Verstappen pips Piastri to Silverstone pole

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen pipped McLaren’s Oscar Piastri to pole position at the British Grand Prix with the very last lap of qualifying.

Verstappen beat Piastri by 0.103 seconds, with McLaren’s Lando Norris just 0.015secs behind in third and Mercedes’ George Russell a further 0.019secs adrift in fourth.

Lewis Hamilton, second quickest behind Piastri after the first runs in final qualifying, slipped back to fifth at the end, just ahead of his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc.

Briton Oliver Bearman was an excellent eighth for Haas, but will be demoted to 18th on the grid because of a 10-place penalty for going too fast under red-flag conditions in practice, when he crashed in the pit lane.

In the other Mercedes, Kimi Antonelli was seventh but he has a three-place grid penalty from his crash with Verstappen in Austria.

Those penalties promote Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin from ninth. Alpine’s Pierre Gasly completed the top 10. (BBC)