How Hamilton and Schumacher's qualifying statistics stack up
Monday 14 January 2019 13:36, UK
Formula 1’s all-time pole position table now has two names tied at the summit after Lewis Hamilton equalled Michael Schumacher’s 11-year record at the Belgian GP.
Hamilton drew level with Schumacher after delivering a qualifying masterclass at Spa to beat title rival Sebastian Vettel to the head of the front row for the race.
While the German legend remains F1's most successful driver in terms of world championships (7), race victories (91) and fastest laps (77), Hamilton and Schumacher are now tied for the most pole positions in F1 history with 68 apiece.
But who was quickest to the pole record?
Hamilton has reached 68 F1 pole positions in 43 Grands Prix fewer than seven-time world champion Schumacher.
While Hamilton has done it in 200 Grands Prix, Schumacher claimed his 68th and final pole on his 243rd qualifying appearance, at the 2006 French GP in the final season before his first retirement.
Schumacher didn't start from pole again in 2006's final seven races and the drought continued in his 58-race comeback from 2010 to 2012.
Aged 43, Schumacher famously set the qualifying pace in Monaco 2012 but never took up pole position due to a five-place grid penalty hanging over from the previous race in Spain. Second-fastest Mark Webber was instead credited with that Monaco pole in F1's record books, leaving Schumacher on 68.
Coincidentally, the Barcelona race where Schumacher earned his penalty was the one where Hamilton secured his own 'pole that wasn't' when he was disqualified from qualifying due to a McLaren fuel infringement and started from the back of the grid. Williams' Pastor Maldonado inherited pole instead.
Hamilton's first pole came at just his sixth race, the 2007 Canadian GP, when he out-qualified McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso by four tenths of a second. The Englishman then went on to win his first Grand Prix.
Surprisingly, it was 42 races before Schumacher started on pole in F1, at the 1994 Monaco GP - the race after the tragic events of Imola when Ayrton Senna, F1's then pole record holder, and Roland Ratzenberger died. Like Hamilton, he also won from his first-ever pole, although it represented the German's sixth F1 victory.
With a pole conversion rate of just over 50 per cent, Hamilton more often than not converts the front of the grid on Saturday into the top step of the podium on Sunday.
He also has an impressive 89 per cent podium-finishing strike rate from his previous 67 poles.
June's Azerbaijan GP, when he finished fifth due to a loose headrest, was the first time he had finished off the podium from pole when his car had made the chequered flag since Hungary 2015, when he was sixth.
Hamilton has claimed at least one pole in every season of his career, with his happiest Saturday hunting grounds Australia, China and Canada where he has landed six poles apiece. He has qualified on pole at every race on the current calendar, with only the French, Indian and Turkish GPs eluding him in his 10-year career.
Unsurprisingly, former team-mate Nico Rosberg is the driver who has qualified second to Hamilton the most times over the Briton's 68 poles.
Although they didn't share the front row in any order until 2013, the year Hamilton joined Mercedes, they then locked out the head of the grid 44 times in total before Rosberg retired at the end of last season.
Hamilton headed the all-Silver Arrows front-row lockout 24 times to Rosberg's 20.
Next up is 2017 title rival Vettel, who claimed his 15th second place to Hamilton on Saturday in their respective 10 years in F1.
Kimi Raikkonen's return to the front row at Silverstone in July was the seventh time he had started second to Hamilton.
