Feature
Qualifying facts and stats: Hamilton claims 100th front-row start for Mercedes
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.
READ MORE: Qualifying report: Hamilton recovers from spin to take record seventh Silverstone pole
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
READ MORE: Red Bull boss Horner defends Albon after 'unwarranted and unfair' criticism
• 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.
READ MORE: Renault forced to break curfew to replace Ricciardo’s fractured chassis
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