Lewis Hamilton has revealed that a Friday morning session in the Mercedes simulator played a part in his 'pole' winning qualifying lap at Silverstone.

Though third quickest in the day's sole practice session, finishing a whopping 0.780s off Max Verstappen's pace, the Briton had the upper hand in qualifying, edging out the Dutchman - who has claimed pole at the last three events - by 0.075s.

Other than a number of updates to the W12, and the support of the Silverstone crowd, Hamilton credits his performance to a late Friday morning run in his team's simulator.

The revised format due to the Sprint Qualifying trial means that going into qualifying the teams would only have one hour of practice data available to them, and with the practice session not getting underway until 14:30 (local time), Hamilton and Mercedes opted to make use of their free morning.

"We had this morning free and I was like, 'look, let's not sit around and waste time. Let's get to it'," he said. "So we did a practice session this morning in there.

"I don't know what they were doing in there," he said of Red Bull. "They were very quick obviously in that practice session, but we were just staying focused on our job and trying to layer up.

"I was in the sim this morning, just to use it as a practice session, because it is the first time we've ever had a morning free. I just put in the time, just trying to give absolutely everything and leave no stone unturned.

"So that first lap was great. The second one was looking even better, but I just lost the back end in the last corner so my heart was in my mouth as I came across the line.

"But I could see the crowd and it was really reminiscent of my first pole here in 2007."

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