2011 British race winner Fernando Alonso finally took pole at Silverstone on Saturday after a qualifying session that took more than two and a half hours to complete. There were still six minutes and 19 seconds of Q2 left when the wet conditions became so bad that FIA race director Charlie Whiting wisely red-flagged the session.

At that stage Sauber’s Sergio Perez was fastest on 1m 59.092s from McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton on 1m 59.581s, then Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg on 2m 00.080s. At 14.25 local time it was announced that Whiting expected the action to resume at 15.00. Finally, as conditions improved, it restarted at seven minutes past the hour.