The 16 Best Qualifiers in Formula 1 History
Saturday is its own sport, and the drivers who owned it are not always the ones with the trophies. Pole-position machines, one-lap specialists, and a couple of champions who were quietly ordinary over a single flying lap.
1Lewis HamiltonHolds the all-time record with 104 pole positions, more than any driver in the sport's history.
2Michael SchumacherTook 68 poles, ten with Benetton and fifty-eight with Ferrari, and held the record before Hamilton.
3Ayrton SennaTook 65 poles and produced the most quoted single lap in the sport at Monaco in 1988.
4Sebastian VettelSet 57 poles, including fifteen in the 2011 season alone with Red Bull.
5Jim ClarkTook 33 poles from only 72 starts, the highest pole rate of any driver with a full career.
6Juan Manuel FangioStarted from pole 29 times in 51 races across the 1950s, driving for four different manufacturers.
7Max VerstappenDutch four-time champion whose qualifying record improved sharply once Red Bull gave him a front-running car.
8Nigel MansellTook 32 poles, fourteen of them in the dominant 1992 Williams season.
9Alain ProstWon four titles with 33 poles, a low count for his win total because he built races rather than laps.
10Mika HakkinenTook 26 poles and was the only driver to consistently out-qualify Schumacher in his prime.
11Charles LeclercMonegasque driver whose pole tally has repeatedly outrun what his Ferrari could do on Sunday.
12Nico RosbergTook 30 poles, most of them against Hamilton in identical Mercedes machinery.
13Ronnie PetersonSwedish Lotus driver of the 1970s whose raw one-lap speed was rated above his race results.
14Damon HillTook 20 poles in a short career, including nine in his 1996 title season.
15Jackie StewartTook 17 poles across three championship seasons in an era when qualifying ran for hours, not minutes.
16Fernando AlonsoTook 22 poles across two decades, several of them in cars with no business being on the front row.
Comments
104 pole positions against 68, and then Jim Clark turns up with 33 from 72 starts and makes raw totals look silly: https://youpick.best/articles/hamilton-vs-schumacher-ranked
