To the delight of the home fans, the double world champion saw off the threat of Lando Norris who will line up alongside him on the front row for McLaren, while George Russell was third for Mercedes.
But Lewis Hamilton was not among those leading the charge for pole after the Brit was a shock elimination from the second session of qualifying after being caught out by a rapidly drying track.
There were two further crashes during the shootout on a drying track with Logan Sargeant and Charles Leclerc both spinning out and bringing the red flag for Williams and Ferrari respectively.
In addition Liam Lawson took place in his first qualifying session having replaced Daniel Ricciardo in the AlphaTauri after the Australian broke his hand in a Friday practice crash, but he struggled in the very tricky conditions after finishing bottom of the pile.