Jules Bianchi came out on top in a fierce, session-long battle for pole position this afternoon in Silverstone, setting the pace throughout to push through for the top spot in the closing minutes to edge out championship leader Pastor Maldonado and Christian Vietoris.

Bianchi's blistering lap of 1:39.189 handed pole position to the Frenchman by just one tenth from his rivals, but traffic played as much of a part in his good fortune as did his talent, with a number of his rivals tripping over each other in the final few minutes as they looked to improve their times.

With temperatures soaring from this morning's free practice session, and a large quantity of F1 rubber down on the track, times inevitably tumbled from the outset: Maldonado, Sergio Perez, Giedo van der Garde and Bianchi were soon swapping the top spot between them as the times tumbled, with the top seven drivers all within one tenth at the ten minute mark.

At the halfway mark only Alberto Valerio was left on track, handing the Brazilian a perfect opportunity to improve his times, but it was only to last for few minutes as his rivals were soon back out and pushing each other hard: unfortunately this meant that almost no one could get a clear lap, with many improving their sector times before finding traffic.

Bianchi was one of the few to manage to stick his sectors together, setting the target time with five minutes remaining as his rivals tripped over each other: Vietoris was the only other driver to notably improve his position as the clock ticked down to zero, although he will lose 10 spots tomorrow for a penalty picked up in Valencia.

Lining up on the timesheets behind the top three are Dani Clos, Oliver Turvey, Sam Bird, Charles Pic, Giedo van der Garde, Alberto Valerio and Sergio Perez, but with the top 14 drivers all within a second of pole there will be plenty to prove when the lights go out at the start of tomorrow's feature race.