Mugello becomes the 28th circuit where Hamilton has taken pole, Vettel has his worst qualifying streak since 2008 and Russell out-qualifies his team-mate for a 30th consecutive race. Here are the facts and statistics from qualifying at the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix!
HAMILTON ON POLE
Lewis Hamilton took pole for the 95th time in his career at the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix. Mugello becomes the 28th different circuit at which Hamilton has taken pole. No driver has taken pole at more circuits than Hamilton. Second in the list is Sebastian Vettel, who has taken pole at 23 different venues.
Mercedes take pole position for the 120th time. They are the fourth team to have taken pole position on 120 occasions. Ferrari were first to do so at the 1997 French Grand Prix, Williams did so at the 2003 Monaco Grand Prix and McLaren reached 120 poles at the 2005 Turkish Grand Prix.
This is Mercedes’ tenth consecutive pole position. It’s the tenth time that a team have taken pole at ten successive races, Mercedes having done so four times. The last time Mercedes took ten consecutive poles was between the 2015 Japanese and 2016 Spanish Grands Prix.
Mercedes locked-out the front row for a seventh consecutive race – their longest streak of front row lock outs since a streak of eight front rows between the 2015 Japanese Grand Prix and the 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix by 0.059 seconds; the same margin by which Valtteri Bottas took pole position for the 2020 Spanish Grand Prix.
Mercedes have now taken pole position at all of the first nine races in the season. This is the sixth time a team have taken pole at all of the first nine races of the year; Mercedes were the team to achieve this, in 2015.
Lewis Hamilton has now taken 69 pole positions with Mercedes. That means that his tally of pole positions with Mercedes is larger than any other driver’s tally of career pole positions.
THE TOP TEN
Max Verstappen qualified in third place with team-mate Alex Albon in fourth. Albon recorded his best ever qualifying position, meaning that Red Bull lock out the second row of the grid. Perhaps surprisingly, this is the first time that both Red Bull drivers have lined up on the second row of the grid since the 2017 Japanese Grand Prix. It’s also the first time that two Honda-powered cars have lined up on the second row of the grid since the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix.
For the first time since the Spanish Grand Prix, a Ferrari driver qualified in the top ten. Charles Leclerc qualified fifth. It’s only the third time this year that a Ferrari driver has qualified in the top five. Sebastian Vettel qualified fifth at the Hungarian Grand Prix, while Leclerc qualified fourth at the British Grand Prix.
For a fifth race in a row, Racing Point reached Q3 with both cars. Sergio Perez qualified sixth, with Lance Stroll just behind in seventh. This is the first time that both of the Silverstone-based team’s cars have reached Q3 since 2016, when the Force India team reached Q3 with both cars at all of the six races between the German and Japanese Grands Prix.
OUT IN Q2
Lando Norris failed to reach Q3 for the first time in 2020, qualifying in eleventh place. It’s only the second time this year that a McLaren driver has failed to qualify in the top ten; Carlos Sainz qualified thirteenth for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
Kimi Raikkonen recorded his best qualifying result of the year so far with thirteenth place. It’s Raikkonen’s best qualifying result since setting the ninth fastest time at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix. Raikkonen remains the only Alfa Romeo driver to reach Q2 in 2020, and this is the third time he has done so.
Sebastian Vettel qualified in fourteenth place. This is the first time that Vettel has failed to reach Q3 at five consecutive races since between the 2008 Malaysian and French Grands Prix, when driving for Toro Rosso.
This is the first time that Ferrari have had at least one driver qualify outside of the top ten at five consecutive races since the first five races of the 2012 season.
OUT IN Q1
Pierre Gasly won the 2020 Italian Grand Prix, but luck was not on his side in qualifying for the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix as he was eliminated in Q1. Qualifying in sixteenth, Gasly is the tenth driver to record a Q1 elimination in 2020. It’s the Frenchman’s first Q1 exit since the 2019 Belgian Grand Prix.
Both Haas and Alfa Romeo have had at least one car out in Q1 at every race so far in the 2020 season. Kevin Magnussen and Antonio Giovinazzi were both out in the first session at the Tuscan Grand Prix. While Giovinazzi equalled his best qualifying result of the year with seventeenth, Magnussen equalled his worst qualifying result of the year with last on the grid.
For the fourth time this season, both Williams drivers were eliminated in Q1. George Russell qualified ahead of Nicholas Latifi. This was Russell’s 30th qualifying attempt, and he is yet to be out-qualified by a team-mate.