Mercedes chief: "To be faster than Verstappen was unexpected"

"It's all that we could have possibly hoped for," Shovlin told Sky Sports. Mercedes' race pace was somewhat better than Verstappen's, though that may also have been due to Red Bull's choice to send the reigning world champion ut on mediums. "To be quicker than Max was unexpected," he said.

Thanks to Carlos Sainz' s grid penalty, Hamilton moves up from third to second on the grid. At Mercedes, they could not have hoped for anything better. "It's been a while since we had a front row start. We know that George knows how to race. Today, we gave him a car to be able to fight at the front and we know that Max is a difficult guy to fight against. Very impressive drive from him."

Shovlin goes on to say at the British television channel, "It looked like we had a bit of an edge on Ferrari today. It's going to be warmer tomorrow, which could change the picture a bit. the upgrade we brought a couple of races ago does look to have brought us into contention." In the United States, Mercedes came out with a major update package and it certainly paid off.