Belgian Grand Prix: Qualifying Facts and Stats

Charles Leclerc put in a blistering performance in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix to claim the third pole position of his career, and put himself in the hot seat for the Sunday’s race. So, after an exciting Spa-Francorchamps session, let’s dig into the most impressive stats and facts…

• Ferrari secure their 63rd front row lock-out – just one behind Mercedes’ record.

• This is the first time a Ferrari-powered car has been on pole in Spa since 2007 – when Kimi Raikkonen took his sole Belgian pole position.

• Leclerc’s pole also marks the first time a Mercedes hasn’t qualified on pole here since 2013, while Mercedes also powered Jenson Button’s McLaren to the 2012 pole position at Spa.

READ MORE: Leclerc takes crushing pole as Ferrari lock-out front row in Belgium

• Leclerc’s qualifying margin of 0.748s was the largest of the 2019 season so far, trumping Valtteri Bottas’s Spanish Grand Prix pole advantage of 0.634s. It was also the sixth time in as many races that Leclerc has out-qualified Sebastian Vettel.

• Vettel’s last two F1 victories have come from second on the grid (the 2018 British and Belgian Grands Prix)…

• … but Lewis Hamilton also won his own last race from third on the grid, at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

• Unfortunately for Bottas, nobody has ever won at Spa from P4 on the grid, which is where the Finn finds himself.

• Qualifying in Spa marked the first time that there’d been no McLaren in Q3 since the Spanish Grand Prix – while Carlos Sainz failed to progress out of Q1 for the first time since the Australian Grand Prix.

• At Renault, Daniel Ricciardo qualified sixth, having been eliminated in Q1 last time out in Hungary, while Nico Hulkenberg was P7 for the third time in four years here.

• Lance Stroll’s P13 marks his best qualifying performance of the season so far, having progressed to Q2 for only the second time in 17 races in Belgium.

• You have to go back to Abu Dhabi for the last time both Toro Rossos were eliminated in Q1 – while Pierre Gasly’s Q1 elimination was his third of the year.