2022 British Grand Prix – Saturday

P5 and P8 for the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Team at the end of a rain-soaked qualifying session at Silverstone

• Lewis will line up for the British Grand Prix in P5 and George in P8, with the W13 showing plenty of promise throughout the day.
• The rain was lashing sideways for much of Q1 and Q2 with all drivers running Inters; George and Lewis navigated the conditions well to progress comfortably.
• In the shootout for pole in Q3, the drivers steadily built confidence and the times tumbled with each passing lap as the rain continued to drizzle. On their final run, Lewis managed enough for P5 but a lock up at turn 3 for George left him with too much to do, eventually crossing the line in P8.
• The W13 showed strong pace in the dry conditions of FP3 and the team will look to bring that potential to tomorrow’s race.
• Imagery of the day is available on our media site. All imagery is rights-free for editorial use.
• To download all available imagery from today with just one click, please use the following link (please note that imagery will download in a zip folder): Image selection

Lewis Hamilton

The team have worked incredibly hard to bring updates to the car and we have a bunch of new aero furniture around the car and it has improved. But we still have bouncing in the high-speed corners which is where, particularly the Red Bull, is pulling away from us. In the rain, we were fighting for the front row; all the way until that second to last lap we were up there. We backed off to charge the battery and go into a racier mode for the final lap but that was just when the rain started to fall heavier and it cost us. I was so hopeful because we have this incredible crowd and we were in the fight, I was feeling great. We’ve got a great race car and fifth isn’t the worst place to start, in previous races I’d have been happy with P5 but it’s the British Grand Prix, you’re hopeful for more. I’ll try and pull something special for tomorrow, I really appreciate the support here – the fans were amazing.

George Russell

In Q1 I was feeling really well in the car, very confident but in Q2, it felt slightly worse and then in Q3, I struggled for confidence in the car, made a mistake and it was tough to recover from there. It was tricky for everyone out there but I’m slightly disappointed we didn’t have a better qualifying session, we didn’t expect to fight for pole but more was possible. In FP3 we looked very strong with good pace in the dry and we felt like we made good progress. We know that we have a much faster race car than qualifying so let’s see what we can do tomorrow, starting P8 puts us on the back foot so we need to get through those midfield cars as quickly as possible. In the dry and in race pace, we feel we have a car than fight Red Bull and Ferrari so we’ll be giving it everything tomorrow.

Toto Wolff

It felt like we had made a good step with the car in the dry in FP3, and that we could be in the mix for qualifying. Obviously the rain came and we managed the session well, setting competitive laps as the rain ebbed and flowed. But in Q3, the final laps didn’t come together – George had a lock-up on his penultimate lap, and Lewis struggled with a split on brake temperatures and losing some tyre temperature. So it’s a little disappointing to be only P5 and P8, and to not have extracted the full potential today. The silver lining is that we had strong long runs yesterday – we have improved the car since then – and it’s race pace that matters round here. I’m looking forward to watching it all play out in front of these fantastic fans and another packed house.

Andrew Shovlin

We’re disappointed with the final positions as we were closer to the front in the first and second session but ultimately we didn’t get the laps together when the conditions were at their best. We’d backed both cars off on the penultimate lap thinking we’d push at the end but the rain picked up a little and we just didn’t have the pace. However, we have seen signs of progress with the car over the weekend that are keeping us encouraged. We made a few changes overnight and the drivers were both much happier with the high speed performance in final practice earlier today.  Our long run was decent on Friday but it was the high speed corners where we were losing, so hopefully the improvements have carried through from low fuel to high fuel. So, not quite the grid positions that we had hoped for but we’re still optimistic that we can bring home some good results tomorrow. The fans have been brilliant all weekend and we’ll hopefully be able to give them something to celebrate tomorrow.