Hamilton's British GP pole pace out of Ferrari's reach

Vettel was 0.199 seconds off Hamilton's initial Q3 benchmark but while the Mercedes driver found more than six tenths on his second run to claim a dominant pole position, his Ferrari opponent could only post a marginal improvement.

That left Vettel back in third, between Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, and 0.756s from Hamilton's pole.

Asked whether he had any chance of matching Hamilton's qualifying pace, Vettel said: "No. I think the time he put in at the end was very strong.

"The one he put in before we were able to beat, the gap at the end was a bit bigger.

"I think he owned the pole position today."

Vettel was livid on the team radio after the chequered flag in Q3 as felt he had been compromised by traffic, saying: "What was that on the out-lap, that was a shitty spot to be, absolute shitty spot. I was way too close to the cars ahead."

Askad about it in the post-qualifying press conference, he said: "The last run I was a bit compromised, in the first sector especially, because tyres were not where they should have been.

"They could have been better on the out-lap but I was in traffic, we were in a bunch of three/four cars.

"But anyway it is a decent result."

Despite the gap in qualifying, Vettel - who felt the car had "come alive" between Friday and Saturday morning practice - admitted he was expecting the Ferrari to be more competitive in race trim, as has often been the case in 2017.

"Most important is that the car is good, we improved it today and tomorrow should be better," he said.

"We have always been closer on Sundays."

Raikkonen, who outqualified Vettel for the third time this season, said he could have "a pretty good guess where we were giving away lap time" in qualifying but agreed Ferrari had "a good car" and could "hopefully" challenge Mercedes on race pace.