Last Updated on July 6 2025, 12:38 pm
Qualifying at the 2025 British Grand Prix was a fascinating affair. Six drivers were in with a shout of claiming the top spot, with Ferrari looking the most likely to depose McLaren after a strong weekend in practice.
Mercedes expectations were lower than the other top teams as in the latter practice sessions they were over half a second away from the best on the timing sheets, whilst Ferrari who were quickest in FP1 and FP3 were hoping for their first pole of the season.
With just one set of new soft tyres come Q3, Russell waited his time before going out second last of the ten drivers on track. The British driver nailed his lap putting his Mercedes ahead of Hamilton and Leclerc who start the Grand Prix in P5 and P6 respectively.
Red Bull low downforce gamble
Max Verstappen had been complaining loudly about his RB21 and in Friday practice he described the car as “undriveable” as the world champion suffered significant understeer. Given Red Bull’s correlation problems between the simulator and the car, once again the pre-race weekend setup was clearly a long way from what was ideal.
Yet the engineers and reserve drivers back in Milton Keynes put in an ‘all nighter’ on Friday, with a new range of setup options offered for the final practice on Saturday morning. As we’ve come to expect, the RB21 in the hands of Verstappen was a different beast cone qualifying although Red Bull had been forced into a radical downforce setup.
Described by Martin Brundle as a “Monza style rear wing” Red Bull trimmed out the car for qualifying, though mostly due to a lack of confidence they wold start the Grand Prix up front. Verstappen was between 8-10kph quicker down the straights than any other driver, something Lando Norris later suggested would mitigate the DRS of cars following in the race.
Yet to the surprise of many F1 paddock observers, it was Verstappen who risked it all by running last in Q3. The gamble was that the likes of Pierre Gasly would not spin during their final efforts – as he did in Austria – because this wold at best bring out a yellow flag, enough to ruin Max’s final push effort.
Verstappen “mind blowing” in high speed turns
A combination of errors from the McLaren and Ferrari drivers, meant their times did not improve, but the world champion dug deep and found another two tenths on his previous effort to claim pole from a disappointed Oscar Piastri.
As the data was crunched, analysts revealed that not only was Max quickest on the straights, but remarkably he was faster than the McLaren’s through the high speed turns of Maggots and Beckets. Jenson Button commented after the session, “The bit that’s amazing for me is that he’s going through Becketts quicker, and that’s the bit that I can’t comprehend. All the other bits, fair enough! It does blow my mind!”
As noted, Red Bull had set the car up almost resigned to the fact that pole position was this weekend out of reach. Yet the low downforce rear wing was also a vital solution to finding the best setup and balance for the car, as Verstappen explained after the session.
When asked about the change around from Friday’s undriveable RB21, Verstappen said: “We looked a bit slow yesterday on the other wing, plus I was just understeering to the moon, so I had to try and reduce that understeer, and it seemed to work. It was very difficult to balance and today we definitely improved the understeer and that just allowed me to push a bit more because I think it just caught us out yesterday, which we didn’t expect to happen, so then you need to work around with the tools that you have and luckily we went in the right direction with it.”
Dr. Marko ‘expected’ front row
Red Bull boss Christian Horner praised his driver for delivering another “wonderful lap” but was quick to thank the engineers back at Milton Keynes for their efforts overnight. “The engineering team has done a great job overnight, they’ve worked hard on the car,” he told Sky F1. “We’ve added a bit of performance to the car, and we’ve balanced it. It’s tricky conditions with the gusting weather around here, but all credit to Milton Keynes. Max has delivered as he always does, so good performance.”
One person not surprised by the performance of the RB21 in Verstappen’s hands was Dr. Helmut Marko, who denied Red Bull had lucked in. ”No, actually we were expecting to be on the front row,” he told ServusTV. “We saw on Friday that, if we could get rid of the understeer, we’d be right up there. Step by step, the balance improved. We made a small adjustment after the first run in Q3, and then, of course, came the Max factor – an incredible lap, flawless once again.”
Lando Norris was candid when asked how he felt the race would play out, and referred to his team mates observation that Silverstone is similar to Suzuka, where Verstappen claimed pole and went on to win the race. Holding off the McLaren’s
Norris reveals McLaren “high speed” weaknesses
“You look at Red Bull Ring and you say Red Bull Ring is high-speed, but comparing to Silverstone, it’s quite medium-speed,” Norris said. “Here is definitely high-speed, and it’s probably highlighted a few more of our weaknesses.
“We’ve performed very well in the slower and medium-speed tracks, some of the higher speed, we’re not bad, but we always seem to lose out to Max and the Red Bull, like Oscar said, in Japan, here, things like that. So, yeah, clearly things to work on. But I think we go into the race tomorrow, there’s still plenty of opportunity for us,” the McLaren driver concluded.
With rain in the area for Sunday’s race, the Red Bull gamble on a low downforce setup may come back to bite them as in wet or damp conditions, the cars with higher downforce will have improved grip.
Brundle critical of “unfair” Wolff
Brundle critical of Wolff’s “unfair” behaviour – Formula One’s paddock elder statesman now claims that the Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is treating George Russell unfairly. The British driver who joined Mercedes the year after the calamitous end to Hamilton’s attempt at a record eight F1 drivers’ title, is out of contract with the silver arrows team come the end of this year.
During their three seasons together at Mercedes, Russell comprehensively beat his champion team mate 2-1 and in their final year together the young gun destroyed Hamilton in Saturday qualifying 18-6 and in the races on Sunday the tally was 15-8 against Lewis.
Now having inherited the mantle of team leader for the Brackley based team, Russell is once again delivering big time for Mercedes. He has scored almost three quarters of the team’s points this season to date while his talented rookie team mate is struggling to find his feet….. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
