Lewis Hamilton arrived at Silverstone expecting Ferrari to struggle. Instead, the seven-time Formula 1 world champion left Friday evening on Sprint pole after a remarkable turnaround that even he admitted caught him completely by surprise.
Having topped the only practice session before edging championship leader Kimi Antonelli by just 0.011s in Sprint Qualifying, Hamilton produced one of his strongest performances since joining Ferrari – and confessed it exceeded even his own expectations.
Hamilton revealed the mood inside Ferrari before the weekend had been far from optimistic, with simulations suggesting the Scuderia would lose significant time to Mercedes on Silverstone's long straights.
The reality proved dramatically different.
"I am so happy. So, so happy," Hamilton said after the session.
"If you heard me in the press conference, I was like ‘the track's not going to be the same, because we that's what we all thought’. And the track's still phenomenal. The track still feels great. The engine drop-off is not anywhere near what we anticipated.
"On top of that, yesterday they [Ferrari’s engineers] were scaring me. They were like, ‘you're going to be six-tenths off in a straight line to these guys’. And in the last race, we were four-tenths off in in the straight line.
"But then today all of a sudden, we're kind of there and I was like, is this real? Are they [Mercedes] going to turn up in quali? And we were right there competing with them."
Hamilton's late lap not only denied Antonelli but also underlined Ferrari's recent progress, with the Briton quick throughout Friday's running.
While the result delighted the home crowd, Hamilton was quick to shine the spotlight on Ferrari's relentless development work, believing the team's steady stream of upgrades is finally paying dividends.
"I always want to bring it back to everyone back at the factory, because I can't say it enough. They’re just pushing. Like last year, we were kind of stuck in a rut, not a lot we could do.
"Now they're finding things, they're adding things to the car, and every single weekend, we're bringing small little bits and and adding performance to this car, and it felt awesome. Silverstone - it’s the best track to drive."
Pole position is only the first step, however, and Hamilton expects Saturday's Sprint to provide a much sterner examination of Ferrari's true race pace.
"I think our pace was good. It was a short-ish long run in FP1; there was not a lot of time. But the car felt good there, so yeah, I think we should have a good race tomorrow,” he said.
"And from the front - I don't remember the last time I started from the front row! It's not so easy when you've got these guys who can follow and be close with the extra power potentially. I'll do my best to keep them behind.”
After arriving at Silverstone fearing Ferrari would be outgunned, Hamilton instead finds himself leading the field into Saturday's Sprint - a scenario that looked highly unlikely just 24 hours earlier.
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