Ferrari engineers had warned Lewis Hamilton he would be six tenths off the pace on Silverstone’s straights heading into the British Grand Prix weekend.
The seven-time world champion had every reason to believe those predictions, given Ferrari’s four-tenth straight-line deficit to rivals in the previous race in Austria.
Hamilton has nine victories at Silverstone to his name, making him the most experienced driver on the grid when it comes to reading the iconic circuit’s demands.
Despite that wealth of knowledge, even Hamilton could not have predicted what was about to unfold when sprint qualifying got underway on Friday.
The Ferrari driver topped the timesheets in first practice and then produced an outstanding lap in sprint qualifying to edge out Kimi Antonelli by just 0.011 seconds.
“Yesterday they all scared me, they were like, we’re going to be six tenths off in a straight line to these guys. And in the last race we really were four tenths off in a straight line,” Hamilton said after securing his first sprint pole since China last year.
“But today all of a sudden we’re kind of there. I was like, is this real, are they going to turn it up in qualifying? But we are right there competing with them.”
Hamilton was quick to credit the relentless development work being carried out back at Ferrari’s Maranello factory for the step forward in performance.
“I always want to bring it back to everyone back in the factory,” he said. “I can’t say it enough, they’re just pushing. Last year we were kind of stuck in a rut, there was not a lot we could do. But now they’re finding things, and they’re adding things to the car.”
The energy management situation at Silverstone had also been flagged as a potential concern heading into the weekend, yet that too proved far less problematic than expected.
“Even if you heard me in the press conference, I was like ‘the track is not going to be the same’,” Hamilton said. “That’s what we all thought, but the track is still phenomenal, the track still feels great. The engine drop-off is not anywhere near what we anticipated.”
Teammate Charles Leclerc had a difficult sprint qualifying session by his own standards, yet even he could not hide his surprise at Ferrari’s competitiveness on such a power-sensitive layout.
“We are extremely surprised with Lewis taking the pole today, but in general we were expecting a much bigger gap to the cars in front,” Leclerc said.
“It’s a good step forward, but yeah, as a team we are just very, very surprised to be that competitive on a track like this.”
Hamilton himself is refusing to get carried away ahead of the sprint race, acknowledging that Mercedes and Red Bull still hold a power advantage that will be amplified by the slipstream effect through the opening laps.
“I have to look at the long run pace first, but the car felt great on the long runs, to be honest. It’s going to be tough, obviously these guys are very, very close, but I don’t think it’s impossible,” Hamilton said.
“We’re in a great position, but obviously there is a lot of towing that can be done through the first laps, which won’t make it easy to keep the Mercedes or a Red Bull engine behind.”
The 41-year-old, competing at a circuit that has brought him more joy than almost any other in his career, insisted he would leave nothing on the table in front of the home crowd.
“But I’ll give it absolutely everything for these fans,” he said, capturing the spirit of a driver who continues to defy expectations at the highest level of motorsport.