Verstappen has better getaway to win debut Sprint Qualifying over Hamilton at Silverstone, take pole for British GP; Bottas P3

Formula 1 on Saturday introduced a limited Sprint Qualifying format for tomorrow’s British Grand Prix, where drivers started in their positions based on the usual three-round knockout qualifying, this time held on Friday evening, but the pole and other grid positions were determined by the results of this 17-lap mini-race. At the site of the first-ever Formula 1 race in 1950, the fabled Silverstone Circuit built on a former WWII bomber air field, the experiment saw Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton lose out to the ascendent Red Bull of Max Verstappen. Despite his front left brakes catching on fire while he sat waiting the start, Verstappen still got the better getaway than Hamilton when the lights went out for the Sprint Quali and easily went on to win it and the pole for tomorrow’s race, rendering Lewis’ superb fastest lap in Q3 on Friday evening not much more than a footnote. Hamilton will still line up in P2 alongside the Flying Dutchman for his home race, one which the superlative Mercedes man has won an amazing six times, but it is Verstappen who will sit on the pole, his fourth-in-a-row, by virtue of winning this mini-contest despite the fact the he was second to Hamilton in “qualifying.”

I’m not sure I get the logic of this format, however much of a sugar rush it is, as fastest one-lap pace has ever been the determining factor for pole positions in F1 and this Sprint format seems to cheapen the accomplishment of hooking it all up perfectly in Q3, as Hamilton did on Friday. And, while Hamilton’s Silver Arrows teammate Valtteri Bottas kept it clean to finish where he started (and thereby start where he finished) in P3, Verstappen’s stablemate, Sergio Perez, showed the dangers of the Sprint for both driver and team when he spun out in dirty air, had to then pit for a new wing and eventually retired his Red Bull prematurely so the team could make changes to the car out of parc fermé conditions. After “qualifying” P5, Perez was classified dead last in the Sprint and will start from the rear or the pits tomorrow and his team will have a lot of extra work overnight to fix whatever is ailing his mount, not to mention engineering a strategy to get the Mexican back to the front. For all of the F1 brass’s stated desire to save money and control costs, adding an additional 17 racing laps to the Grand Prix weekend, with all the attendant competitiveness on the track that entails, seems like an odd way to economize.

This was the top 10 Sprint Qualifying Grid based on Friday’s “qualifying” results (complete grid available via Formula1.com):

And these are the results for the top 10 of the Sprint Qualifying to set the grid for tomorrow’s race — as you can see, if F1 wanted to jumble things up from where the drivers “qualified,” they did succeed in that  (complete Sprint results also available via Formula1.com):

Tomorrow’s British Grand Prix airs live beginning at 10AM Eastern of ESPN here in the States. With today’s stunt, er um, Sprint out of the way let’s see if Hamilton and Mercedes have anything for the dominant looking Red Bull of Max Verstappen. Hope to see you then for the real race to find out how it all shakes out!