Qualifying facts and stats: Sainz and Russell hit career highs in Styria

The weather delay kept us on tenterhooks, but when the rain finally eased – slightly – Saturday’s Styrian Grand Prix qualifying provided an amazing spectacle - and some fascinating facts and figures...

QUALIFYING REPORT: Hamilton beats Verstappen to pole by 1.2s with epic lap in the wet

• Lewis Hamilton's pole today was the 89th of his career – and tomorrow he will be attempting to break Ayrton Senna's record of leading 19 races from start-to-finish.

• Max Verstappen will start 2nd at the Red Bull Ring for the 3rd consecutive visit, following his P2 qualifying results here last year and last weekend.

• Third on the grid is Carlos Sainz’s best-ever qualifying result – the McLaren driver has previously never started higher than the third row.

READ MORE:Sainz delighted with best-ever grid slot after 'very stressful' wet qualifying

• It means that for the 2nd week in a row, a McLaren begins a Grand Prix from 3rd.

• With 4th, Valtteri Bottas had his worst qualifying on this track since joining Mercedes in 2017.

• Esteban Ocon’s P5 for Renault was the team’s best qualifying result since Monza last year, when Daniel Ricciardo started 5th and went on to finish 4th.

• Even with his 3-place grid penalty dropping him to 9th, on Sunday Lando Norris will start in the top-10 for the 9th consecutive race.

• Ferrari only got one car into Q3 for the 2nd consecutive race, the first time that has happened since Canada/Austria 2015.

• This time Charles Leclerc was the Ferrari man to miss the cut – the only other time he has failed to make Q3 for the Scuderia was in Monaco last year.

• George Russell missed Q3 by just 0.091s, after reaching Q2 for the first time in his career.

READ MORE: ‘It felt incredible’ – Russell revels in starring debut Q2 appearance with Williams

• It gave Williams their first Q2 appearance since Brazil 2018, when Sergey Sirotkin qualified 15th.

• At Racing Point, Lance Stroll out-qualified Sergio Perez for the only the 4th time in their 23 races as team mates.