Though Max Verstappen was to "ruin everything" - as he always does - the Dutchman couldn't spoil McLaren's party following the Woking outfit's "amazing" qualifying performance.

As Lando Norris crossed the line, stopping the clock at 1:26.961, the partisan crowd roared its approval. However, moments later, world champion, Max Verstappen crossed the line at 1:26.720.

"It's always Max, he always ruins everything for everyone," joked Norris minutes later at the parc ferme interview.

"Pretty insane," he grinned, "my last lap was a good lap. I could hear Zak on the radio on the in-lap, which was the best thing ever."

Asked if he believed he had pole in the bag, the Briton replied: "There's a lot of TV screens around the circuit, I was trying to watch every single one possible. I was surprised how long I stayed in the top four.

"It just kind of depended on when Max was going to cross the line," he continued. "I guess I'm a little bit surprised, I wasn't expecting for us to be here, or myself to be here anyway. We're very happy with the result.

"It was more if Max made a mistake rather than if we were quicker than him," he admitted. "I put a good lap in, no mistakes, it was a much cleaner lap than my Q3 run one. But it was a good qualifying, I think P1 in Q1, I think P1 in Q2 and almost P1 in Q3, but not quite. But I'm still happy with that."

"It is a massive confidence boost," said Piastri, who, now equipped with the same upgrade package as his teammate, achieved his best qualifying result of the season thus far, "but I think regardless of the end result I feel like I did a good lap.

"I've made a few mistakes in Q3 through the year so it's nice to have a solid lap on the board and to have it for P3 as well is even better," he added. "So, yeah, gaining more and more confidence every time I get out on track and more experienced, obviously.

"It's just nice to be fighting for much higher positions now," he smiled. "There's only two more spots left after today but I'll try to keep pushing. There's things I still need to work on, but I think over one lap the pace this year has generally been pretty solid when I haven't made any mistakes.

"The races, I still need to figure a few things out which will come with time. So that's a big focus, but I'm very happy at the moment to be up here in P3."

Looking ahead to the race, the Australian, who last scored points in Monaco, said: "To stay in the points, that would be good, but I think we'll have to see what our race pace is like.

"Lando showed last week that we can hang on in the races now to a much better extent, so hopefully we can try and do the same tomorrow. Of course, staying in the top three will be tricky with quite a few quick cars behind us, but definitely a solid points score can be on the cards."

Check out our Saturday gallery from Silverstone here.