runners’ Party

Hours after winning the Sprint, Kimi Antonelli beat both Ferraris to pole for Sunday’s British Grand Prix — while Isack Hadjar stunned the established order by out-qualifying Norris, Verstappen and Piastri.

Saturday at Silverstone belonged to Kimi Antonelli from start to finish. Having opened the day by winning the Sprint — passing Lewis Hamilton with a decisive move on the run to Stowe — the Mercedes rookie closed it by taking pole position for Sunday’s British Grand Prix, edging Charles Leclerc in a tight Q3 battle at the end of one of the most competitive qualifying sessions of the 2026 season. For a driver leading the championship in his second year, it was a near-flawless day’s work: eight Sprint points banked, his title lead extended, and the best possible starting position for the main event still to come.

Ferrari fast, but not quite fast enough

The session’s broad shape confirmed what Silverstone’s earlier running had suggested: Ferrari’s pace here is genuine, but Mercedes retains the final word when everything is on the line. Leclerc, who had spent parts of Q3 leading the timesheets, ended up second, with Hamilton — Friday’s Sprint polesitter and Saturday morning’s runner-up — completing an all-Ferrari second and third. George Russell, still searching for answers to a deficit he’s carried all weekend at his home race, lines up fourth.

The result also carried an intriguing subtext for Sunday. Antonelli’s Sprint win came from behind Hamilton, using Mercedes’ superior energy deployment down the Hangar Straight; this time he starts ahead, with two Ferraris directly behind him on a circuit where the tow and battery-assisted overtaking have proven unusually powerful all weekend. Track position may matter less at this Silverstone than at almost any other venue on the calendar.

Hadjar’s statement lap

The standout performance outside the top four came from Isack Hadjar, who put his Red Bull fifth on the grid — ahead of reigning champion Lando Norris, ahead of Oscar Piastri, and most strikingly of all, ahead of his own teammate Max Verstappen, who could manage only seventh. Hadjar had flashed this kind of pace all weekend, out-pacing Verstappen in the opening segment of Friday’s Sprint Qualifying before losing out by hundredths when it counted; this time, he converted. After a Sprint morning in which a starting-procedure issue had cost him — “no margin for error,” as he put it afterwards — the recovery could hardly have been more emphatic.

For Verstappen, seventh compounds an increasingly troubled weekend — and this time there’s a mechanical explanation. The Dutchman reported over the radio as early as Q2 that his engine was “not responding as normal”, and described afterwards a “double whammy”: inexplicably slow on the straights even compared to Hadjar’s sister car, which forced more full-throttle running, burned more battery, and sent the deficit spiralling through each lap. “It gets worse and worse,” was his sarcastic verdict at the end of Q3. Red Bull will investigate overnight, and a power unit change remains firmly on the table — a fix Verstappen would prefer even though it means a pit lane start, according to De Telegraaf’s Erik van Haren, who reports the champion flagged both the low top speed and the car’s poor balance as separate problems compounding each other.

McLaren stuck in the queue, the midfield holds its shape

Norris and Piastri, sixth and eighth, bracket Verstappen in what has become the established second tier of this weekend’s competitive order. Norris’s Sprint podium showed McLaren can race forward from there, but starting behind a Red Bull driven by Hadjar was not part of the plan for the reigning champion’s home race. Behind them, Racing Bulls continued its remarkably consistent 2026 form with Arvid Lindblad ninth and Liam Lawson tenth, while Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto led the Q2 casualties in eleventh.

Gasly penalised as the stewards clear two others

The grid received one official adjustment after the session. Pierre Gasly, originally twelfth, was handed the standard three-place penalty for unnecessarily impeding Lance Stroll in Q1, dropping the Alpine to fifteenth and promoting Nico Hulkenberg, Oliver Bearman and Carlos Sainz one spot each. The verdict came with an unusual wrinkle: the stewards accepted that Gasly never received the customary radio warning due to a technical fault with the FOM equipment, but ruled that the missing call didn’t absolve him — the dashboard display still gave him the information needed to realise Stroll was on a flying lap while he sat on the racing line. Two parallel investigations ended without sanction, with both Esteban Ocon (yellow-flag infringement) and Isack Hadjar (exceeding the maximum delta time) cleared of any further action.

At the back, the weekend’s grimmest storyline deepened further still: both Aston Martins fill the final row at the team’s home race, with Fernando Alonso twenty-first and Lance Stroll — who actually out-qualified his teammate, but drops behind him due to pre-qualifying power unit changes — twenty-second, one round before the arrival of the revised car the whole season now hinges on.

• Antonelli converted Sprint victory and Grand Prix pole on the same day, a first in his young career.
• Hadjar’s fifth is his best F1 qualifying result, achieved ahead of his four-time champion teammate.
• Verstappen could yet start from the pit lane if Red Bull opts for an overnight power unit change.
• Around 145,000 fans packed Silverstone on Saturday, with a record weekend attendance expected.
• Lights out for Sunday’s 52-lap British Grand Prix is at 3pm local time.

Sunday’s setup is unusually rich: a rookie championship leader on pole with two Ferraris breathing down his neck, a battery-dominated circuit where passing has looked easier than anyone expected, and a Red Bull garage with plenty to prove on both sides. If the Sprint was any guide, grid order at this Silverstone is an opening argument rather than a verdict.