Hamilton ‘honoured’ to match Schumacher’s pole record

2017 Belgian Grand Prix Qualifying

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Lewis Hamilton says he feels ‘honoured’ to have matched Michael Schumacher’s all time record of 68 pole positions in his Formula One career.

Hamilton stormed to his seventh pole of the season and 68th of his career at Spa, putting him level with Michael Schumacher atop the all time list.

Immediately after qualifying, Hamilton received a message of congratulations on behalf of the Schumacher family from Formula One’s Managing Director of Motorsport, Ross Brawn.

“To hear the message that Ross just gave, I just have to say a big thank you,” said Hamilton.

“I think about and pray for Michael all the time. I’ve had the privilege of racing with him from karting days in Kerpen to on the track and I’ve always admired him and still do today. I’m just honoured to be up there with him now with pole positions. But he will still be one of the greatest of all time.”

Hamilton took pole by just over two tenths from championship rival Sebastian Vettel, who will line up alongside the Mercedes driver on the front row of the Belgian Grand Prix.

“I first have to say a big thank you to my team,” Hamilton said. “Ross [Brawn] was a big part of me coming to this team so he’s a big part of the success that we have today as a team.

“The team have done an amazing job. Valtteri [Bottas] did a great job to be up here ahead of the Ferrari. An amazing feeling. This is one of my favourite circuits, so to come here and put a lap together like that is a dream. I’ve got the best job in the world so I’m just happy to be here.”

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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22 comments on “Hamilton ‘honoured’ to match Schumacher’s pole record”

  1. For me, Senna is still the best qualifier (well, 65 in 161 is better than 68 in 200 anyway, and Senna didn’t always have a top car), but Hamilton is definitely 2nd.

    1. Dismissing Hamilton’s achievements and milestones one after the other is so unfair and disrespectful. Schumacher family and before that Senna family themselves recognize the achievements. If Hamilton had dominating Mercedes years then so did all others like Senna in Mclaren, Vettel in Redbull, Schumacher in Ferrari…etc.
      Unlike all those, Hamilton always had quality teammates and he was never an undisputed Number 1 in any team in all his years so far.
      Hate all you want but appreciate a talent like Hamilton before he is gone. Not someone who comes along everyday.

      1. Where did I dismiss his achievements? I clearly said that Hamilton is the 2nd best qualifier. If I was dismissing him, I’d have said he’s worst than Schumacher (at least). I just said that for me, Senna is still the best.

        1. Right about where you said “For me, Senna is still the best qualifier …”

          1. @franton
            That’s not dismissing Hamiltons achievements, it’s saying he thinks Senna was a better qualifier. And I agree. I can’t remember Senna having weekends where he was outpaced by his teammate the way Hamilton was in Hungary, Austria and Russia for instance.

            @amg44
            Senna shared the most dominant f1 car of all time with a Frenchman called Alain Prost. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.
            So for me, the poles Senna achieved with Prost as his opponent stand out a lot more than Hamilton’s pole victories over Rosberg or Bottas.

    2. You need a competitive to get pole!

    3. Lol, and then by that logic Jim Clark is even better.

      The topic of the day is.. Lewis matching his first #1 spot on All time list with Schumacher.

      One more pole and he is as greatest qualifier as Schumacher is a greatest race winner.

      Never will there be doubts about who has most poles then. Everyone can argue who was best qualifier, but noone can argue number of poles.

      Lewis is now officially second to none.

      1. @jureo, as you say, if you judge it in terms of the proportion of races in which they started from pole, Ascari, Clark and Fangio would all be ranked above Senna in that respect.

    4. @hugh11: It’s indeed quite obvious that senna is a better qualifier than hamilton: both had considerable competition and senna did his poles in about 40 races less, and usually was able to get a lot of poles even when he didn’t have the best car, he was really the best of his era in qualifying, also he started with lotus, a car which wasn’t the top, hamilton started with mclaren, which made it easier for him to get poles in his first years.

      This is not dismissing hamilton’s achievement, hamilton is one of the best qualifiers too and absolutely better than schumacher in this aspect (and I’m a schumacher fan), as while he was good he wasn’t that brilliant in qualifying, it’s unfair to him to say he did 68 poles in 300 + gp, but he was still around 250+ when he ended his first career.

      As someone here said, most of us haven’t watched clark, fangio and ascari race, those were probably even better than senna in qualifying cause they had a lot less races back in the day, although fangio always had good cars, same goes for ascari and clark was always on a very fast and unreliable lotus if I recall, which was only a handicap in races, not in qualifying!

  2. Senna had a quality car from a top team in all of his poles. If he had a pole with the Toleman then I could see the point of “Senna clearly wasn’t always in the most stout equipment”. In reality these attempts to try and compare one drivers era of achievement to another is futile and seems a bit of an effort to justify a bias. At the end of the day even if these drivers drove a car far better than most of the field, they still had a team mate to compete with, they still had other teams with cars on par at times.

    1. That’s not to say Senna wasn’t a great qualifier he was but trying to figure out a reason and summing it down to better car or engine, or tire supplier (certain cases), team mate or whatever other than driver to driver is doing a disservice to record holder

    2. Senna practically won monaco in 84 in a trash car ,qualifyed 1.5 seconds in front of prost in monaco,than 1.8 seconds in japan.Hamilton got outqualifyed by Maldonado in 2012 Germany while driving a better car than M. , got outqualifyed by rosberg ,sometimes by a mile.and this year Hamilton looked like a clown in Monaco.last year looked like a clown in Singapore and Azerbaijan.

      Than the senna poles in 1992,93 vs a massivly better Williams, the poles in 91 vs a better Williams.the poles in 86 when again the Williams was the class of the field.the poll in 87 in junk car.Than look how many mistakes Hamilton does in q like locking wheels and compare to senna that drove much cleener laps when he had 1 chance at the end of q session.

      Then how he won with a broken car in Brazil 91.when Hamilton doesn’t have things going he’s way he cryes a lot but that’s it.

      I like vettel but I’m not crazy enough to say that vettel will be as good as fangio if he wins this 5 driver champ.

      1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
        26th August 2017, 17:09

        Qualifying is not the same today as it was back then. Nowadays, they have to race in the same car they qualified so setting up the car for qualifying requires striking a balance in race mode. Back then, they’d rebuilt the engines for qualifying and were allowed to make huge modifications to the car.

        In my opinion, that would have benefited the quicker drivers enormously since they could go bananas on pace in qualifying for 1 lap. So you’d see higher deltas and drivers would be able to put the car on pole more often since they had more leeway.

        If that’s true, then Hamilton’s record is even more impressive if you consider that he’s never had #1 status on his team and had a super qualifier driver for 5 seasons as his teammate when he got most of his poles in Rosberg and Alonso.

        Lewis has lost a lot of pole positions to Nico Rosberg who was definitely smoother on some tracks that had many close turns but Lewis fought very hard on those tracks. He’s also lost many due to bad luck or lack of reliability so one could say that the tally of 68 is a bit on the low side for Lewis and could have been higher, maybe 75-80 which would have been astounding.

        We also have to consider that racing is very different today than it was many years ago. The level of competition is so high that many drivers who would have been WDC champions in another era can’t even get into F1 or get a decent car. Even a driver like Alonso can’t drive a race-winning car for 3 years now and may not be able to for what could be half a decade.

        Just from a population standpoint, we have nearly 3 times more people so numerically there should be 3 Fangios in our era.

        1. Yes, but every driver has to deal with the cars having to be setup for the race. Like, back then, every driver knew that they could go flat out as the cars would be rebuilt. And now, every driver has to set their car up for the race as well as qualifying. The records, therefore, should count for the same, and Hamilton’s isn’t even more impressive because of that.
          The only qualifying thing that you can really say changed how many poles some drivers had is refuelling, as some drivers ran on fumes in quali to get pole, meaning the fastest driver/car wasn’t always there.

          1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            26th August 2017, 20:51

            @hugh11 But setting up the car for the race also means that you can’t set it up in a way that would maximize a driver’s quali pace. So the pole driver under current regs may only be 0.2 seconds faster than another driver because the car has to do well in the race under heavy load and different tyres. If the pole driver could have set the car up for full quali to take advantage of his real pace advantage he may have been able to multiply that gap in some cases.

            Let’s take the Canada GP which suits Lewis. He may be 0.5 second faster than the rest of the drivers on the grid under current regs but that difference could have been 1-1.5 seconds if he could set the car up for a 1 lap blitz.

            In that case, Lewis could have gotten pole there in almost every race assuming he had a car that was within 1-1.5 seconds of the fastest car on the grid. Of course, I’m using a far-fetched example but as someone pointed out Senna was able to qualify 1.5 seconds ahead of Prost in Monaco.

          2. But as I said, that’s the case for everyone. Sure, the margins may be smaller than Senna’s, but if he’s quicker, then he’ll still be quicker in quali, because everyone has to run a not-optimal setup in quali, and he’ll get pole, which is what matters – not the gap to 2nd, that’s not relevant in this scenario.

  3. Hamilton has been competitive since day one on his career. One can say he has always been driving good cars and that is true, but he rarely underperformed all these years.

    Maybe a dozen times on 200 Grand Prix. He deserves to be among the best.

  4. You have to love these but but but types.

    Check 2011, you know the year where despite three wins he is constantly slated for.

    Other than a Red Bull across the entire year, which other driver got the single only non Red Bull pole that year?

    Clue – it was not Button or Alonso, or etc etc…

    1. According to that logic, Felipe is the third best driver of 2014. Which is a joke, even if I really like Felipe.

    2. Gasper

      No it really does not because when you review the broad canvas of each drivers achievements, they are not even on the same page.

      Further, the 2011 pole was earned and his team mate was no where.

      You can’t say the same for Massa that day.

  5. I’m sure the point has already been made, but the increased number of races per season now means there’s more opportunity to score more poles in a given driver’s career, so like most of these things it’s not a level playing field.
    e.g.
    The five seasons from 2012-2016 had 98 races, so 98 opportunities to get a pole.
    The five seasons from 1985-1989 had 80 races.
    The five seasons from 1954-1958 had only 43 races.

    1. Yes, definitely, but here we’re comparing senna’s 160 or so gp vs hamilton’s 200, we’re not saying he did it in 11 years or stuff like that.

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