2026 British Grand Prix Qualifying Review

Linus O'Howell
11 hours ago
3 min read

After a Sprint Race earlier in the day, who managed to learn the most ahead of Qualifying for the 2026 British Grand Prix?!

Q1

In Qualifying 1, Esteban Ocon, Valtteri Bottas, Franco Colapinto, Sergio Perez, Lance Stroll, and Fernando Alonso were the six slowest drivers! Esteban Ocon was very frustrated to have been eliminated, having felt like a yellow flag cost him progression to the next round, whilst Valtteri Bottas did a much better job to get his Cadillac on the 9th row of the grid! It was a very disappointing day for Franco Colapinto, who will start alongside the other Cadillac of Sergio Perez, whilst Aston Martin were once again last, but this time, they were 1.4 seconds off the next Cadillac! I mean, that is shocking, but you could argue that an even bigger shock was the fact that Lance Stroll was able to outqualify Fernando Alonso for the second time in 3 weekends! Amazingly, it was Isack Hadjar who managed to top Q1 from the Racing Bulls of Liam Lawson! Crazy!

Q2

In Qualifying 2, Gabriel Bortoleto, Pierre Gasly, Nico Hulkenberg, Oliver Bearman, Carlos Sainz, and Alex Albon all failed to make it into the Top 10 shootout! Gabriel Bortoleto was really unlucky to miss out on a Q3 appearance by just 32 thousandths of a second, whilst Pierre Gasly will start on the same row, despite lapping 6 tenths slower than the Brazilian! Nico Hulkenberg will be disappointed with P13, given the fact that he went 5 tenths quicker in Q1, whilst Oliver Bearman was at least able to get his Haas into P14! Williams then locked out the 8th row, with Carlos Sainz once again heading Alex Albon, although both of these drivers also went slower than they managed at the end of the first part of Qualifying! Andrea Kimi Antonelli was back on top in Q2, over a tenth and a bit clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc!

Q3

In Qualifying 3, a rapid 1:28.111 was enough for Andrea Kimi Antonelli to take his 5th Pole Position of the season! What a perfect Saturday for the Championship leader! Ferrari will start from P2 and P3, with Charles Leclerc doing a good job to outqualify Lewis Hamilton, whilst a poor final lap meant George Russell will only start from 4th! Isack Hadjar was comfortably the quickest Red Bull driver today, with Lando Norris finding himself in between Hadjar and Max Verstappen, whilst Oscar Piastri could only manage 8th! Red Bull and McLaren were absolutely miles off this session! For the third-straight Qualifying session, Racing Bulls managed to get two cars into Q3, with Arvid Lindblad coming out on top over teammate Liam Lawson (whose fastest lap of the day came in Q1)!