The Latest Breaking News from Nico Hulkenberg

Verstappen maintained his dominant grip of top spot in F1 by leading both practice sessions on Friday at Silverstone, but did see his advantage trimmed to just 0.022s by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in FP2. 

Red Bull led the way on Friday, with Max Verstappen topping both practice sessions in the utterly-dominant RB19.

That’s certainly how it looked after rainy weather voided the strict tyre usage rules in the Saturday shootout and allowed everyone to use whatever slick compound they wanted to over the three sessions.

Verstappen nailed the start to head off Leclerc’s run to the inside for the first corner and then dropped him again following an early safety car needed to clear debris from contact between cars back in the pack at Turn 1.

Verstappen nailed the start to head off Leclerc's run to the inside for the first corner and then dropped him again following an early safety car needed to clear debris from contact between cars back in the pack at Turn 1.

Max Verstappen started on pole with two Ferrari behind him for company, with Lewis Hamilton also in the mix while Sergio Perez and George Russell had much more work to do after poor qualifying results

The sun finally burst through the clouds overlooking the Red Bull Ring on Saturday evening – three hours after the Austrian Grand Prix sprint race had concluded. Rain and low-hanging, misty cloud had otherwise prevailed on a day of glory, reflected tragedy and controversy in the Styrian mountains. 

Hulkenberg holds the record for the most F1 starts (189) without a top-three finish.

On Saturday Verstappen won the sprint race from pole position and can complete the clean sweep on Sunday as he starts from pole for the grand prix, after topping Friday’s qualifying.