305 replies to this topic

[HistoryFan]

Lewis Hamilton is in the running to beat Michael Schumacher's record of 68 pole-positions this season.

In all other categories like championships and wins Schumacher is far away.

 

But why has he just 68 poles? Normally dominating driver have more poles than race wins due to missing luck in the races. But for Michael it's different. But why?

 

Of course there was the qualifying strong Montoya in the early 2000s. Then we have the strange fuel qualifying rules in 2003 that allows faster cars in qualifying for a short first stint in the race.

 

But is that all?

[PlayboyRacer]

1996-2000 he rarely had the outright fastest car on the grid. Given that's 5 years worth, I'd say it played a significant part. Plus he missed races in 1999.

Edited by PlayboyRacer, 22 March 2017 - 21:08.

[mikerally]

Plus seasons were way shorter back then!

[ferkan]

Because even fastest Ferrari car in early 2000s wasn't as nearly as dominant as Merc has been in last 3 years. 

[Dabash]

I guess during the refuelling era strategy was more important and possibly on many occasions he was not light on fuel in qualifying due to the prevailing strategy for the race

[HistoryFan]

1996-2000 he rarely had the outright fastest car on the grid. Given that's 5 years worth, I'd say it played a significant part. Plus he missed races in 1999.

17 wins, 13 poles in that period. So that is not the reason why he has 91 wins but just 68 poles.

[HistoryFan]

Because even fastest Ferrari car in early 2000s wasn't as nearly as dominant as Merc has been in last 3 years. 

Yes, not compared to Hamiltons poles, but 68 poles compared to 91 wins are not very impressive...

[Seanspeed]

Yes, not compared to Hamiltons poles, but 68 poles compared to 91 wins are not very impressive...

I'd say it is more impressive. 

[Topsu]

Hamilton is so close because he's had the most dominant car in the history of the sport for 3 years in a row with over 20 races a season.

[warp]

I'd say it is more impressive. 

 

Indeed.

 

Either by overtaking or strategy, you had to consider him to take victory even if he had not the fastest car.

[George Costanza]

Because Michael was not as quick as Ayrton.

[JG]

Poles do not count as Much as Race wins in My book.

[DS27]

The fastest car usually qualifies on Pole.

 

The best driver usually wins the race.

 

Hardly a cast iron rule, and it doesn't work so well when there is a dominant team, but there's truth in it nevertheless.

Edited by DS27, 22 March 2017 - 21:35.

[sennafan24]

Hamilton is so close because he's had the most dominant car in the history of the sport for 3 years in a row with over 20 races a season.

And that he's an elite level qualifier.

 

Yes, he's had a dominant car the past 3 years, and has had competitive machinery throughout the vast majority of his career. However, a lot of his poles have come while facing either Nico Rosberg or Fernando Alonso in equal equipment, and against Red Bull or Ferrari cars that were probably as quick or quicker (2007-2013) It's not like he's had it easy. 

[mclarensmps]

Schumacher and co won a lot of races from superior strategy. The Brawn, Todt, Schumacher trifecta was pretty unstoppable and made my life pretty miserable. Everything was facilitated towards winning the race, and a lot of times, the race win was pulled out their behinds from crazy situations. 

Other times, McLaren and the others kept shooting themselves in the foot. 

[PlayboyRacer]

17 wins, 13 poles in that period. So that is not the reason why he has 91 wins but just 68 poles.

It's not the sole reason no... but you've just proven he had inferior machinery for half a decade. So yes it played a part in his stats, even his 91 wins... he'd have alot more sitting in the best car more often in that period.
Add in the BMW Williams/Montoya combo for 02/03... and there is most of your difference.

Edited by PlayboyRacer, 22 March 2017 - 21:45.

[Marklar]

Refuelling. Even with the quickest car you didnt had the need to qualify on pole. Hamilton would have also have less poles if refuelling was stil in place. Likewise Schumacher would have more poles if we didnt had refuelling back then in place.

 

Over the course of his career Schumacher had often enough the outright quickest car (and usually without a competitive team mate even), so this is definetely not the reason.

Edited by Marklar, 22 March 2017 - 21:47.

[ferkan]

Refuelling. Even with the quickest car you didnt had the need to qualify on pole. Hamilton would have also have less poles if refuelling was stil in place. Likewise Schumacher would have more poles if we didnt had refuelling back then in place.

Over the course of his career Schumacher had often enough the outright quickest car, so this is definetely not the reason.

Outright the fastest, but never almost 2 second per lap faster like W05 (or ~1 second with other two). Merc 3 years of dominance where never seen before.

[Dabash]

Refuelling. Even with the quickest car you didnt had the need to qualify on pole. Hamilton would have also have less poles if refuelling was stil in place. Likewise Schumacher would have more poles if we didnt had refuelling back then in place.

 

Over the course of his career Schumacher had often enough the outright quickest car (and usually without a competitive team mate even), so this is definetely not the reason.

 

My point exact in my previous post

[Dabash]

Outright the fastest, but never almost 2 second per lap faster like W05 (or ~1 second with other two). Merc 3 years of dominance where never seen before.

 

you don't need to be 2 seconds faster, all you need is .00001 

[Marklar]

Outright the fastest, but never almost 2 second per lap faster like W05 (or ~1 second with other two). Merc 3 years of dominance where never seen before.

 
Now that's an exageration.
 

you don't need to be 2 seconds faster, all you need is .00001 

Yep, the Red Bull averaged a advantage of 0.4 s in 2011, and claimed 18 of 19 pole positions. That Mercedes had in the last few years an advantage of 0.5-0.8 s (or whatever else, lol) made no difference on the outcome compared to that (like Red Bull they claimed all but one poles over the season)

Edited by Marklar, 22 March 2017 - 21:54.

[PlayboyRacer]

Schumacher went 5 years with nothing remotely resembling the outright fastest car on the grid. That was owned by Adrian Newey. To say Schumacher had the outright fastest car most of his career is a fallacy. From 01-04 there was periods of domination with the best car... but that does not translate to his whole career.

Edited by PlayboyRacer, 22 March 2017 - 21:56.

[sennafan24]

Schumacher went 5 years with nothing remotely resembling the outright fastest car on the grid. That was owned by Adrian Newey.

1995-1998? Yes. 

 

1999-2000? No, the Ferrari was at least joint best during this period. It was just as quick as the McLaren in 2000 as well. Mika was a better qualifier than Schumacher, or at least on his level. Yet in 2000, the Ferrari car was on pole 10/17 rounds (9 for Schumacher) While the McLaren was on pole 7 times (5 for Mika) One of Mika's poles was also a career best (Imola) 

[sopa]

Taking a quick look at 'differentials'.

 

1992 - 0 poles / 1 win - well, you needed Williams to get a pole, but you could win a race if things went your way.

1993 - 0 / 1 - same.

1994 - 6 / 8 - that's pretty interesting. B194 is a highly lauded car in race trim, but in qualifying it didn't shine out that way.

1995 - 4 / 9 - Michael could capitalize in races on strategy or Williams' driver mistakes, but less so on qualis.

1996 - 4 / 3 - more poles! Ferrari had a reasonably fast car, but horrific reliability though.

1997 - 3 / 5 - again better in capitalizing in races.

1998 - 3 / 6 - same

1999 - 3 / 2 - things start to balance out...

2000 - 9 / 9 - balance

2001 - 11 / 9 - that's interesting. As an example McLaren looked better in races than qualis that year, so perhaps part of the reason.

2002 - 7 / 11 - Williams could compete in Q trim, but not in race.

2003 - 5 / 6 - almost balance, but race fuel qualifying.

2004 - 8 / 13 - certainly "race fuel" qualifying effect.

2005 - 1 / 1 - nothing to say

2006 - 4 / 7 - race fuel.

[Dabash]

Schumacher went 5 years with nothing remotely resembling the outright fastest car on the grid. That was owned by Adrian Newey. To say Schumacher had the outright fastest car most of his career is a fallacy. From 01-04 there was periods of domination with the best car... but that does not translate to his whole career.

 

I guess that's the same for most drivers as well

[LiJu914]

Several reasons:

From 92-99 he basically never had the outright fastest car on the grid - apart from the first half of 94.

2000+2001 showed the number of "expected" Poles under more favourable circumstances, but  in the later years of the Ferrari-era other factors brought more variance into the qualifying results again (e.g. Michelin´s qualifiying performance, Single-lap-mode, Qualifying with different fuel loads...)

Edited by LiJu914, 22 March 2017 - 22:04.

[KnucklesAgain]

you don't need to be 2 seconds faster, all you need is .00001 

 

For an individual pole, yes. But on average, you have better chances to take pole if your car is 2 seconds faster because you will still have pole even when not everything is perfect

[PlayboyRacer]

1995-1998? Yes.

1999-2000? No, the Ferrari was at least joint best during this period. It was just as quick as the McLaren in 2000 as well. Mika was a better qualifier than Schumacher, or at least on his level. Yet in 2000, the Ferrari car was on pole 10/17 rounds (9 for Schumacher) While the McLaren was on pole 7 times (5 for Mika) One of Mika's poles was also a career best (Imola)

Don't agree on 1999 at all. By 2000 yes the gap had closed... the point remains though. I think we also have to take into account that MS was the best driver, period. Does any other driver stick those Ferraris on pole, at all, during that period? Against the fastest McLarens and Williams? Maybe a few in 2000, before that?
I highly doubt it. Michael made the difference so often and, as we can see, more often in races than qualifying.

Edited by PlayboyRacer, 22 March 2017 - 22:07.

[Massa]

92,93,94,96,97,98 he didn't have the fastest car. 99 he was injured. So seven years with at best the second fastest cars. It's explain all.

[warp]

My memory is quite cloudy, but I remember that during the Ferrari dominating years, the big difference was the Schumacher/Ferrari demolishing pace over the course of the race.

 

Rubens was hit and miss. Michael was always there, lap after lap, race after race.

[KWSN - DSM]

Schumacher was a fine qualifier, Hamilton and Senna are and were prodigious qualifiers, top 8 qualifiers by percentage of races (cleaned the Indy Pole setters out).

	Driver	Number of Poles	Percent of races
1	FANGIO	      29	56.86
2	CLARK	      33	45.83
3	ASCARI	      14	43.75
4	SENNA         65	40.37
5	HAMILTON      61	32.45
6	VETTEL	      46	25.84
7	MOSS	      16	24.24
8	SCHUMACHER    68	22.15

Only counting poles up to retirement from Ferrari is not correct, point is though then Schumacher was on Pole 27% of his race starts. And if you take only Schumachers Ferrari career, then he was at 32%.

 

If chopping Hamilton's career then McLaren he is at 23% and Mercedes he is at 44%.

 

So where you are mean a lot.

 

[LiJu914]

1995-1998? Yes. 

 

1999-2000? No, the Ferrari was at least joint best during this period. It was just as quick as the McLaren in 2000 as well. Mika was a better qualifier than Schumacher, or at least on his level. Yet in 2000, the Ferrari car was on pole 10/17 rounds (9 for Schumacher) While the McLaren was on pole 7 times (5 for Mika) One of Mika's poles was also a career best (Imola) 

 

The 99-Ferrari may have been a very good race car, but it certainly wasn´t on par with McLaren in terms of qualifying (apart from the very end). It struggled to quickly get enough heat into the tyres for large parts of the season.

[ferkan]

you don't need to be 2 seconds faster, all you need is .00001 

 

Well, like Lewis said for Vettel, when you have that kind of spaceship (that no one ever had) you can miss half of apexes on track and still be half a second ahead. Lets not act cute, when you have that kind of advantage, pole position becomes form.

[sennafan24]

Don't agree on 1999 at all. By 2000 yes the gap had closed... the point remains though. I think we also have to take into account that MS was the best driver, period. Does any other driver stick those Ferraris on pole, at all, during that period. Maybe a few in 2000, before that?
I highly doubt it. Michael made the difference so often and, as we can see, more often in races than qualifying.

1995-1997? He was in a league of his own. 

 

1998-2000? Schumacher and Mika were pretty even. Mika was better at race starts, a bit better in qualifying, and had a tougher teammate (McLaren had a more even driver policy). Schumacher was better in the wet, had more application, and had slightly less off days. However, it is qualifying we are discussing. Mika had 25 poles from 1998-2000. His teammate had only 5. So, his qualifying record also reflects favourably during this period. 

Edited by sennafan24, 22 March 2017 - 22:23.

[Yamamoto]

1995-1998? Yes. 

 

1999-2000? No, the Ferrari was at least joint best during this period. It was just as quick as the McLaren in 2000 as well. Mika was a better qualifier than Schumacher, or at least on his level. Yet in 2000, the Ferrari car was on pole 10/17 rounds (9 for Schumacher) While the McLaren was on pole 7 times (5 for Mika) One of Mika's poles was also a career best (Imola) 

 

I've always been a bit unsure about this one. Schumacher was mightily fast over a single lap. I think people liked the idea of Hakkinen being faster and Schumacher being the all-rounder as a way to categorise their rivalry but I suspect the second clause of your sentence is closer to the truth. Difficult to know for certain.

 

Agree with the rest of your post though. In 1999 in particular I think the Mclaren looked so overwhelmingly fast in the first race or two (or at least the qualifying) that it distorts how close they were over the season as a whole. 

[ANF]

No analysis, only numbers.

      P  W   P  W  diff
1992  0  1   0  1   +1
1993  0  1   0  2   +2
1994  6  8   6 10   +4
1995  4  9  10 19   +9
1996  4  3  14 22   +8 !
1997  3  5  17 27  +10
1998  3  6  20 33  +13
1999  3  2  23 35  +12 !
2000  9  9  32 44  +12
2001 11  9  43 53  +10 !
2002  7 11  50 64  +14
2003  5  6  55 70  +15
2004  8 13  63 83  +20
2005  1  1  64 84  +20
2006  4  7  68 91  +23

[sopa]

 

But why has he just 68 poles? Normally dominating driver have more poles than race wins due to missing luck in the races. But for Michael it's different. But why?

 

To make it short.

 

In a truly dominant car (1992, 1993, 2014-16), etc, this indeed would be the case. That you would likely get more poles than wins. Well, i.e Mansell got 14 of them, Prost 13.

 

Schumacher's two dominant years (2002, 2004) happened to be such that in one of them one package (Williams-BMW-Michelin) could genuinely compete for poles against Ferrari, but were left behind in races. We had Q-spec engines back then! So Schumacher couldn't dominate in qualis.

 

In 2004 we had qualifying with race fuel and Ferrari at times qualified heavier than rivals.

 

In other seasons we can't speak of domination to such extent that it would open a way to score poles all the time (10+ per year) and thus more than wins.

 

Add to that that apart from 1996 Schumacher's cars tended to be pretty reliable, so he didn't lose many wins due to unluck. Which means his "race win" hit rate remained relatively high, and it wasn't on the cards to "outpole" it.

[TennisUK]

In the refuelling era pole wasn't always won by the fastest driver. And the fastest driver didn't need to be on pole because the driver who got pole would sometimes be there due to an inferior strategy.

Incidentally I'm very glad we don't have refuelling anymore.

[LiJu914]

1995-1997? He was in a league of his own. 

 

1998-2000? Schumacher and Mika were pretty even. Mika was better at race starts, a bit better in qualifying, and had a tougher teammate (McLaren had a more even driver policy). Schumacher was better in the wet, more application, and slightly less off days. However, it is qualifying we are discussing. Mika had 25 poles from 1998-2000. His teammate had only 5. So, his qualifying record also reflects favourably during this period. 

1998?

McLaren locked out the front row in 9 of the 16 races.  Not a level playing field.

 

One could just as easy include the results of the 2001 season for that matter.

Edited by LiJu914, 22 March 2017 - 22:30.

[sopa]

Raikkonen, D. Hill, Lauda, Stewart, Alonso and Prost also have more wins than poles, to mention some.  So I don't think there is a rule that a front-running driver should have more poles than wins.

[sennafan24]

1998?

McLaren locked out the front row in 9 of the 16 races.

 

The 99-Ferrari may have been a very good race car, but it certainly wasn´t on par with McLaren in terms of qualifying (apart from the very end). It struggled to quickly get enough heat into the tyres for large parts of the season.

You've missed what I was saying.

 

I argued that the Ferrari was equal to the McLaren in general in 1999, not in qualifying. Although, I think the Ferrari might have got a few more poles had Schumacher not got injured at Silverstone (Hungary for example, where Irvine was close) .I also argued that Mika was on par with Schumacher from 1998-2000. I didn't argue that the Ferrari was a quicker qualifying car in 1998, because it wasn't. 

Edited by sennafan24, 22 March 2017 - 22:33.

[P123]

A combination of a period where other cars were faster in quali, Mika being his equal on one lap pace, a tyre war, and race fuel qualifying mixing things up. Without the tyre war he'd no doubt have a fair few more poles.

As for Hamilton... well, he's not exactly slow either.

[LiJu914]

You've missed what I was saying.

 

I argued that the Ferrari was equal to the McLaren in general in 1999, not in qualifying. Although, I think the Ferrari might have got a few more poles had Schumacher not got injured at Silverstone (Hungary for example, where Irvine was close) .I also argued that Mika was on par with Schumacher from 1998-2000. I didn't argue that the Ferrari was a quicker qualifying car in 1998, because it wasn't. 

 

Alright, fair enough. As tzhis thread was about Poles i just assumed, you were mainly writing about Qualifying.

[Dabash]

Well, like Lewis said for Vettel, when you have that kind of spaceship (that no one ever had) you can miss half of apexes on track and still be half a second ahead. Lets not act cute, when you have that kind of advantage, pole position becomes form.

 

Lewis had a dominant car for 3 years along with an equally impressive team mate speedwise (something i don't think Schumacher ever had) so that pretty much negates this phantom 2 seconds (which Marklar says was actually around 0.5+)

 

Hamilton  has also been in F1 for 10 years now and in about 5/6 of them he never had the outright fastest car so it's not like there's a driver on the grid who always had that luxury.

​throw in the refuelling and races being based on strategy which meant faster cars did not necessary have to qualify on pole for the race win and F1 now having 20/21 races per season and  am sure the answer is somewhere in there

Edited by Dabash, 22 March 2017 - 22:42.

[P123]

Hamilton had 31 poles from 129 starts, before he sat in the dominant Merc (with a teammate who had a favourable qualifying record against the chap with 68 poles), so it shouldn't really require any wonderment as to why he would be approaching the pole record. Vettel was fast approaching it too at one point, and will likely also surpass it. Yep, it matters what car you sit in, even for Schumacher.

[LiJu914]

Fun fact: Until the the introduction of the single-lap-qualifying + usage of race fuel loads in 2003, MSC was outqualified by his teammates just 11 times out of 177 qualifyings.

Edited by LiJu914, 22 March 2017 - 22:51.

[PlayboyRacer]

1995-1997? He was in a league of his own.

1998-2000? Schumacher and Mika were pretty even. Mika was better at race starts, a bit better in qualifying, and had a tougher teammate (McLaren had a more even driver policy). Schumacher was better in the wet, had more application, and had slightly less off days. However, it is qualifying we are discussing. Mika had 25 poles from 1998-2000. His teammate had only 5. So, his qualifying record also reflects favourably during this period.

Don't agree. And lets leave it at that.

[P123]

The fastest car usually qualifies on Pole.
 
The best driver usually wins the race.
 
Hardly a cast iron rule, and it doesn't work so well when there is a dominant team, but there's truth in it nevertheless.

It's a rule that doesn't work so well full stop. Senna would routinely magic up a lap in a car that was not the quickest, yet it would let him down in the race. Clark has more poles than he does victories, again due to unreliability. Even if we look at the reasons as to why Schumacher 'only' has 68 poles vs his win count (tyre war, refuelling, periods in not the outright fastest car, etc) you'd also have to consider his win count vs poles would be a touch more balanced had his Ferrari not had what at that time was an unprecedented level of reliability on raceday.

[PlayboyRacer]

17 wins, 13 poles in that period.

Just on this point again, I'd be interested in how many of these wins came in rain affected races where Michael won. I think the appreciation for what MS achieved from 96-2000 in generally inferior cars pace wise is a little lost with time. He truly was brilliant and thats where his only equal, in the time I've seen, is Ayrton Senna. That's what stood them apart.

[PlatenGlass]

1996-2000 he rarely had the outright fastest car on the grid. Given that's 5 years worth, I'd say it played a significant part. Plus he missed races in 1999.

Why don't you extend it back to 1995? In fact the Ferrari was probably more competitive pace wise in 2000 than the Benetton in 1995.