Just the beginning. But a darn promising one. Or as Lewis Hamilton put it: ‘Holy c**p!’
That was after the Ferrari star, so often the Batman of Silverstone, took pole position for the sprint race. He was 0.011sec ahead of Kimi Antonelli, and the fact was as much a tribute to the man as his red machine.
He jostled his car through the final sector, not letting it slide away from him as it threatened to do, once again bending the old airfield to his will. But this was not a flash conjured in the final moments of qualifying but reflected the superiority he had shown throughout the session. Top in Q1, top in Q2 and now top in Q3.
The only cruelty is that the sprint winner at the end of 17 laps takes eight points, the runner-up seven. It’s a cigarette paper of separation and would hardly make a dent in the Englishman’s 46-point deficit to Antonelli if they were both to finish where they start.
But the boon is obvious. Hamilton is clearly quick, far more so than any observer dared predict coming into the weekend on an engine-reliant track that is theoretically not suited to Ferrari’s supposed engine limitations (albeit a handicap mitigated by a power-unit (PU) upgrade introduced last weekend in Austria).
This suggests a successful weekend in prospect. If he was fast here, why not in qualifying for the British Grand Prix proper on Saturday and then the main event with 25 points on offer?
Lewis Hamilton (right) beamed an enormous smile after take pole for Silverstone’s sprint race
‘Wow! I like it,’ said Hamilton, 41, after stepping out of his missile, offering a V-for-Victory salute, and sharing a word with Antonelli, the Italian 21 years his junior.
‘I love this place, I love this crowd, and I can’t express to you how big a dream it is. Still to this day, when you’re building up to this race you think about every corner and the flow you can get into if you get the set up right and have a good team behind you.
‘The car felt great today thanks to everyone back at the factory, just continuing to push. We brought tiny little bits here. Every single weekend we’re showing up with something. Everyone’s pushing to the max.
‘I was quick through all the session but still, it was only 10 milliseconds, so it was very close to these guys.
‘We are ahead of Mercedes and Red Bull and those guys have so much power.
‘We didn’t expect we would be competing this far up but this is an amazing surprise and I am ecstatic. I don’t remember the last time I started on the front row here!’
It was 2021, in fact. He went on to win, clinching the eighth of his nine triumphs here among the faithful.
A measure of Hamilton’s impact on the timing screens was that the other scarlet car of Charles Leclerc was only fourth best, a place ahead of George Russell in fifth.
That was a disappointment for the Briton after his morale-boosting win in Austria last Sunday. That ended a 112-day drought and took him to within 40 points of Antonelli. He needs momentum this weekend, and this was a brake on that ambition.
‘It’s kind of the story of the year,’ lamented Russell. ‘Always on the back foot. Usually, come Q3, I can generally make a step. Today, that was not the case. I need to understand why that is. It’s a bit strange.
‘At least, tomorrow is the more important day.
‘I’m very surprised by Ferrari. They’ve been on the back foot with the PU and energy management, and here they look the best. We’ve always known they have a great chassis, but some things aren’t quite making sense.
‘If I were to have predicted, I would have said Ferrari quick last week and us quick this week. Obviously, Kimi did a great job but Ferrari had the upper hand all day.’
This is a potentially massive weekend for Hamilton and his hopes of the drivers’ championship
World champion Lando Norris, suffering a broken brake duct, qualified sixth for McLaren and team-mate Oscar Piastri seventh.
So not the dream afternoon for Norris. He had hoped to turn on a fine display for 16,000 punters inside the ‘Landostand’ at Stowe. The partisans wore fluorescent or papaya t-shirts in his honour, and they sweated it out as his mechanics worked on their man’s car between Q2 and Q3 into which he squeezed in 10th position.
A predictable day for Williams, fallen British giants of the grid, as Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon were only 15th and 16th quickest.
It was a familiar story at the bottom of the timing screens, with the two Haas cars, the two Cadillacs and the two Aston Martins all eliminated from Q3 – in that order from 17th to 22nd.
The Astons of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were a second behind the rest and three seconds off the summit. This was despite their gleaming factory by Silverstone’s main entrance rebuilt on a lavish scale at the cost of £200million.
No such concerns for Hamilton, though, as he went back to his motorhome on the vast campus. Yes, it is early in the weekend, with hotter and less helpful weather forecast for the next 36 hours.
But the seven-time world champion’s upturn in form, capped by his win in Barcelona three weeks ago, is increasingly tangible. And, anyway, Silverstone is where he has long written his own scripts, regardless of logic or convention.
