Revealed: How George Russell beat Lewis Hamilton to British Grand Prix pole position
The Mercedes duo locked out the front row at Silverstone, but it was George Russell who had the edge.
George Russell has taken pole position at the 2024 British Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver led an all-British top three and beat Lewis Hamilton in qualifying for the tenth time this year to take the first spot on the grid.
Russell led a 1-2 finish for Mercedes in qualifying at Silverstone. The winner of the Austrian GP beat his teammate again in an exciting duel for pole position in dry conditions, but with low track temperatures and poor grip due to the early rain this morning.
Data shows where George Russell edged ahead of Lewis Hamilton to British GP pole
The preparation lap was key for all the drivers. The final Q3 attempt was chaos for many of them, as they all wanted to do their time in the best track conditions.
However, this also meant that the out-laps were less than optimal and the drivers were unable to get their tyres up to temperature correctly.
In fact, neither Russell nor Hamilton improved their times in Sector 1 compared to their first attempt.
Once the tyres had warmed up, they were able to improve their minisector times and, overall, their lap times.
Hamilton started his final flying lap of Q3 with 20 seconds left on the clock, while Russell did so with 11 seconds remaining before the chequered flag.
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In other words, the man in pole found himself with slightly better track conditions than Hamilton for the final flying lap of both during the qualifying session.
The gap between Russell and Hamilton was very slight. But George built up an advantage from Sector 2 onwards that allowed him to beat the seven-time World Champion by +0.171s.
Russell seemed to have more grip, especially through the fast Copse corner and on the exit of Maggotts and Becketts before Chapel where he was clearly able to be more aggressive and where the biggest gap between the two was made.
Finally at Vale – Turn 14 – Russell also braked later than Hamilton to make the final push for his second pole position so far this year.
The winner of the Austrian Grand Prix last weekend starts tomorrow in a very favourable position to search for another victory, this time on home soil.
He has once again outqualified his teammate and leads a Mercedes team that has made extraordinary progress since the start of the season to fight against Red Bull and McLaren.
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