Lewis Hamilton had a strong showing in qualifying on home soil at Silverstone, completing a Mercedes 1-2.
“It was a great session,” Hamilton confirmed. “Probably the best session that we’ve had as a team. Just had the real pace to be able to actually compete with the McLarens and the Red Bulls, which I think is incredibly satisfying.
“It was really a huge boost for the team. The car felt great, as George was saying—a huge congratulations to George for being on pole. But to be on the front row, I think it’s massive for us, for our team, for everybody. So many of them are here this weekend with their families, and it’s been a long time since we’ve had it, so it’s a great feeling.”
Hamilton was fastest in the wetter conditions of Q1, and briefly took the top spot during the second runs in Q3. The fight for pole came down to the two Mercedes drivers, where Russell pipped him in the final moments of qualifying.
On his qualifying effort, Hamilton said: “Pretty straightforward for me. When it’s wet, that’s when I’m probably the happiest. Super confident in those first conditions. That was the easiest part for me, I would say. And then it got a little bit harder once we got to Q3, just with the balance.
“We set the car up pretty much exactly the same, whether it’s wet or dry, it’s just about optimising the aero package,” he added.
Hamilton admitted to having found confidence in an improved W15, a car he hadn’t quite gelled with at the start of the season. While he acknowledged that they have to keep pushing to catch the frontrunners, he remains optimistic that Mercedes’s strong qualifying pace can carry over to the race.
“It’s just better everywhere. From Bahrain, for example, the car felt terrible, and the progress that we’ve made in terms of dialling and fine-tuning the car to optimising the aero package…This team has never struggled to add performance, but where particularly they put that performance, with this generation of car, has been a big question, and where we’re getting the downforce from.
“But now they’ve done an amazing job, the engineers back at the factory. We’ll definitely take it today, but Red Bull, particularly Max [Verstappen], and the McLarens are very, very fast—you saw in the last race they were quite a bit ahead of us. So I’m hoping that tomorrow with the conditions we can hold our own.”
“Well, I think I was cautious with my set-up, more thinking to have a nice balance in the race rather than all for one particular lap. So I do think that the car will be good tomorrow, yeah,” he said of his Sunday prospects.
