Rosberg on pole at Silverstone

Formula One championship leader Nico Rosberg made the right call to take pole position while Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton got it all wrong at the British Grand Prix.

As Hamilton aborted his last lap, assuming he could not improve on a time that looked good for pole in wet conditions, Rosberg kept on pushing and found the final sector of the circuit had dried enough to go faster.

Hamilton was not the only one to make a major error of judgement on a changeable day at Silverstone that caught out some of the biggest names in the sport and rewarded some of those more used to lining up at the back.

Ferrari’s woes

Ferrari and Williams completely misjudged the weather and failed to get any of their drivers through the first phase when rain started to fall before they had set quick enough times.

Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen qualified 19th and 20th respectively for Ferrari. Brazilian Felipe Massa, who took pole at the previous race in Austria, was 18th with Williams team mate Valtteri Bottas 17th.

“It was a perfect storm,” said Alonso. “It’s a narrow line between becoming a hero and a big mistake and we became a big mistake today.”

Rosberg, as so often this season, got it right when it mattered – even if he was almost denied his chance by Hamilton going slow in front of him.

“It was a quite crazy qualifying,” the German told reporters.

“It was quite wet…I told the guys ‘that’s it.’ And then we were sitting in the box (garage) and we just came to a general conclusion that we might as well go out and have a look at the track.

“Then it seemed like we should give it a go, but even then I still didn’t really believe that the track would be better. But what made it was the last sector…it was a lot drier.”