British Grand Prix: Qualifying Recap
July 5, 2025
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team drivers Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon qualified 8th and 15th respectively for the British Grand Prix, Round 12 of the 2025 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, but despite a Q3 performance from Bearman – in front of his home crowd for the first time, a 10-place penalty earned from a final practice incident drops the rookie to 18th while promoting Ocon to 14th on the grid for Sunday’s race.
Both drivers comfortably eased through the opening section of qualifying – Q1. Using two brand new sets of Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires – Bearman rocketed into Q2 in P3 with a blistering 1:26.005 lap, while teammate Ocon produced a flying P7 effort – 1:26.136.
Bearman continued to showcase the pace of the VF-25, running the latest update package this weekend at Silverstone. Bearman’s fastest lap, a 1:25.534 – set on new softs, secured P6 and a spot in the top 10 Q3 shootout. Ocon was held to his opening Q2 lap – a 1:25.950, meaning the French racer exited qualifying in P15.
In Q3 Bearman delivered a quick lap of 1:25.471 on his final set of new softs – good for P8 but with the aforementioned grid penalty, results in a P18 grid slot. At the front, four-time Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen claimed pole thanks to a 1:24.892 lap – the Red Bull Racing driver pipping McLaren’s Oscar Piastri to the top spot by a tenth of a second.
Ollie Bearman:
“It was a good qualifying session and the car feels really good today, the car has been performing as expected and we’ve shown that on a Saturday which feels good. The team has done a great job today, so it hurts, but the car was easily into Q3 and if we have a good qualifying, I think it means we’ve got a really good race car.”
Esteban Ocon:
“It’s very close out there – as always – and unfortunately there were a few issues on the out lap and it wasn’t a clean last run. We’ll see what the weather is like tomorrow, if degradation is high it should open up opportunities, but it currently looks more difficult than the last two races, however things are going in the right direction and we’ll give it our best shot tomorrow.”
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:
“Mixed feelings today. The amazing positive is that we brought an update here and what a good job the team has done. The upgrades worked, we made the change yesterday, and it did what it was supposed to do. Today, Ollie got used to it and then harnessed its potential, and we all saw the result. We managed to make it into Q3 and P8 behind the big teams, so that’s a testament to everyone’s hard work. Of course, on the flip side, Ollie making that mistake in FP3 and receiving a 10-place grid drop for the second time is not good. We’re starting P18 so that’s just something we have to deal with, and we can’t repeat that. Esteban’s Q2 lap on his second run was compromised during his out lap so he didn’t get everything out of it. He was less happy with the car today, so we need to look into that. Tomorrow we have to give it everything starting from P14 and P18 – we’ll aim to get into a points scoring position.”