Hamilton's place in F1's best qualifying lap debate

Lewis Hamilton has more Formula 1 pole positions than any driver in world championship history. His current tally of 93 puts him miles ahead of second-placed Michael Schumacher (on 68) and even his strike rate is similar to that of Ayrton Senna, regarded by some as the fastest ever F1 driver.

But does Hamilton have a particular standout lap, one that bears comparison with, for example, Senna's famous 1988 Monaco Grand Prix performance?

His 2020 Belgian GP pole certainly comes to mind, not because it happened recently or because it left him more than half a second clear of Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas, a big margin by modern F1 standards on a circuit regarded as a real 'driver's track'.

What impressed was the sheer confidence Hamilton had in the W11, and the speed he could turn into the corners, particularly the medium-high speed ones. There was no 'playing' with the wheel to feel the grip levels or minutely reposition the car, just a single, definite and aggressive steering input. Not only did it demonstrate Hamilton's impressive precision, it also underlined just how much grip the latest Mercedes has.

Team boss Toto Wolff described it as "extra-terrestrial", but one could argue that it is as close to perfection as a human and a racing car have been over a single lap. In Hamilton's back catalogue, perhaps only his 2018 Singapore pole, half a second quicker than the team expected and that moved him to say, "I can't remember a lap where I thought I could do more", stands comparison.

There are, however, quite a few candidates for this particular accolade.

Before looking at some of the greatest qualifying laps in history, it's worth pointing out that the importance of qualifying - or practice as it used to be known - has changed over the years. While setting times to form a grid has been around since the 1933 Monaco GP, it hasn't always had the same focus of attention as it has today.

The fact it was called 'practice' hints at the fact it was, for some time, just that. It was a way to prepare for the race itself. That's what teams now do in FP1, FP2 and FP3, with qualifying a separate endeavour altogether, but for many years they were one and the same.

During the 1950s and 1960s, front rows were often three- or four-cars wide, with no stagger. The advantage of being on pole was less. Before the rise of downforce-producing wings, 'dirty air' and shorter braking distances, overtaking was also easier at most circuits, so track position was less crucial.

The relative unimportance of qualifying in the pre-downforce era means the winner of this contest should probably come from a time after downforce levels really started to rise, from the late-1970s

In this context, it becomes clear why some of the more-complete drivers, such as Jackie Stewart, put more effort into tuning the car for the race than getting the top grid position, providing they were somewhere in the ballpark.

The 1957 Pescara GP is an example of this. The longest circuit in world championship history at 16 miles produced, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the largest pole margins in F1. Juan Manuel Fangio's Maserati was 10.1s clear of the Vanwall of Stirling Moss. But Moss not only dominated the race, he matched Fangio's time of 9m44.6s in the GP.

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All this means the winner of this contest should probably come from a time after downforce levels really started to rise, from the late-1970s. That also coincides with the period when F1 received greater coverage, giving us more information to make an assessment.

That doesn't mean some performances from the 1950s and 1960s don't deserve an honourable mention. Eugenio Castellotti's pole at the 1955 Belgian GP was something of a surprise given his inexperience (it was only his third world championship event), Lancia's parlous financial state at the time, and the fact that he beat dominant Mercedes duo Fangio and Moss. Needless to say, both were ahead in the race when the Lancia's gearbox broke.

The biggest pole margin in F1 world championship history is Jacky Ickx's 1968 German GP pole at the 14.2-mile Nurburgring. The Belgian was 10.9s faster than Ferrari team-mate Chris Amon in a rain-affected session, though Ickx (and everyone else) was on the receiving end of a wet-weather masterclass from Stewart come the race.

PLUS: Ranking F1's greatest wet-weather drives

This perhaps raises another issue. Where do wet-weather laps figure in the debate? There have certainly been some impressive qualifying performances in wet or changeable conditions, including Rubens Barrichello's poles in lesser machinery at the 1994 Belgian and 1999 French GPs (for Jordan and Stewart GP respectively), and Giancarlo Fisichella's effort for Benetton at the 1998 Austrian GP. Hamilton's own 2018 Hungarian GP pole also turned around a deficit to Ferrari that set him up for victory.

But these are often the result of great feel or being on track at the right moment, rather than an indicator of pure speed, which is surely the great appeal of qualifying. For this debate, a dry lap has to come out on top.

When it comes to the margin in terms of percentage of the lap - rather than pure lap time - Nigel Mansell's 1992 British GP pole at Silverstone is the most dominant pole in world championship history. This is surely a fairer gauge of dominance than pure time gaps, which skew the figures towards the longer tracks.

Mansell was 2.430% clear of Williams team-mate Riccardo Patrese (for comparison purposes, Bottas was 'only' 0.505% behind Hamilton at Spa). Partly that was thanks to the Williams FW14B's performance advantage over the field - Senna's McLaren was 3.471% (2.741s) behind - but it was also due to Patrese's lack of confidence in the gizmo-laden machine, and Mansell's affinity with Silverstone.

Three of the 1992 world champion's 32 F1 poles came at the Northamptonshire venue and, remarkably, Mansell took fastest lap for six consecutive British GPs between 1987 and 1992.

Autosport technical editor Jake Boxall-Legge has studied the data of Mansell's 1992 pole, and certainly believes it is worthy of consideration here.

"Mansell spent around 65% of the lap at full throttle," he says. "Copse wasn't flat back then, but still taken at 155mph in fifth gear. Mansell's top speed was just shy of 183mph on the Hangar Straight, Abbey was taken flat, and Mansell could tackle Bridge at 170mph, lifting only slightly to get the car into the corner.

"Paddy Lowe once gave the data trace to Mansell as a present, having been so impressed with the lap."

It's hard to imagine even Senna or Hamilton matching Mansell in that car on that circuit, but if we're talking Silverstone, then Keke Rosberg's 160.9mph lap in a turbocharged Williams-Honda so powerful even the team didn't know what its output was in 1985, has to be in the mix too.

Drivers of the 1980s turbo era were unlikely to try their cars in qualifying configuration until the run itself, making improvisation - and bravery - the name of the game

Rosberg's mark, set with a slow puncture, was 0.658s clear of the field and more than a second quicker than team-mate Mansell. It also remained F1's fastest qualifying lap until 2002.

Those two Silverstone laps straddle a significant change in F1 qualifying. With almost unlimited turbo boost and qualifying tyres, the cars of the 1980s were vastly different to qualify than they were to race. Not only that, but the drivers were unlikely to try them in that configuration until the qualifying run itself. Improvisation - and bravery - was the name of the game.

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"There was a big difference between qualifying and the race," ex-F1 driver Derek Warwick told Autosport in 2014. "With BMW you ran through practice with 700-800bhp, then into qualifying with 1350bhp-plus. They would put a blanking plate over the wastegate so the engine would just give maximum power. You'd have to go up 1500rpm in every gear and hope it was enough."

That means even the best of those laps are unlikely to have been near the maximum of the car in the way qualifying is today, but are worthy of consideration here for the sheer challenge they represented.

Since the conclusion of F1's first turbo era at the end of 1988, optimisation rather than improvisation has become key. Increasing levels of data mean that the drivers have a much better idea of what their machines are capable of - and can improve their own performance by looking in minute detail at what their team-mates are doing, something that sometimes irritated Hamilton against Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg. All that information also goes some way to explaining why gaps between team-mates tend to be so small now.

Although not now remembered for his qualifying performances, Alain Prost could be deceptively fast and was a master of using all the tools available to get his car to do the work. In his early days, he was rapid enough to completely dominate McLaren team-mate Niki Lauda, forcing the Austrian to focus more on race set-up, while even in his final season with Williams in 1993 there were moments where his smooth, unspectacular style impressed Patrick Head.

When the car was to his liking, Prost could also outrun even Senna in the same car. After six consecutive Senna poles at the start of 1988 in the McLaren MP4/4, Prost was unbeatable at Paul Ricard. He even changed out of his overalls early as Senna struggled to get within half a second of his time - at a circuit with a lap time of a little over a minute.

Margins have generally got smaller since the banning of 'gizmos' such as active suspension and traction control in the 1990s, though Mercedes has reversed that trend this season, and there have been some fantastic battles for pole in the last quarter of a century.

At Jerez for the 1997 season finale, championship protagonists Jacques Villeneuve and Schumacher both recorded bests of 1m21.072s. Amazingly, Villeneuve's Williams team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen did too, indicating they were pretty near the limit of what they were capable of.

At the 2000 Japanese GP, the race Schumacher later described to Autosport as the race of his life, he and title rival Mika Hakkinen's battle for pole elevated themselves clear of the pack. They took it in turns to top the timesheets, Schumacher finally winning the battle by 0.009s around Suzuka. Ferrari team-mate Barrichello was half a second slower, while David Coulthard was four tenths adrift of McLaren colleague Hakkinen.

Qualifying wasn't regarded as the best part of Schumacher's game, but there were still many mighty laps. Some of his runs in the sequence of Ross Brawn/Rory Byrne-era Ferraris were superb demonstrations of probing the limits, with aggressive rotation of the rear on corner entry even apparent on television.

Among the highlights were his 2002 Belgian GP pole, perhaps with slightly less confidence than Hamilton's Spa performance through the high-speed corners but having finer agility in the slow-speed, and the 2003 Austrian GP.

Two Monaco laps also stand out - 1996 in the recalcitrant Ferrari F310, half a second clear of Damon Hill's Williams, and 2012. A penalty from the previous race in Spain meant he had to start sixth, but for the post-motorbike crash 43-year-old to outperform team-mate Nico Rosberg, the Red Bull of Monaco-specialist Mark Webber and Hamilton's McLaren was a great final reminder of what the German was capable of.

Hamilton's 2020 Spa and 2018 Singapore laps stand comparison with any, particularly during the optimisation-rather than-improvisation era of the 21st Century

Monaco is a natural place to end up for this debate. Thanks to the proximity of the barriers - increasingly rare in modern F1 - it is a true test of commitment and precision. Overtaking is also virtually impossible between evenly-matched cars so qualifying is perhaps more important there than anywhere else.

Jarno Trulli's Monaco lap in 2004 was something rather special. It was 0.423s quicker than Renault team-mate Fernando Alonso and set Trulli up to take his first and only F1 victory the following day.

"The highest point of 2004 was Trulli's masterpiece of a pole lap at Monaco, half a second faster than anyone else, and probably as close to perfection as a man and a racing car have ever been," wrote Autosport's Nigel Roebuck at season's end.

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There are many other laps worthy of mention. We've not included some of Sebastian Vettel's poles for Red Bull, particularly impressive with the blown diffuser, or standout efforts, such as Jenson Button's 2012 Belgian GP pole, so good that team-mate Hamilton (0.821s slower) got into trouble for sharing data on social media...

But it's clear that Hamilton's 2020 Spa and 2018 Singapore laps stand comparison with any, particularly during the optimisation-rather than-improvisation era of the 21st Century.

PLUS: How Hamilton's qualifying record compares to Senna and Schumacher

To win this contest, though, it's tempting to go for the romantic options, laps that were perhaps further away from the optimum but more heroic as a consequence of less data and more adventure.

Senna has to remain a strong candidate. One of the greatest qualifiers of all time, Senna scored 65 poles, many of which were spectacular. He scored 16 with powerful Lotus turbos, but it's his 1988 Monaco GP pole for McLaren-Honda that is most famous.

The almost mythical way Senna described the session as he got faster and faster, almost in a trance-like state, before deciding to come in as he was in unfamiliar territory, undoubtedly adds to the legend. He was what many would now call 'in the zone'.

While it is of course impossible to get a car around a circuit faster than it can go - 100% is the impossible goal all drivers are forever chasing - the fact the Brazilian outqualified McLaren team-mate Prost by 1.427s is remarkable. As is the fact that third-placed Gerhard Berger's Ferrari was 2.687s behind Senna.

But if producing a lap close to 100% in a good car is an achievement reserved for the very best, doing so in a flawed machine is something else again. Which is why it's hard to look beyond another Monaco performance, seven years before Senna's.

In the powerful but ill-handling 126CK, Ferrari's first turbocharged F1 car, Gilles Villeneuve qualified second just 0.078s behind Nelson Piquet's lithe Brabham BT49C.

If that doesn't sound particularly impressive, keep in mind that Villeneuve was 2.478s and 15 spots better than his team-mate Didier Pironi, who had been on pole there for Ligier the year before...

It was a performance of precision and aggression in the face of unfavourable odds in a car that was fourth fastest across the season (even taking into account its speed at more suitable high-speed venues), one that set Villeneuve up for a remarkable victory a day later.

Qualifying is all about exploring the limits and getting as close to perfection as possible, something Hamilton can clearly do as well as any driver in history. But, as a single physics-troubling performance, Villeneuve's 1981 Monaco GP lap still takes some beating, nearly four decades on.