Zoom The harder 'prime' tyre didn't get a look in during qualifying for the British Grand Prix

Heikki Kovalainen has achieved his first ever F1 pole position by using Bridgestone’s 'softer option' medium compound Potenza to go fastest in qualifying at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix, round nine of the championship.

The McLaren driver was quickest by over half a second with a lap of 1:21.049s. Second fastest was Red Bull Racing driver Mark Webber, who also used the medium compound to set his fastest time, and will start from the front row of the grid for the first time since Monaco in 2006. Kimi Raikkonen set the third fastest time whilst last year’s pole sitter Lewis Hamilton was fourth.

In the morning practice session Alonso went fastest, with a time of 1:20.740s, set on the medium compound. Alonso was over two-tenths faster than the second fastest driver, Webber. This session started with a wet track, which dried during running. The extreme wet and wet tyres were used during the session, as well as both compounds of dry tyres.

Today’s fastest lap time, a 1:19.537s, was set by Lewis Hamilton, using the medium compound in Q2. The morning rain at Silverstone meant that much of the rubber laid down on Friday was washed away, hence lap times were not significantly faster than yesterday.

Hirohide Hamashima, Tyre Development Director
“Congratulations to Heikki Kovalainen for achieving his first pole position, which he did by over half a second. This was a very impressive performance on a difficult day for drivers. We saw very changeable conditions, but both the hard and medium compound dry tyres worked well. With the medium compound we saw more graining on the front tyre, and some teams struggled with understeer because of this. In the morning practice we saw that our wet tyre is well suited to Silverstone and performance was strong. Tomorrow will be very interesting as we will be at the mercy of the weather. If there is rain before the race but a dry track, some teams will experience severe wear because of the green track, and we could see many different strategies.”

E.A. © CAPSIS International