As the green light came on in the pit lane to start the final part of qualifying on Saturday for Sunday’s British Grand Prix, the omens were not looking good for Lewis Hamilton.
He had been outpaced by Mercedes-GP teammate Nico Rosberg in both of Friday’s practice sessions and both the opening two parts of qualifying.
Rosberg had appeared to have the better set-up in the F1 W06 chassis, with Hamilton looking unable to carry as much speed into the fast twists and turns of the Silverstone circuit.
The final 10-minute period that decided the order of the top 10 for Sunday’s 52-lap race was where it mattered most, though, and as has been the case so often in the past 18 months in the Mercedes team, when it was time to deliver it was Hamilton who did the better job.
The championship leader’s middle sector of his fastest lap was two-10ths quicker than Rosberg’s and that proved decisive as he claimed the 46th pole position of his career with a lap of one minute, 32.248 seconds, which was the quickest by 0.113 seconds.
Sunday will be the eighth time in nine races this season that Hamilton has started on pole.
“Generally it has not been the smoothest of weekends,” he said. “I made a change in the car before qualifying, which hopefully will be good for the race.
“Once I got to Q3 I could go all out and I am incredibly happy.”
It was important for Hamilton to halt Rosberg’s momentum, with the German having won three of the past four grands prix and producing his most impressive performance in the most recent race in Austria, where he dominated.
The Red Bull Ring in Spielberg was arguably Hamilton’s poorest performance, in terms of raw speed, for a long time, as he spun in qualifying and could not match Rosberg’s pace after losing the lead at the start.
He then allowed his concentration to waiver so that he earned a five-second time penalty for crossing the pit lane exit line after his lone stop.
Throughout his career a significant asset of Hamilton’s has been to bounce back quickly from setbacks and putting one over on Rosberg on Saturday, especially after the German had looked faster for most of the weekend, will give him a lift.
Hamilton leads Rosberg by 10 points in the championship standings, but the German has stepped up his game in recent weeks, pushing the world champion hard in Canada and then he was the faster man in Austria.
Rosberg, who won at Silverstone in 2013, took Saturday’s setback in his stride.
“Well, first of all, the first lap was really good, Lewis was just one-10th quicker, which is annoying but the way it is,” he said.
“No one improved in that last run apart from Felipe [Massa, the Williams driver]. There was something wrong on my left front, we need to look at what it was.”
Rosberg should not be too downhearted because he was beaten to pole in Austria by Hamilton but a superior start got him track position into the first turn and there was no looking back for him after that.
It was noticeable both Mercedes drivers throughout the weekend were taking time to practise their starts with the opening seconds of the race likely to be the defining ones of the afternoon.
Only twice this season has the man leading out of the first corner not won the race and, on both occasions, in Malaysia and Monaco, it was the appearance of a safety car that shook up the order rather any action on track.
With an almost one-second gap to the next fastest car of Massa, this is set to be yet another private party between the Mercedes drivers on Sunday.
Who comes out on top may be decided by who exits Turn 1 with their nose in front.
gcaygill@thenational.ae
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