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Twelve of the 20 drivers lining up on the Formula 1 grid in 2024 have set pole position for an F1 grand prix.
Lewis Hamilton tops the list for the most pole positions of any individual driver in F1 history, and has almost as many to his name as the other 11 drivers on this list combined!
Here we detail how many pole positions each 2024 F1 driver has and where they rank on F1's all-time list.
In 2021, pole position for three of the grands prix that year were awarded to the winner of the Saturday sprint race, rather than the driver who set fastest time in the Friday qualifying session, and our numbers reflect this anomaly.
Under the traditional system, Hamilton would gain two pole positions and Max Verstappen would lose two, while Valtteri Bottas would gain one (for qualifying fastest in Italy before taking a grid penalty) but also lose one (to Hamilton in Brazil).
LEWIS HAMILTON - 104 POLES
#1 all-time
Hamilton broke Michael Schumacher's long-standing pole position record at the 2017 Italian Grand Prix, where Hamilton took his 69th F1 pole.
He's since gone on to set 35 more, so is by far F1's most successful qualifier.
Certainly, Mercedes' domination of F1's hybrid-engined era has helped, with Hamilton racking up 71 of his poles between 2014 and 2021.
He's only had one other since the end of that period, coming at the 2023 Hungarian GP where he beat Verstappen to the fastest time by just 0.003 seconds.
MAX VERSTAPPEN - 40 POLES
#5 all-time
Verstappen claiming pole position for the first seven races of F1 2024 and counting has lifted him past Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost and Jim Clark to sit fifth on the all-time list.
It also drew him level with Ayrton Senna for the record of consecutive F1 poles, at eight.
But he has a long way to go to reach the next rung on the all-time ladder - 18 to match four-time champion Sebastian Vettel, who sits fourth in that ranking, then another eight after that to get to Senna.
Although Adrian Newey and his technical team deliberately designed the 2022 and 2023 ground-effect Red Bulls to be better race cars than qualifiers - and the 2024 Red Bull looks to be the same way - Verstappen has taken 27 of his pole positions in this era.
CHARLES LECLERC - 26 POLES
=#11 all-time
Charles Leclerc has set more pole positions than any F1 driver without a world championship to their name.
Leclerc deservedly holds a reputation for being perhaps the fastest driver in F1 right now over a single lap. If the car is set to his liking and not limited by understeer, Leclerc is capable of devastating qualifying performances that few, if any, can match.
What isn't deserved is his reputation in some corners of the Internet for being a 'choker' - on account of having only five race victories to his name so far.
That ratio has more to do with Ferrari's underwhelming cars, and Leclerc's overachievement in them in qualifying, than it does Leclerc's race-day mentality.
FERNANDO ALONSO - 22 POLES
#15 all-time
Fernando Alonso isn't renowned as a qualifying specialist. Even in his championship-winning F1 seasons (2005-06) he never scored more than six poles in each of them.
His most recent came well over a decade ago - at the 2012 German Grand Prix for Ferrari. Since then, Alonso has competed in 192 grands prix - more than half his career total - without setting a pole position.
He's come close a few times, particularly so at the 2023 Monaco GP for Aston Martin - where Alonso was just 0.084s slower than Verstappen in Q3.
Even at 42 years of age, Alonso is more than capable of adding to his tally in 2024 if Aston Martin's F1 car is fast enough.
VALTTERI BOTTAS - 20 POLES
=#16 all-time
Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of the pole positions Valtteri Bottas has taken so far in F1 came during his five-season stint with Mercedes from 2017-2021.
Mexico of that year was the last time he set the outright fastest time in an F1 qualifying session, and his chances of adding to that tally are pretty slim now he's racing for the lower-midfield Stake team formerly known as Alfa Romeo/Sauber.
Hamilton used to talk up Bottas over one lap, but he scored nine fewer poles than Nico Rosberg did while Mercedes team-mate to Hamilton, and with one extra season alongside Lewis than Rosberg managed, but no doubt qualifying is one of the stronger elements of Bottas's game.
LANDO NORRIS - 9 POLES
=#40 all-time
Norris's first pole came in the wet in what, for now, remains the final Russian Grand Prix, in 2021, a race Norris came within one botched tyre call of winning.
The 2024 season has been fruitful, with Norris's ninth pole coming in the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
CARLOS SAINZ - 6 POLES
=#42 all-time
Carlos Sainz is in the difficult position of being Leclerc's team-mate, but he's still managed to wrack up six pole positions during his time at Ferrari so far.
The most recent of which came in dominant fashion at the 2024 Mexican Grand Prix.
GEORGE RUSSELL - 5 POLES
=#59 all-time
George Russell's qualifying day of days came at the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix, where he narrowly beat Sainz to pole in a session Lewis Hamilton could only manage the seventh-fastest time in. Ironically the same Russell-Hamilton order for Russell's second pole at the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix.
Russell and Hamilton locking out the front row at the 2024 British Grand Prix broke that trend as Russell claimed his third career F1 pole, adding Vegas and Qatar afterwards.
SERGIO PEREZ - 3 POLES
=#58 all-time
All of Sergio Perez's pole positions have come in 2022 and 2023, as Red Bull has ultimately twice produced the best F1 car on the grid.
The two Perez claimed in 2023 required an assist from Verstappen, who failed to set a time in Q3 in Miami before Leclerc crashed and stopped the session, while in Saudi Arabia Verstappen suffered a driveshaft failure in Q2 that prevented him from competing for pole there.
But Perez's maiden pole - in Saudi Arabia 2022 - was entirely genuine. He came out on top in a four-way battle with Verstappen and the Ferrari drivers.
This probably ranks as the best qualifying performance of his entire F1 career so far.
NICO HULKENBERG - 1 POLE
=#75 all-time
Nico Hulkenberg is the first of five 'one-hit-wonders' on this list, claiming the sole pole position of his F1 career during his 2010 rookie season with Williams.
Hulkenberg was one of the most highly-rated talents in the junior categories before Williams promoted him to F1 as team-mate to Brazilian veteran Rubens Barrichello.
By the second half of the season, Hulkenberg had overtaken the 11-time race winner to become Williams' quickest driver.
Hulkenberg's pole came at Interlagos - he's always been especially handy around that track - in mixed conditions, but was no fluke.
On slicks on a damp circuit, Hulkenberg actually set two laps good enough to beat the Red Bulls and impressively finished the session over a second clear of both Vettel and Mark Webber.
LANCE STROLL - 1 POLE
=#75 all-time
The first, and so far only, pole position of Lance Stroll's F1 career came during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season - at the Turkish Grand Prix.
The track was resurfaced ahead of F1's first visit to Istanbul since 2011, and the extraordinary lack of grip in difficult conditions played havoc with everyone.
Stroll came good in a topsy-turvy Q3 session to bag pole, but faded to ninth in a race that Racing Point team-mate Perez finished second to Hamilton in.
Stroll is capable of flashes of brilliance such as this. During his rookie F1 season with Williams in 2017, Stroll qualified fourth at Monza in the wet - only just behind the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo, and a whopping 1.2s quicker than team-mate Felipe Massa.
KEVIN MAGNUSSEN - 1 POLE
=#75 all-time
A single pole position was just as unlikely as Hulkenberg's for Nico's current Haas team-mate Kevin Magnussen, who similarly achieved his best-ever qualifying result at the Brazilian Grand Prix (in 2022) for an un-fancied team.
This was another session of mixed weather, where being on track at the right moment was crucial. Haas put Magnussen at the front of the pit-exit queue and so he enjoyed the best of the circuit before rain curtailed the session.
But take nothing away from Magnussen, who was top-seven fast in Q1 and Q2 as well.
Not the most rounded of drivers, but he is someone who's always been capable of a special performance when all is right in his world.
Oscar Piastri, Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon, Alex Albon, Yuki Tsunoda, Zhou Guanyu, Logan Sargeant - 0 poles.
