Scuderia Ferrari HP got its British Grand Prix weekend off on the right foot, with Lewis Hamilton securing pole position for tomorrow's Sprint, to be run over 17 laps and getting underway at 12:00 local time (13:00 CEST). It is Lewis' second Sprint pole position and the third for Ferrari. Charles Leclerc also delivered a solid performance and will line up on the second row of the grid in fourth place.

The two SF-26s looked competitive from the very first free practice session and Lewis and Charles progressed comfortably through the opening two phases of Sprint Qualifying, both of which were contested on Medium tyres, as required by the regulations. In the final segment, run on Soft tyres with just a single timed lap available, Lewis put together an almost perfect lap, stopping the clocks in 1'28"376, just one hundredth of a second quicker than Kimi Antonelli. Charles, meanwhile, posted a 1'28"703, only to be edged by Max Verstappen by six thousandths of a second, dropping the Monegasque driver to fourth place.

As is customary on a Sprint weekend, parc fermé conditions will be lifted after the 100-kilometre race, allowing teams to work on the cars ahead of Grand Prix qualifying.

Lewis Hamilton: It's always special coming back to this track that I love so much, and taking pole for the Sprint here is a really special feeling. Huge thanks to the team for the job they've done today, and to all the fans in the grandstands... your support is something else. Looking at the gap to Kimi (Antonelli), I'd like to think it was the fans' energy that gave me that extra hundredth. We didn't expect to be this competitive here, so a lot of credit has to go to everyone in team here and back at the factory who keep pushing and delivering improvements step by step. We're making real progress, and that's down to all the hard work going on behind the scenes. Our long-run pace looked solid too, though tomorrow will be a real challenge with how closely matched everyone is at the front.

Charles Leclerc: I was quite confident coming into Q3, but I was just missing that final bit to really take the car to the limit on every lap. We didn't expect to be as competitive as we have shown to be today on a track like this, so it's a positive. Let's see what we can do in the Sprint tomorrow and then focus on qualifying.

Fred Vasseur: Congratulations to Lewis and to the whole team on today's result. In a Sprint weekend, the preparation work done back in Maranello is even more important than usual, so I would like to thank everyone who worked so hard before we arrived here. It's the ideal way for Lewis to start his home weekend, but we know we haven't achieved anything yet. Charles is also in a good position, and tomorrow's Sprint will give us some important indications for the rest of the weekend. Our objective is to score plenty of points in the Sprint and then immediately switch our full focus to qualifying for the Grand Prix, with the aim of securing another solid result.