"It was an extremely intense qualifying session," said Hamilton. "It was all down to the last lap. I just had to pull it all out and I think I did quite a sweet job of putting the lap together. I'm very excited about tomorrow now.

According to the grid, the British Grand Prix will be again a duel between Ferrari and McLaren-Mercedes. Kimi Raikkonen, the Finish driver of Ferrari, will start from second on the grid thanks to a time of 1:20.099 minutes.

Hamilton’s team-mate, the defending world champion Fernando Alonso, was the third fastest driver by defending Felipe Massa.

"We wanted to be on pole position but third is the best we could do today," said Alonso, who had been quickest in the first two sessions of the three-part qualifying. "Hopefully we can overtake people in the race.

Robert Kubica, the BMW Sauber driver, will start from the fifth position while Ralf Schumacher qualified for the sixth place on the grid.

Hamilton is leading the driver’s championship with a total of 64 points. Fernando Alonso has the second place with 50 points, closely followed by Felipe Massa with 47 points.

In the last race at Magny-Cours in French Grand Prix, Ferrari made a spectacular comeback with a one-two finish, but they are still 25 points behind McLaren-Mercedes.