Lewis Hamilton’s first ever career victory came from his first ever pole position, at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix, coming in his 6th race, where he beat Fernando Alonso (his then McLaren team-mate).
Since then, he has secured pole position at least once every season he has competed in, becoming the all time leading pole record holder in Italy earlier this month with his 69th pole, overtaking Michael Schumacher’s record.
He has an amazing success rate when it comes to turning poles into victories with a ratio of 54%. Even when Hamilton isn’t a winner from pole, you’ll rarely see him drop out of the top three.
Only a few circuits have eluded him: Magny Cours, Istanbul Park and Buddh International Circuit. Last year was his best for qualifying, finishing fastest on a Saturday on 12 occasions.
The Monza circuit has proven to be where Hamilton dominates in terms of pole qualification, in fact he has mastered a Saturday at least once on every track on the current calendar. Saturdays were great for him at the Australia, China, Canada and Italy Grand Prix as at each of the circuits he had 6 pole positions.
Whilst with Mercedes he has been most dominant in qualifying and achieved 2 out of 3 world titles. Of the 90 races, 43 were in pole for a 47% strike rate, compared to a 24% strike rate with McLaren (26 pole in 110 races) who he started his career with.
In 9/10 previous seasons, Lewis Hamilton took more pole positions than his team mate and over the years, drivers linked with the Briton have gotten used to finishing second best in qualifying. If Hamilton keeps this up, there is no reason Bottas will not be beaten in poles as Lewis already leads 8-2 ahead of the remaining Grand Prix weekends.
He must be delighted to now be the all-time record holder for number of pole positions, making him F1’s most successful qualifier ever. As well as this, Hamilton is considered the fastest driver of his era and his mastery of racing stuns all who witness his many victories.
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