Bottas pips Hamilton, Leclerc to British GP pole

Valtteri Bottas will start Sunday's British Grand Prix from pole position after edging out Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton for pole position in qualifying, heading up a front-row lock-out for the team.

Bottas managed to storm to his first pole since the Spanish Grand Prix at the beginning of May by pipping Hamilton by just six-thousandths of a second in the final stage of qualifying - despite failing to improve on his final lap.

Bottas sat on provisional pole by two-tenths of a second after the first runs in Q3 as Hamilton made a mistake at Brooklands, but was unable to improve his time at the end of the session, leaving the door open for Hamilton to try and grab his fifth straight Silverstone pole.

But Hamilton was unable to capitalise on the opportunity, falling 0.006s short at the end of Q3 to mark Bottas's first pole at Silverstone, heading up a one-two for Mercedes.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was also close in the fight for pole after a rapid final lap that saw him miss out by just 0.079s, leaving the Monegasque driver third on the grid.

Teammate Sebastian Vettel had a difficult session as he could only qualify sixth, trailing Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly in P4 and P5 respectively. Both Ferraris will also start Sunday's race on the Soft compound tyre, while Hamilton and Bottas will begin on the more durable Mediums.

Renault's Daniel Ricciardo led the midfield battle in seventh place ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris, who will make his first home grand prix start in eighth ahead of Toro Rosso's Alexander Albon and Nico Hulkenberg, who completed the top 10 for Renault.

Alfa Romeo drivers Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen were edged out of qualifying by Albon late on, leaving them P11 and P12 on the grid ahead of Carlos Sainz, who failed to match McLaren teammate Lando Norris's pace as he wound up 13th.

Romain Grosjean could only qualify P14 for Haas as the team's tyre woes continued through qualifying, although he still managed to beat Racing Point's Sergio Perez by two-tenths of a second as the Mexican wound up 15th.

While Grosjean's return to the Australia-spec setup saw him make it through to Q2, teammate Kevin Magnussen dropped out in Q1 after being bumped out late on by Perez. Magnussen was less than two-hundredths of a second shy of advancing, but was instead left to contend with Haas's yo-yoing Saturday form just two weeks after qualifying fifth.

Daniil Kvyat struggled for Toro Rosso as he qualified P17 ahead of Racing Point's Lance Stroll, who was eliminated in Q1 for the 14th consecutive race. Stroll was on course to make it through to Q2 before a slow second sector and a mistake at the final corner meant he failed to improve with his final effort, dropping out in P18 as a result.

Williams propped up the running order once again with George Russell and Robert Kubica in P19 and P20 respectively. Russell was one second shy of Stroll's time ahead, but managed to extend his perfect qualifying record versus Kubica this year after beating the Pole by four-tenths of a second.