Ferrari, Williams suffer qualifying disasters at Silverstone

Ferrari and Williams will be wondering what happened today during qualifying for the British Grand Prix as neither team managed to get a driver out of Q1 at Silverstone.

Rain during the session made conditions difficult for the drivers, but when the track began to dry up, most opted to make the switch to dry compound tires. Marussia made this work particularly well to get both of its drivers through to Q2 for the first time since Belgium last year.

However, by opting to bide their time and wait to post a time on the dry tires, both Ferrari and Williams fell victim of another rain shower. As a result, Valtteri Bottas, Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen all dropped out in Q1, making up positions 17 to 20 respectively.

It marks Ferrari’s worst qualifying result since the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix. Once again, the Italian marque was caught out by wet weather as Fernando Alonso qualified 19th and then-teammate Felipe Massa finished 21st at Sepang.

Having gained so much momentum in Austria with its best result in nine years, Williams came back down to earth quickly at Silverstone during qualifying. Both of the cars came unstuck in practice, and the team will be hoping to finally have some good luck during the race tomorrow.

The drivers will all gain one position by virtue of Esteban Gutierrez’s ten place grid penalty. After qualifying 14th, he will start from the back of the grid. Bottas and Massa will also pick up another place due to Max Chilton’s five place penalty for a gearbox change, meaning that the Briton will start P18 after qualifying an incredible 13th in the wet.

You can read the full qualifying report from Silverstone here.

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