Qualifying facts and stats: Bottas’ 17th pole sees him equal three-time champion’s tally

Mercedes matched Williams' pole position tally thanks to Valtteri Bottas, who himself tied Sir Jackie Stewart's total – but here are some other intriguing facts and numbers from Saturday's qualifying session at Portimao...

• Mercedes' pole is their 128th, tying Williams for third in the all-time list (though it took the Silver Arrows 500 fewer races to do it).

• Bottas took his first pole since Sakhir 2020, and tied Sir Jackie Stewart's tally of 17 career poles – only one behind fellow Finn Kimi Raikkonen.

READ MORE: Bottas denies Hamilton his 100th F1 pole as Mercedes lock out the front row at Portimao

• In 171 turbo-hybrid era races, Mercedes have achieved their 71st front-row lockout. That's a hit rate of over 50%.

• Lewis Hamilton starts second and he has won his last three starts from second on the grid.

• Max Verstappen will start third, and he won the Grand Prix at Imola last time out… from third.

• Sergio Perez qualified fourth to make it two Red Bulls in the top four for the second consecutive race – something that Verstappen and Alex Albon achieved twice in the final four races of 2020. However, Verstappen and Perez collided on Lap 1 of last year's Portuguese Grand Prix.

READ MORE: Disappointed Verstappen says he 'didn't enjoy one single lap this weekend' on way to P3 in qualifying

• Starting P5, Carlos Sainz has outqualified Charles Leclerc for the first time as his Ferrari team mate.

• Esteban Ocon's P6 is his best start since Belgium 2020, where he finished fifth from P6.

• McLaren driver Lando Norris is P7 for the third consecutive weekend.

• Pierre Gasly (P9) will have started fifth twice and ninth three times in the last five races.

• Sebastian Vettel starts 10th for Aston Martin and has ended a 15-race streak of missing Q3.

READ MORE: Hamilton rues lost opportunity to take 100th pole position, saying 'I just didn't put it together'

• George Russell missed Williams' first Q3 appearance since Monza 2018 by just 0.057s. He maintained his record of never being outqualified by a team mate at Williams for the 40th race.

• Fernando Alonso had not been outqualified by a team mate for 27 races before being outqualified by Ocon in Imola and now Portimao.

• Daniel Ricciardo qualified 16th in his first Q1 elimination since Japan 2019. He qualified sixth in the opening two races of this season.

• Ricciardo's was the first McLaren out in Q1 since Carlos Sainz at Brazil 2019 – where Sainz scored his maiden F1 podium.

• Lance Stroll suffered his first Q1 elimination since Brazil 2019 as well.

• Finally, Mick Schumacher outqualified Haas team mate Nikita Mazepin for the third straight race.

HIGHLIGHTS: All the action from qualifying as Bottas grabs pole in Portimao