Lewis Hamilton has always gone well on home turf, but his session-topping performance in first practice for Formula 1's British Grand Prix on Friday was a bit of a surprise.
However, any suggestions of this being a bit of early showboating in front of his loyal fans was quickly wiped away when he followed that up with third spot in second practice, one place behind team-mate Charles Leclerc, as both delivered strong race runs.
Of course, practice times always come with a caveat of not knowing what engine modes or fuel levels everyone else is running, but for Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur the day was a significant one.
"It's still tight, and we don't know the level of fuel of the others, the engine mode, and so on," he said. "But it's probably our best Friday since the beginning of the season."
Something definitely seems to have clicked at Ferrari over the past fortnight, with the team bouncing back from the off-track turmoil and on-track mistakes in Canada to shine in Austria last weekend.
The Red Bull Ring was its best overall weekend performance of the campaign so far, as Leclerc and Hamilton qualified second and fourth then finished third and fourth on Sunday.
But while on paper Austria looked like evidence of proper progress, from Ferrari's perspective it was not the dramatic step forward it appeared.
Instead it senses it was flattered on a weekend when the gap to McLaren seemed no less than before – it was just that the normal cars that would be between them were missing.
Max Verstappen had had his final Q3 effort that appeared to be on course for a front row slot derailed by a yellow flag, while Mercedes was out of the picture because of tyre overheating issues.
Silverstone is more of a real picture, though. And the progress has come on multiple fronts – delivering what Vasseur has described as a "spiral" of benefits.
The new floor introduced in Austria has produced a minor step forward – somewhere between 0.1-0.2 seconds – but more importantly the team has been able to hit the ground running with a set-up that works from the off.
"I hope that the new floor has helped, but honestly it's more the matter to put everything together, to have a good set-up and to have a good balance," added Vasseur.
"The drivers were really focused on this. It's more than the tenth or the two tenths that you can get from an upgrade. It is helping, because it's putting you in a better shape, and then you pay more attention to details. As usual, it's a kind of spiral."
Throw on top of all this, too, that Hamilton appears to have found himself much more at home with the SF-25 after edging ever closer to Leclerc's set-up. Hamilton being more on the pace is fast-tracking the progress Ferrari is making.
On Hamilton, Vasseur said: "I was not worried before, and we don't have to draw conclusions like this after two races or five races, when one weekend he is doing well. You have to stay calm, to take it session after session.
"Let's see tomorrow, but it's an advantage for us to have two cars in the same tenth of a second. It's helping each of them, and it's good for us to have two cars at the same level. It's the best way to improve."
Despite the encouraging signs from Friday, Vasseur admits that there remains plenty of room for improvement.
The car balance still needs to be better finetuned to cope with the low-speed opening sector of the lap and the final high-speed section.
Leclerc is also mindful that single-lap pace remains a bit of an Achilles' heel for the team.
"In our qualifying trim, we still seem to be a bit on the back foot, while we are more at ease with our race pace," he said.
Vasseur also admits that the long run was not ideal – as the team went too aggressive at the start of the stint and paid the price later on with increased degradation.
"We pushed a little bit too much at the beginning of the long stint, but it was good to be aggressive," he said.
Ferrari's job is not done yet, and McLaren remains a formidable force, but in a season where Vasseur has called for his squad to make more of its opportunities, it has got things off to the right start so far at Silverstone.
For Hamilton, too, amid a season that has rarely been plain sailing, there is a sense of some optimism at last.
"I'm progressing a lot now with the car and much more comfortable in knowing where it needs to be," he said.
"I think by P2 we still weren't where we needed to be, so in P2 we definitely struggled a little bit more but we know the changes that we need to make for the next session.
"I definitely feel like we can dream of having a strong weekend, for sure."
