Max Verstappen took victory in F1's inaugural Sprint event at Silverstone, coming home ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas to seal pole for tomorrow's Grand Prix.

The opening lap provided a thrilling duel between Hamilton and Verstappen with the Dutchman leaping off the line to take the lead ahead of the Briton, who darted around in the Red Bull's slipstream and tried to get past on more than one occasion.

He couldn't retake the lead, though, and Verstappen managed to open up a big enough gap in the following laps to negate the slipstream effect that's so strong around the open, fast-flowing Silverstone circuit.

Elsewhere, Fernando Alonso roared up to fifth on a stellar opening lap, ahead of both McLarens and Sergio Perez, the latter of whom saw his Grand Prix for tomorrow impacted negatively most of all by today's Sprint as he dropped down to 18th following a spin at the Maggotts and Becketts sequence of corners, mid-way through the 100km dash - he would have to retire before the end.

Some great fighting up and down the field ensued, with the likes of Alonso eventually dropping down to seventh and having Sebastian Vettel behind him for company, whilst Esteban Ocon looked to hold off Carlos Sainz to line up 10th for tomorrow's Grand Prix.

The first Sprint, though, was taken by Max Verstappen whose pace was too much for Hamilton in the end, and he'll be looking to use that advantage over the full race tomorrow afternoon.

An interesting event, with plenty of action to look at with drivers in the opening laps charging particularly hard to advance themselves up the standings for the main event, and certainly it was something that you'd happily sit in front of again and watch.

For a new F1 format, pretty successful all around.