Alonso Feels Dominant Car Partially Responsible for Hamilton’s Poles

On Saturday, Lewis Hamilton took his 68th pole position in Belgium for Sunday’s race. But it wasn’t just any old statistic, with this pole position, Hamilton equalled Michael Schumacher’s record for the most pole positions. Double world champion Fernando Alonso hailed Hamilton’s feat, but has admitted that it mostly boils down to the dominance of the car.

“I congratulate him, it’s a great number to achieve in pole positions.” said the Spaniard. “It’s amazing numbers on a Saturday and a good benefit of these years with these dominant cars. You have the dominant car but then you need to perform and he’s doing that so I congratulate him.”

With eight races left on the calendar, Hamilton will likely overtake Schumacher’s tally and take over the top spot. On Sunday, Hamilton converted the pole to victory in his 200th race start. With that victory, Hamilton now has 58 wins, which still falls short of Schumacher’s record of 91 wins. Hamilton still has a way to go but it seems highly unlikely that he may overtake the Red Baron’s win tally.

He will certainly be given a big boost due to Mercedes taking advantage of an FIA ruling about oil burning. The FIA decreed that any engine upgrade from Monza onwards will only be allowed to burn 0.9 litres of fuel per 100 kms. Mercedes introduced their final upgrade in Belgium and were exempt from this ruling.