Charles Leclerc openly admitted that his pole position for Formula 1's Hungarian Grand Prix was the "most unexpected" of his career.
And while a host of factors came into play to open the door for the shock, including cooler temperatures and a change of wind direction that hurt McLaren, there was one Ferrari decision that stood above everything else as critical to the outcome.
It was in going against the grain of trying to be the last driver on track in qualifying to capitalise on what should be the best track conditions.
Instead, Ferrari concluded that the best approach was to get out there pretty much first.
Early delays
Leclerc and Ferrari quickly realised - amid the struggles of Q1 and Q2, when things did not look so good - that the tyre temperatures were falling out of the ideal window between the car leaving the garage and starting its qualifying laps.
This was a consequence of repeatedly getting trapped in the queue of the cars exiting the pitlane, with Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur explaining that delays it suffered early in Q1 and Q2 were hurting it.
Ferrari had to find a way to avoid this happening.
"I think the biggest difference was to queue or not," Vasseur said. "When you queue, and I think once we queued for one minute 30 seconds, you are losing 6°C, 7°C [of tyre temperature].
"Then because of the gaps you are not able to overtake, and you can't recover."
Leclerc knew as early as Q2 that not waiting in the pitlane - so getting out on track unhindered - was going to be far more beneficial than any gains that could come from a rubbered in track.
Ahead of his second run in Q2, he radioed the team and said: "Focus please on one thing which is to go out as soon as possible, not care about anything else. I want the least cars possible at the exit of the pitlane."
From Vasseur's perspective, with Ferrari next to McLaren at the top end of the pitlane, this did not mean being just the first to react when they noticed everyone else getting ready to go out. They had to be bold and jump them completely.
"Even if we start just before the others, we are last," he said. "Yes, we are fighting with McLaren, but we are still last. So we decided to go much earlier than the others. That was the right call for us."
Change of tactic
From having been stuck behind cars early on in qualifying, Leclerc managed to get the jump on almost everyone once he adopted his 'run early' tactic.
On his final run of Q2, Leclerc had been fourth out of the pits (behind Lance Stroll, Ollie Bearman and Lando Norris), and he had been in a similar spot for his first effort of Q3 on used softs (behind Stroll, Fernando Alonso and Liam Lawson).
But for that critical final effort in Q3, he was beaten only by the Aston Martin duo of Stroll and Alonso who went much earlier.
The freedom to have the tyres in the right window, with final adjustments made to the car as well, worked perfectly.
So on a day when the track temperatures came towards Ferrari, and the change of wind direction cost McLaren an estimated four tenths, the benefits of having Leclerc's tyres in the perfect spot were obvious.
As Vasseur said: "When the tyres are in the right window, it's worth more than half a second."
Considering Leclerc took pole position by 0.026 seconds, the pit exit tactic was a game changer.
