The seven-time world champion had faced a huge deficit to Verstappen’s Red Bull in Friday’s sole practice sessi🧜on but turned in a stunning performance to🅠 top qualifying and line-up first for F1’s new sprint race.

Hamilton, who benefitted from getting a slipstream from Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas, posted a 1m26.134s to beat his main title rival Verstappen by just 0.075s and send a packed Silve⭕rstone crowd into raptur🧸es.

Hamilton had been going even faster on his second run until a mistake at Vale ruined his lap, but with Vers🧜tappen also unable to improve significantly, it was Hamilton who held on.

With a maximum of three points and pole po🦹sition on offer for the British GP in Saturday’s 100km sprint race, Hamilton✱ will be looking to beat Verstappen and claw back some of the Dutchman’s 32-point championship advantage.

Bott✱as took third in the second Merc☂edes and was just 0.194s adrift of Hamilton’s benchmark.

Charles Leclerc produced a brilliant lap to claim fourth place fo⛎r Ferrari, almost seven-tenths down on the front-running trio.

The Monegasque outpaced Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, who never featured in the battle to top quaꦐlifying and🔯 will line up a disappointing fifth ahead of the McLaren pair of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo.

A sensational lap from George Russell൲ sealed eighth place on the grid ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos 💯Sainz and Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel as he made it back-to-back Q3 appearances for Williams.

Two-time F1 world champion Fernando༺ Alonso narrowly missed out on a spot in Q3 as he outpaced AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon to take 11th.

Antonio Giovinazzi again out-qualified experienced Alfa Romeo teammate Kimi Raikkonen to secure 14th on the grid, having set a time one-tenth quicker than La﷽nce Stroll managed.

The Aston Martin driver was lacking confidence and unhappy with his set-up in Friday🌱’s sole practice session and✤ his struggles continued in qualifying on his way to a lowly 15th.

AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda was eliminated in the first segment of qualifying alon✅g with Raikkonen and Nicholas Latifi’s Williams.

As has become 💞the norm in 🎃2021, both Haas drivers were also knocked out in Q1 as they formed the last row of the grid.

Mick Schumacher once again outpaced his fel💟low rookie teammate Nikita Mazepin, who will startꦆ F1’s first-ever sprint race from the very back.

Full results from qualifying for the 2021 F1 British Grand Prix.