Hamilton takes pole position at home Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton set Silverstone alight by claiming pole position for the British Grand Prix today.

The Englishman scorched around in a time of one minute 19.997 seconds for his third pole in four races.

Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari will also start from the front row after he set a time 0.102secs behind, with Hamilton's team-mate Fernando Alonso third and Felipe Massa fourth in the other Ferrari.

But it was an afternoon to forget for another Englishman, Jenson Button, who failed to get his Honda beyond the first 15-minute phase of qualifying and will start from 18th - his lowest grid position of the year.

Robert Kubica claimed fifth place for BMW, with Toyota's Ralf Schumacher answering his critics with a season-best sixth.

Heikki Kovalainen was seventh for Renault, just pipping team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella.

Nick Heidfeld was ninth in the other BMW and Jarno Trulli rounded out the top 10 for Toyota.

David Coulthard failed to reach the top-10 and will start 12th, one place behind his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber.

Alex Wurz will start 13th for Williams, Rubens Barrichello 14th in his Honda, while the Toro Rosso pair of Scott Speed and Vitantonio Liuzzi are 15th and 16th, respectively.

Button will line up on the ninth row after a disastrous qualifying session.

"On my first run I got stuck in traffic behind one of the BMWs, and then in the second my car felt good," said Button.

"But I had a shout from one of my engineers there was a yellow flag (for Anthony Davidson's spin). So it's not been my afternoon."

Button did not blame the back spasm that forced him to miss second practice on Friday for his poor qualifying display.

He added: "It's fine. It's hurting, but it's not slowing me down. I'll have physio this afternoon and it shouldn't be a problem."

Button will line-up just behind Williams' Nico Rosberg after his worst qualifying performance of the year, while Davidson slid out at Brooklands corner in his Super Aguri on his last run and lines up 19th.

Davidson's team-mate Takuma Sato spilts the Spykers of Christijan Albers and Adrian Sutil in 21st place.