For a moment there, it looked as though the race win was on for Lewis Hamilton in the late stages of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Mercedes man put on soft tyres for his final stint and quickly set about closing the gap to the front-runners. And he was comfortably the fastest man on the track as he took more than a second per lap out of those in front of him.
Even Carlos Sainz, also on softs, was no match for the seven-time world champion who was on a mission. He overtook the Ferrari before moving past team-mate George Russell, but a late virtual safety car took the sting out of his charge and made sure leader Max Verstappen was safe.
Hamilton was forced to settle for second place as a result, but he was still delighted as he faced the media after. And why wouldn't he be? After all, this was the first time all year a Mercedes has genuinely been in the hunt for a race win.
"I honestly don't know [where the speed came from]," he told Sky Sports with a grin. "I was struggling a little bit at the beginning of the race and unsure if we would be able to catch the guys up. But I got more comfortable with the balance and had a really good start as well.
"I really want to acknowledge my team who have continued to push and never give up throughout this tough year so far. For us to be on the podium twice in a row is pretty special for us. The other guys still have a bit of an edge but we're clearly closing the gap and this is an amazing way to go into the break, knowing we have this performance. Hopefully we'll bring some more into the second half of the season.
"It was a little bit cooler and that seemed to work better for us... I can't tell you exactly why, but I'm grateful for it. I was hoping it was going to rain more at the end so I could challenge Max but we ran out of laps. With a bit of a better qualifying, if the DRS was okay, we would have been in the run for the win. But either way, two second places in a row, I'm really happy."
Meanwhile, team-mate Russell was slightly disappointed as he had to settle for third after his first ever pole position in Formula 1. "When it started spitting at the beginning and I was on the soft tyres I thought it was on," he said. We had a strong start and a good first stint, but towards the end on the mediums when the rain started to come down we really struggled and lost temperature.
But he was still keen to look at the positives: "A pole yesterday and a double podium, we're really making progress and I'm really proud of the work everybody has done. I'm sure there's a lot I could have done better. It was challenging to manage the tyres as we were pitting quite early on both stints, so you're trying to eke your tyres out to the end while pushing as much as possible at the same time. A bit of a challenging situation to be in, but nonetheless pleased to come away with a podium."
