Graphic: The perfect lap

Lewis Hamilton may have disappointed some of his fans by finishing third in the British Grand Prix yesterday, but he thrilled them on Saturday with a pole-winning performance before a packed house at Silverstone that earned him comparison by some of the sport’s most experienced judges to the great Ayrton Senna, Hamilton’s hero and inspiration.

The Brazilian three-times world champion was famous for producing almost other-worldly perfection in qualifying, pushing himself beyond what seemed possible under pressure and doing it in an almost trance-like state. Senna was famous, too, for giving his best at the end when it was needed most, the unanswerable killer blow delivered as the flag came down.

Hamilton has shown three times this season that he has some of that rare ability to raise his game and deliver when most would stumble and fall. It requires guts, precision and belief along with a coolness of temperament to use those qualities when it matters.

It was interesting that Hamilton said the lap that put him on pole had not been the greatest drive of his career. Perhaps, in this case, he is not the best judge. No Formula One drive takes place in isolation and the context here was as demanding as it gets.

The lap came as the third session of qualifying reached its climax. Fernando Alonso, Hamilton’s McLaren Mercedes team-mate, held provisional pole with his last lap and, despite driving a car with more fuel in it than Hamilton’s, the Spanish world champion must have thought that he had seen off the Briton, who was fourth.

In the next few seconds, however, Alonso was usurped. First, Kimi Raikkonen, the Ferrari driver, bettered him and then Hamilton dug in to his reserves to produce a drive that stunned the crowd and his colleague and propelled him to the front of the grid.

It was a breathtaking piece of artistry with which he shaved six tenths of a second off his previous best time to leapfrog the three drivers ahead of him. The key was the way in which he took Silverstone’s tough and fast first corner, the famous sweeping right-hander at Copse that requires nerve, commitment and a certain bravado.

To start with, Hamilton was having difficulty pushing to the limit — the approach has to be made with foot on the floor at 185mph in seventh gear, but he was just off the maximum, buffeted by a strong and gusty wind.

On his second lap, however, he got Copse just right and ripped through the “esses” at Becketts, swept round Stowe and then he was away through the sharp left turn at Abbey and into the complex at Priory. There was a slight twitch coming out of the final corner at Woodcote and then he was over the line. Hamilton shouted himself almost hoarse in his helmet as he celebrated his third pole of the season with his engineers on his slow in-lap.

The sight of Hamilton crawling along Hangar Straight on that in-lap — his MP4-22 growling like a bear — as he punched his fists and waved to the crowd will live long in the memory. All around the circuit the new Hamilton faithful rose to anoint their king and the applause, the roars and the horns drifted in the breeze across the old airfield around which the track is built. At some points you could not see the car, but you could tell where it had got to as the “Hamilton wave” swept round Silverstone.

Among those who saw something of Senna in this epic drive and the impact it will have made on Hamilton’s rivals is Nigel Roebuck, a veteran journalist who has covered every British Grand Prix since 1971. “It just made me think of Ayrton,” Roebuck said. “He was the same — the car might have been at its limit with minutes left in the session, but he would always find something in himself.

“Senna had a hold on the other drivers psychologically and, after a while, they were waiting for him to do it. If Lewis carries on like this, it will be the same. What he did here on Saturday was just like his qualifying drives in both North American races — it was a case of ‘bang’ right at the end and he stole it.”