Lewis Hamilton said McLaren’s strong performance in qualifying at the British Grand Prix should act as a “wake-up call” to former champions Mercedes.
The seven-time champion and team-mate George Russell were seventh and sixth, but more than four-tenths of a second off the pace set by pole-man Max Verstappen in his Red Bull.
The defending double world champion and runaway series leader was fastest, two-tenths of a second ahead of McLarens’ Lando Norris and Australian rookie Oscar Piastri, who were second and third.
“It’s not a blow,” said Hamilton, who has won the British race a record eighth times.
“It’s just a wake-up call for us. Others have overtaken us and we need to do more.”
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Verstappen wins despite teammate clash | 00:49
McLaren CEO Zak Brown credited team principal Andrea Stella and the team as a whole for “hard work” that is finally starting to pay off, building on Norris’ fourth-place finish at the Austrian Grand Prix.
“The upgrades are working, the team is executing and the drivers are driving,” Brown told Sky Sports F1.
“We’ve got to take the highs and the lows, this is certainly the high of the season. Let’s see what happens in the race tomorrow.
“Austria we are always strong at but you do think is it track specific. But we have made a step forward and we are in the game now.
“I feel like our season got started in Austria which is a little late as everyone else showed up in Bahrain and it feels like we have good momentum. We need to keep our feet on the ground as it’s just qualifying.
“We have more (upgrades) coming. Nobody is sitting still and it’s unbelievably close so we have to keep our head down and keep pushing.”
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Stella, meanwhile, echoed the sentiments of Brown as he called it a “big positive” for the team given the success at Austria and upgrade package that Norris debuted at that race.
“A big positive is that we could confirm the progress we saw in Austria and the further upgrades we brought here,” Stella said, adding it was also proof of the “exceptional” work Piastri has put in.
“Today’s result indeed can be seen also as a confirmation of the exceptional job that Oscar has been doing,” he said, per Reuters.
“The speed was there, we knew it was there.
“We are really happy for Oscar himself that today he could show what we knew already in terms of his speed, consistency, adaptability to the various conditions that we had today.”
While Piastri may still be awaiting upgrades of his own, the Australian showed no signs of losing his way as he instead secured a career-best qualifying result at Silverstone.
Now Piastri is in a strong position to better his previous best race result of P8 in Australia and described it as a “very special moment” when speaking to reporters.
“To pull that off in Q3 like that was a mega result and obviously both of us have now got the new bits on our car and they’re working very well,” Piastri said.
“It’s a very special moment, to be in the top three. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been to one of these press conferences, so it’s nice to be back.”
Max Verstappen will start first on the grid with Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz rounding out the top five. Mercedes pair Russell and Hamilton sit behind them in sixth and seventh.
Hamilton said that he expected it to be a difficult race for Mercedes and he anticipated struggling to beat the McLarens.
“Of course I’ll try and be optimistic and we’ll do our best, but realistically, I’m not sure. We will find out. It was difficult to get past two Ferraris — and then we’ve got two McLarens out there. It’s going to be a tough race.”
Hamilton also suggested that much of the heavily-updated McLaren’s big upturn in performance had come from producing aerodynamic parts that were very similar to the Red Bull cars.
“If you look at the car, it makes sense,” he said.
“I’m really happy for them. They’ve had such a bad run for so long so to be back up there is really, really great to see.”
Hamilton began his Formula One career with McLaren and won his first title with them in 2008.
He added: “If you just put it alongside a Red Bull, it looks very similar down the sides and it’s working. It is great. We now have another team in the mix, which is what we want to see in this sport.”
Russell said that team data showed a big gap for Mercedes between their expected performances in qualifying and in Sunday’s race.
He said Mercedes had predicted they would qualify 17th and 18th, but had shown the pace to be third and fourth quickest in the race, on long runs, during the second free practice session.
“Our numbers suggest we were 17th and 18th in qualifying yesterday (Friday),” he said.
“And third and fourth in race trim in FP2. So, clearly we’ve made some improvements.
“I was pretty gutted to see that we were only half a tenth from P3, which would have been incredible, but my lap felt great.”
He praised McLaren for their success with their upgrades.
“Well done to McLaren,” he said.
“They’ve come from nowhere and they’re the big unknown for tomorrow… so let’s see.”
Grid for the British Grand Prix after qualifying at Silverstone:
Front row: Max Verstappen (NED/Red Bull) Lando Norris (GBR/McLaren-Mercedes)
2nd row: Oscar Piastri (AUS/McLaren-Mercedes) Charles Leclerc (MON/Ferrari)
3rd row: Carlos Sainz (ESP/Ferrari) George Russell (GBR/Mercedes)
4th row: Lewis Hamilton (GBR/Mercedes) Alex Albon (THA/Williams-Mercedes)
5th row: Fernando Alonso (ESP/Aston Martin-Mercedes) Pierre Gasly (FRA/Alpine-Renault)
6th row: Nico Hulkenberg (GER/Haas-Ferrari) Lance Stroll (CAN/Aston Martin-Mercedes)
7th row: Esteban Ocon (FRA/Alpine-Renault) Logan Sargeant (USA/Williams-Mercedes)
8th row: Sergio Perez (MEX/Red Bull) Yuki Tsunoda (JPN/AlphaTauri-Red Bull)
9th row: Zhou Guanyu (CHN/Alfa Romeo-Ferrari) Nyck de Vries (NED/AlphaTauri-Red Bull)
10th row: Kevin Magnussen (DEN/Haas-Ferrari) Valtteri Bottas (FIN/Alfa Romeo-Ferrari)
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