Lewis Hamilton says all his focus is on ensuring his fightback in the championship battle starts in earnest on Sunday after he claimed a brilliant pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver had gone into Saturday's three-part knockout session as most pundits' clear favourite for pole after he had set the pace in both Friday practice sessions and then finished a close second to Red Bull rival Mark Webber in final practice.
Indeed, from as early as Q1 the destination of pole never appeared seriously in doubt as Hamilton easily set the early pace on the slower medium tyres, despite most of the field ultimately switching to the faster softs. After also topping Q2, Hamilton again underlined his supremacy at the end of the final phase when he delivered a pole lap which was four tenths of a second faster than nearest challenger Romain Grosjean.
Hamilton, who last set the fastest Qualifying time at the start of the European season at Barcelona in May but last started from pole position in Malaysia owing to a post-race penalty at the Spanish round, admitted the latest upgrades on the MP4-27 had improved his ability to really attack the circuit.
"It's been a really positive weekend so far," he said.
"The guys have done an incredible job this weekend as always preparing the car and to finally see the upgrades working this weekend - I've been able to put the car in places that I previously wasn't able to do.
"Generally every lap has been quite good throughout practice and now qualifying, apart from the first run in Q3."
Having led the championship standings as recently as four races ago in Canada, Hamilton heads into Sunday's race looking to begin to close a 62-point deficit to Fernando Alonso after two no-scores in the last three rounds.
Reminded of his dearth of points recently, Hamilton said: "Thanks for reminding me! This is motor racing and we're not saying that we're relaxed about it, we know that we have got a lot of working to do and we're trying to make sure we start that work from this weekend.
"We have a long race tomorrow and lots can happen but we just need to keep our cool. I just hope for once that we get a good start."
McLaren are also aiming to close up on Red Bull and Ferrari in the Constructors' Championship and those hopes have also been boosted by a relative return to Qualifying form for Jenson Button, who claimed fourth on the grid - his best position since Bahrain.
The Briton, who finished second last Sunday in Germany after his own run of poor races, conceded he would rather be starting on the other side of the grid but was nonetheless reasonably content with his efforts.
"I'm much happier with the car in qualifying," Button told Sky Sports F1's Natalie Pinkham.
"Last sector I had a Williams in front and even so I'm P4 which is alright. Nowhere near as good as my team-mate - he did a great job, P1 - and it's a pity I'm P4 not P3, which got taken away at the end, because the circuit on that side is a little bit cleaner so you normally get a better start.
"But P4 is not bad. It wasn't a great qualifying session for me so it's not a bad starting place."
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