Report: Busy Silverstone Sprint and Qualifying Saturday
A flat-out Sprint and a gusty qualifying hour set the stage for Sunday at the team’s home race
Published
04 JUL 2026
Est. reading time
3 min
Both cars progressed through to the second qualifying phase for the second successive day at Silverstone as the grid was set for the 2026 British Grand Prix.
Carlos Sainz will line up P15, with Alex Albon alongside him in P16, after a gusty qualifying hour at the home of British motorsport.
The day had begun with a 17-lap Sprint around this storied venue, where Carlos got away cleanly and climbed to P13 at one stage on the opening lap before slipping back to P17.
Alex, who had started from the pit lane after changing his setup to test a new direction, was quickly onto the back of his teammate after an action-packed opening three laps, which included a move up the inside at Maggotts.
Despite knocking on the door of a Haas in the closing stages, our duo crossed the line in P17 and P18 after the 100km dash.
Later in the afternoon, it was time to qualify, but both drivers backed off from their initial Q1 attempts, giving themselves two more runs to make it through to the top 16.
Their first timed laps put them above the elimination line, and their final attempts further solidified their progression - Carlos was P14 after a 1:30.562, with Alex in P16 after a 1:30.638.
Realistically, making it into Q3 was unlikely; however, there was still learning to be gained. Carlos’ banker of 1:30.825 was improved to a 1:30.623 to take P15, while Alex found time from his 1:31.341 with a 1:30.743 to secure P16.
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James Vowles, Team Principal:
“Small steps forward, but we have a huge amount more to do. We were trialling different setups today in the Sprint, which we've kept on the car, and there's small progress from that. In these windier conditions the cars became tricky, and whilst we didn't get everything out of it that we could, we still have to conclude that we have a large gap we need to close to the top of the midfield - and quickly. It'll be an interesting race tomorrow and we'll give it everything."
Carlos Sainz:
"Our Sprint race was nothing special, stuck behind a Haas and struggling with deployment. For qualifying the wind picked up and our car was very sensitive to it, making it very challenging to drive and ultimately making us less competitive. I did some test items for the team and cross-car comparisons to see if we could find some performance, but it didn’t really work and we are still struggling to find pace. For the race, we'll keep collecting learnings about this new front wing and the car. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow and the target will be to maximize everything."
Alex Albon:
“Today was pretty much what we expected. We made some setup changes so we started from the pit lane for the Sprint to learn more about the car and go in some different directions. It was productive; we picked up some useful information, both positive and negative. We'd qualified P15 and P16 yesterday, same as today, so it felt like a good chance to test a few ideas. The other midfield teams have all brought significant upgrades, and our upgrade isn't coming until Baku, so we can only improve so much for now. The focus has been on experimenting and gathering data until then. We've struggled a bit in low speed, but the high speed has been better than it was in Austria and Barcelona.
“On the plus side, this is probably the best the car has felt – maybe the front wing helped there, though the simulator always promises a bit more than we're getting. Tomorrow won't be easy for anyone with the windy conditions, and we're hoping reliability plays a part too. For us, it'll be a battle with the Haas rather than the Alpines."
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