Feature

Qualifying facts and stats: Hamilton claims 100th front-row start for Mercedes

01 August 2020

NORTHAMPTON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 01: Pole position qualifier Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and

Mercedes’ dominance was clear to see on Saturday. But it was not without drama, as Lewis Hamilton recovered from a rare spin en route to pole. However, the Silver Arrows weren’t the only ones creating some intriguing Silverstone stats…

• Hamilton is the first man to take 7 poles in his home event.

• Mercedes are the first constructor to take 8 consecutive pole positions at the same venue.

• Hamilton's 65th pole for Mercedes ties Ayrton Senna's entire career total.

• This is the 25th pole position for a British driver in the British Grand Prix.

• Hamilton claimed his 100th front-row start for Mercedes in 144 starts for the team.

• Mercedes retake the front-row lockout record with their 66th, surpassing Ferrari.

• Mercedes were 0.7s quicker than in 2019. Red Bull and Ferrari were both slower than they were in Q3 in 2019.

SPIELBERG, AUSTRIA - JULY 12: Pierre Gasly of France driving the (10) Scuderia AlphaTauri AT01 — Pierre Gasly and Lance Stroll set identical Q2 times - but only one could progress to Q3

• Thanks to Max Verstappen, Red Bull have their first top-3 start at Silverstone since 2016.

• At Ferrari, Charles Leclerc (P4) and Sebastian Vettel (P10) are tied 2-2 in their season head-to-head qualifying battle.

• Vettel's best Q3 time was deleted for violating track limits at Turn 9. He has only started higher than 10th once this season.

• McLaren’s Lando Norris has his 2nd top-5 start in 4 races this season.

• Lance Stroll qualified 6th for Racing Point. He had never progressed beyond Q1 at Silverstone until today.

• AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was knocked out in Q2 despite setting an identical time to Stroll, who progressed to Q3 since he set the time first.

NORTHAMPTON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 01: Alexander Albon of Thailand driving the (23) Aston Martin Red — It was a disappointing 'home' qualifying for Alex Albon - 9 places down on his team mate

• While his Red Bull team mate made the top 3, Alex Albon dropped out in Q2 for the 2nd consecutive race. Last year he reached Q3 here for Toro Rosso.

• George Russell put Williams into Q2 for the 3rd consecutive race.

• No Alfa Romeo has progressed from Q1 in any of the first 4 races this year.

• Their star driver Kimi Raikkonen was eliminated in Q1 for a career-record 5th straight race.

• He has been out-qualified by team mate Antonio Giovinazzi 3-1 this year.

• With Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon 8th and 9th respectively, both Renaults reached Q3 - neither reached Q3 last time out in Hungary.