World championship leader Max Verstappen, on Saturday, won Formula One’s inaugural sprint race to claim the pole position for the British Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver finished the 100km dash ahead of defending world champion Lewis Hamilton with Valterri Bottos finishing third.

Verstappen went into the weekend with a 32-point lead over seven-time champion Hamilton who is hoping to capture an eighth British Grand Prix triumph on Sunday.

“We were pushing each other hard as the tyres were blistering a lot,” said Verstappen who collected three points for his win.

Hamilton took two and Bottas one.

“I am happy to have scored the three points and it is funny to say I have scored the pole position too, but we’ll take it,” added the Dutchman.

“I got off to a really good start and that was a great fight with Lewis early on. You could see we were pushing hard as there was lot of blistering on our tyres.”

“I think tomorrow will be a very exciting race and we’re looking forward to it,” he added.

The British F1 driver started the sprint at the front of the grid as he topped the qualifying on Friday. However, after failing to claim the pole, he admitted that he will have to face the music to secure a 99th career win in front of around 90,000 fans on Sunday.

“First of all, let me say thank you to the fans, their energy is amazing,” he said.

“I gave it everything today, I’m just sorry I couldn’t win it for them. Tomorrow we will fight again, but Red Bull are just so strong,” he added.

Saturday’s sprint qualifying race was the first of three planned for this year.

Another will follow at the Italian Grand Prix in September with the third venue still to be confirmed.

Earlier, Verstappen set the fastest time in the second and final practice session at Silverstone.

Verstappen’s best lap in his Red Bull was 1 minute 29.902sec, just ahead of the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in a session that may hold little significance on a weekend when Formula One is experimenting with a new qualifying format.

The new short format race, lasting around 30 minutes for 100km, or 17 laps at Silverstone, is part of an attempt by Formula 1 to reach out to a younger audience.

Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes was the fastest driver in Friday’s “classic” qualifying session.

In the championship standing, Verstappen leads Hamilton by 32 points in the standings.

Hamilton and his team-mate Valtteri Bottas only set the eighth and ninth fastest times, both a little more than 1.2 seconds slower than Verstappen in Saturday’s practice.

The main focus of the session was to test the different tyre compounds.