Reigning Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton set a new lap record on his way to securing his seventh British Grand Prix pole position at Silverstone earlier today (1 August).

Finishing ahead of Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 teammate Valterri Bottas by just 0.313 seconds, Hamilton recovered from a spin during the second qualifying session to reign supreme at his home event.

This seventh record-extending British Grand Prix pole is Hamilton’s 91st, since his first at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix. The six-time World Champion commented that he missed the atmosphere of the 100,000 race fans normally in attendance at the circuit, but pulled out all the stops to leave a gap of over a second to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in third.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc secured fourth position, ahead of Britain’s Lando Norris who rounded out the top five. Fellow Brit George Russell starts tomorrow’s race in P20 after being handed a five-place grid penalty for failing to slow down under a yellow flag in the opening qualifying session.

22-year-old Russell reached Q2 for the third consecutive time this season but failed to respect yellow flags when his William’s teammate Nicholas Latifi spun during the opening session.

The 70th running of the Formula 1 British Grand Prix gets underway at 14:10 tomorrow afternoon, with live coverage on Channel 4 from 13:00.