Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel could hardly believe he had won pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix at Marina Bay Circuit on Saturday.
Vettel had been second fastest in first practice on Friday, but slumped in the later session. After working on the car's handling overnight he was back up to second in final practice.
However each time he had been out-paced by a Red Bull, leaving him unsure if he had the raw pace to really compete for pole in qualifying. But when it mattered in Q3, he dug deep and found something special - his final lap of 1:39.491s was a massive new track record.
"I’m very, very happy," he told the crowd after the end of the session. "That was amazing. It’s an amazing track if you feel the car is coming alive and you can do what you want to.
"I love this track!
"I’m still full of adrenaline so maybe whatever I say doesn’t make any sense," he beamed. "I think I need to calm down!"
Not that it had been all plain sailing. His margin over Max Verstappen ended up a fairly comfortable 0.323s, but he had to push to the very limit - and over it. On his final lap he even glanced the wall, giving him some concern when he checked the car over in parc fermé.
"I touched the wall badly, but I had to go for it," he explained of that hair-raising moment. "I struggled also this afternoon.
"We had a difficult night yesterday, and a better night today. I'm sure the car will be like today tomorrow so it should be better.
"The car was tricky but it came alive and it got better and better as the night progressed," he added. "I'm happy we got the car where it deserved to be and we'll take it from there.
"I knew we had it in us!" he said. "It was a bit of a struggle to get there but now I’m just happy."
Now the question is whether Vettel will be able to exhibit the same pace tomorrow and show his rivals a clean hair of heels.
"Tomorrow's a long race. These guys are very, very quick," he predicted. "It will be a very close race."
Vettel's team mate Kimi Raikkonen also looked stronger on Saturday than he had done in the earlier practice sessions. However, he wasn't able to match the German's speed and will start from fourth place in tomorrow's race. Afterwards, he was ruing missing out on a front row spot.
"It's always possible, but it's not easy [to get on the front row]," he told Sky Sports F1. "It's been a difficult weekend.
"The difficulty is to get the car where we want. In qualifying the car was the best it's been so far, so that's a positive thing. But it's still far from comfortable.
"It's not ideal but it could easily have been an awful lot worse. I'll take it and at least we have a decent position for tomorrow to get fighting."
As for the start of Sunday's race, the Finn was expecting the usual hard battle into the first corner.
"It's a normal story. Everybody is trying to gain position, so it's no different from any other race."
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