Vettel was 0.199s off Hamilton's initial Q3 benchmark at the halfway point in the segment, but while the Briton found more than six tenths in his second run to claim a dominant pole position, the German could only post a marginal improvement.

It was enough to take him past Valtteri Bottas on the timing screens as he finished third, trailing Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen by two tenths and Hamilton by 0.756s.

Asked whether he had any chance of matching Hamilton's benchmark, Vettel said: "No. I think the time he put in at the end was very strong.

"The one he put in before we were able to beat, the gap at the end was a bit bigger. I think he owned the pole position today."

For his part, Raikkonen, who outqualified Vettel for the third time this season, said: "I don't know how far we were from first but [I have] a pretty good guess where we were giving away laptime.

"I think we have a good car, not fast enough [for pole], but for the race hopefully we can challenge [Mercedes] and have a good run."

Vettel was livid on the team radio after the chequered flag in Q3 as felt he had been compromised by traffic, saying: "What was that on the out-lap, that was a sh*tty spot to be, absolute sh*tty spot. I was way too close to the cars ahead."

Asked about it in the post-qualifying press conference, he said: "The last run I was a bit compromised, in the first sector especially, because tyres were not where they should have been.

"They could have been better on the out-lap but I was in traffic, we were in a bunch of three-four cars. But anyway it is a decent result."

Despite the gap in qualifying, Vettel – who felt the car had "come alive" between Friday and Saturday morning practice – admitted he was expecting the Ferrari to be more competitive in race trim, as has been usually the case in 2017.

"Most important is that the car is good, we improved it today and tomorrow should be better.

"We have always been closer on Sundays, so sitting here, having expectations, the answer [to whether Ferrari expects to be closer] is always yes, but we'll see tomorrow."

Additional reporting by Jonathan Noble