A bstract We present results for the short-distance window observable of the hadronic vacuum polarization contribution to the muon g – 2, computed via the time-momentum representation (TMR) in lattice QCD. A key novelty of our calculation is the reduction of discretization effects by a suitable subtraction applied to the TMR kernel function, which cancels the leading -behaviour at short distances. To compensate for the subtraction, one must substitute a term that can be reliably computed in perturbative QCD. We apply this strategy to our data for the vector current collected on ensembles generated with 2 + 1 flavours of O( a )-improved Wilson quarks at six values of the lattice spacing and pion masses in the range 130 – 420 MeV. Our estimate at the physical point contains a full error budget and reads = 68 . 85(14) stat (42) syst ·10 − 10 , which corresponds to a relative precision of 0.7%. We discuss the implications of our result for the observed tensions between lattice and data-driven evaluations of the hadronic vacuum polarization.