Lewis Hamilton holds the record for the most career pole positions with 104.
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Formula One, abbreviated to F1, is the highest class of open-wheeled auto racing defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), motorsport's world governing body.[1] The "formula" in the name refers to a set of rules to which all participants and cars must conform.[2] The F1 World Championship season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix, held usually on purpose-built circuits, and in a few cases on closed city streets.[3] The polesitter is the driver that has qualified for a Grand Prix in pole position, at the front of the starting grid.[4] Out of the 1,106 completed Grands Prix (as of the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix), the driver that has started in first has gone on to win the race 474 times.[5]
Qualifying is traditionally contested on the Saturday (Friday for some events) of a Grand Prix weekend to determine the drivers' positions on the starting grid of the race held on the Sunday (although from 2021 to 2023, in a small number of the events, so-called sprint races are held on the Saturdays, in which case the qualifying session is held on the Fridays of those Grand Prix weekends. In 2021 the winner of the sprint was credited with pole position. In 2022 the pole-sitter of the sprint race was officially awarded the pole position in those events. From 2023 a separate qualifying session is held for sprints, named sprint shootout. The fastest qualifier in sprint shootouts is not generally credited with a pole position). Historically, there have been a number of different qualifying systems; previously, each driver was only allowed a single lap to set his qualifying time.[6] Drivers currently have to compete in three rounds before pole position is determined. The first round, known as Q1, is contested by twenty drivers in an 18-minute session, at the end of which the five slowest cars are eliminated. This is followed by Q2, a 15-minute session, where the slowest five are again eliminated. The remaining ten cars contest Q3, the final 12-minute session, to determine their places on the grid and who will sit on pole position.[7]
Lewis Hamilton holds the record for the most pole positions,[8] having qualified first on 104 occasions.[9] Michael Schumacher is second with 68 pole positions.[10] Ayrton Senna is third with 65 poles. Senna holds the record for the most consecutive pole positions; he qualified in first place in eight Grands Prix in a row from the 1988 Spanish Grand Prix to the 1989 United States Grand Prix.[11] Sebastian Vettel is the youngest polesitter; he was 21 years, 72 days old when he qualified in first place for the 2008 Italian Grand Prix.[12] The oldest person to qualify in pole position was Nino Farina, who was 47 years, 79 days old when he was polesitter for the 1954 Argentine Grand Prix.[13] As of the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix, 106 drivers have been on pole position in the 1,106 Grands Prix since the first World Championship race, the 1950 British Grand Prix, with the most recent driver to achieve their first pole position being Kevin Magnussen at the 2022 São Paulo Grand Prix.[9][14][15] Since 2014, the driver with the most pole positions in a season has been awarded the Pole Trophy.[16] The inaugural Pole Trophy was won by Nico Rosberg,[17] while Max Verstappen is the most recent recipient of the award with 12 poles in 2023.
^"About FIA". Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). 24 February 2015. Archived from the original on 1 May 2020. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
^Williamson, Martin. "A brief history of Formula One". ESPN. Archived from the original on 6 April 2015. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
^Hughes & Tremayne 2002, pp. 82–83
^"Glossary". Formula1.com. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
^"Wins by grid position". StatsF1. Archived from the original on 15 November 2021. Retrieved 31 July 2022.
^"Deciding the grid – A history of F1 qualifying formats". Formula1.com. 17 March 2016. Archived from the original on 30 August 2020. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
^"Practice and qualifying". Formula1.com. Archived from the original on 17 January 2018. Retrieved 18 April 2020.
^Baldwin, Alan (4 March 2020). "Factbox: Some of the records in Lewis Hamilton's sights". Reuters. Archived from the original on 19 April 2020. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
^ ab"Pole positions – By number". StatsF1. Archived from the original on 10 May 2022. Retrieved 31 July 2022.
^"Lewis Hamilton's sixth F1 world title: the stats". BBC Sport. 3 November 2019. Archived from the original on 5 November 2019. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
^Lynch, Steven (22 June 2012). "The winning formula – Ask Steven". ESPN. Archived from the original on 22 January 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
^"'There are a lot of emotions' – Leclerc delighted with maiden F1 pole". Formula1.com. 30 March 2019. Archived from the original on 22 September 2020. Retrieved 18 April 2020.
^Lynch, Steven (29 March 2013). "Team treachery – Ask Steven". ESPN. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
^"British GP is secure: Ecclestone". BBC Sport. 20 June 2009. Archived from the original on 31 July 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2010.
^"Pole positions – Chronology". StatsF1. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
^"FIA introduce penalty points system and pole position trophy for F1 in 2014". Motorsport.com. Motorsport Network. 14 December 2013. Archived from the original on 8 December 2020. Retrieved 18 April 2020.
^Benson, Andrew (8 November 2014). "Nico Rosberg snatches pole from Lewis Hamilton in Brazilian GP". BBC Sport. Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
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