SILVERSTONE, England -- Lewis Hamilton has described his pole position in sprint qualifying at the British Grand Prix as an "amazing surprise" after beating Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli to the fastest lap time in Friday's session.
Hamilton was 0.011 seconds quicker than championship leader Antonelli and will start ahead of the Mercedes driver on the front row of the grid for Saturday's 17-lap sprint race.
The result comes three weeks after his first win for Ferrari at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, but follows a disappointing Austrian Grand Prix last weekend that Hamilton described as a "reality check" after finishing fifth.
Hamilton was expecting to struggle again this weekend due to Silverstone's circuit layout, but topped Friday practice and all three sprint qualifying sessions on his way to taking pole for the sprint race.
"My team just won't let up," Hamilton said. "They keep pushing, and that's what I'm so proud of.
"So, you know, it won't always be like this, but we didn't expect, coming to Silverstone, that we would be competing for the front row. We really, really didn't.
"This is an amazing surprise."
Hamilton revealed that his engineers had warned him ahead of the session that his car would be losing as much as 0.6 seconds on the straights due to Ferrari's power deficit.
"Yesterday they were scaring me," he added. "They were saying we'd be six tenths off in a straight line to these guys and in the last race we were four tenths off in a straight line.
"But today all of a sudden we are there, and I was like 'is this real? Are they going to turn up in quali?' but we were right there competing with them.
"It just goes back to everyone back at the factory. They are pushing so much, and last year we were stuck in a rut and there was not much we could do, but now they are finding things and adding things to the car to add performance to the car.
"It felt awesome. The Silverstone track is the best track to drive."
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Hamilton has won nine British Grands Prix in his career and said it was "a dream" to be competitive once more at his home race.
"I love this place. I love this crowd," he added.
"I can't really express to you how big a dream it is, and I still to this day, when you're building up to this race, and when you think about every corner, and kind of the flow that you can get into at the track if you've got it set up right, and if you've got the right team behind you.
"The car's felt really great today, thanks to everyone back at the factory to just continuing to push. We've got tiny little bits here.
"Every single weekend, we're showing up with something, just everyone's pushed to the max. And so, I'm grateful to, really grateful to get that pole. I was quick through all the session, but still, last, you know, it was only ten milliseconds or something like that.
"So, very close to these guys, and the team really deserves it. So, big thank you to everyone here."
Hamilton was hopeful Ferrari could maintain its strong form across Saturday's sprint race and the rest of the grand prix weekend, but is wary of the power advantage he believes Red Bull and Mercedes hold over his team.
"I think our [race] pace was good," he said. "The car felt good there, so I think we should have a good race tomorrow.
"I don't remember the last time I started from the front row [of the grid] here. So, it's not so easy when you've got these guys that can follow you and, you know, be close with the extra power, potentially. But I'll do my best to keep them behind."
