George Russell beats Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris to British Grand Prix pole
- Planet Sport writer
- 6 July 2024
George Russell brought cheers to the home support at Silverstone with a sensational qualifying round to snatch pole position for the British Grand Prix.
The Englishman held his nerve in a wet-dry qualifying session to see off team-mate Lewis Hamilton by 0.171 seconds as Mercedes locked out the front row.
McLaren's Lando Norris completed a British one-two-three ahead of an anticipated 160,000 sell-out crowd for Sunday's race.
Championship leader Max Verstappen, who ran through the gravel in Q1, sustaining possible damage to the floor of his Red Bull, could manage only fourth.
The build-up to Formula One's third round in as many weeks has been dominated by Norris' late collision with Verstappen as they duelled for the lead in Austria six days ago.
Russell took advantage of the coming together to claim just his second career win and the 26-year-old was back on top at Silverstone to land pole for his home race.
Russell held a six-thousandths advantage over Norris heading into the final runs only to see Hamilton charge to the top of the order.
But Russell denied the seven-time world champion his first pole since the Hungarian Grand Prix last year — 350 days ago — to put his machine on pole. Norris failed to improve his with last lap, finishing 0.211 sec back.
