Hello, I Am A Beginner In F1. And I See How Everything Says That Charles Is The King Of Qualification.

Hello, I am a beginner in F1. And I see how everything says that Charles is the king of qualification. All the experts and drivers say how amazing it is. I even read that Vettel said he had never seen anyone like that. And I wanted to know what was so impressive about it? (I mean other drivers also had a lot of pole position)

Hi!! Sorry lovely anon, took me a few hours to get back to you because I wanted to be thorough and back up my claims with evidence!

First things first, welcome to F1!! I hope you enjoy the ride ;)

Then THANK YOU for this question haha! I love talking about my quali king ✨ so I’d love to tell you more about it! Here’s my long answer below

So there are a lot of things to take into account in order to judge (and praise) Charles' skills as a qualifier. Especially if you want to compare him with the other drivers currently on the grid. The obvious is the car. Charles has put on pole cars which absolutely didn't belong there, not only because they were inconsistent, nervous, hard to handle and not very competitive (I evoke this in this post about the pole to ratio discourse) but also very simply because there were much more dominant cars on the grid that should have gotten poles very easily instead of him. Charles has this ability to outdrive the car. Charles is a very late breaker and plays with the throttle and the brakes in such a way that allows him to set incredible laps.

What Fred said after his crash in Miami was quite interesting imo: "When you're fighting for pole, the driver has to push. You can't accuse him of pushing 'too much'. That's how he makes the difference […]. We've seen last year as well: the other drivers had cars for pole but he got it because he pushes more and made less mistakes than them too." but ofc there are a lot of quotes out there praising Charles (from Seb, from Jock Clear etc…) and even before reaching F1 some important figures have praised Charles' speed over one lap (Massimo Rivola, Sébastien Philippe, Fred Vasseur…).

To highlight his incredible accomplishments in qualifying, you can also compare him to some other drivers: for instance, Max who has been in F1 since 2015 has had 32 pole positions with a car that has won the championship twice with quite the margins (-> that means he had a dominant car for a few years now so he's had the possibility to qualify really well) while Charles has been in F1 since 2018 and has had 23 pole positions (with cars that have never won championships ; and in 2018 and 2020 they were nowhere near the front). So Charles has overall 23 pole positions from his 125 entries claims which makes for a strike rate of 18.4%. Max, on the other hand, has 32 poles from 185 entries which makes for a strike rate of 17.29%. Carlos who has been in F1 since 2015 has had only 5 pole positions (and he has had the same car as Charles for 3 years). Lando has been in F1 since 2019 and has only 1 pole positions despite having more than one opportunity (Qatar, Saudi, Abu Dhabi…) to grab poles during the second part of the year in 2023. Same with George Russell, only 1 pole. It's more difficult to compare with Lewis since he's been here for much longer and also has had a championship-winning car for almost a decade but for instance with Alonso, another undeniably great driver, he's been in F1 since 2001 (-> 378 entries) and only has 22 pole positions, so one less than Charles.

If you want another impressive stat that proves how extraordinary Charles is when it comes to quali and how amazing his speed is over one lap -> he ranks 14th on the all-time pole list and that's despite not having always had a front-running machinery. The only Ferrari driver who's had more poles than Charles is Michael Schumacher.

In 2019, his second year in F1 and his first year with Ferrari, Charles managed to grab 7 poles making him the pole king with no drivers starting from P1 more often than him. In 2022, Charles did not qualify in the top 2 only 4 times during the whole season (two of those instances he had a grid penalty and thus didn't necessarily try to fight to get pole). He gained the pole position trophy again that year with 9 poles to his name (usually the one who gets that trophy is the one who wins the wcc or the wdc). At the end of 2023 was also quite impressive with an average qualifying position of 1.4 over the last five races of the season (above any other driver, even Max). Over the years, Charles had the record for the most pole during a season multiple times and even when he didn’t, he usually was the one who grabbed the most if you don’t take into account he most dominant car (like in 2023 where Charles had the most poles outside of Max). So yes other drivers do have lots of poles but Charles’ case is quite special.

In the Head To Head comparisons between teammates, Charles has NEVER been beaten by a teammate in quali over a season. Over his 6 years in F1 (from 2018 to 2023), Charles has always outqualified his teammates from Sauber (Ericsson) to Ferrari (Vettel and Sainz). In 2023, the qualifying gap between Charles and Carlos (so same machinery) was around 4 tenths in favor of Charles. Very regularly, Charles dunks from three to five tenths on Carlos in quali while when Carlos beats Charles the gap is much more closer (usually a tenth or less).

This discourse around his skills as a qualifier is not only based on his many poles: he has pulled some mighty laps out of shitty cars and put it in places it didn't belong in general even if it wasn't necessarily on pole. And even when he isn’t on pole with his car, he is regularly not far off (mere tenths off of it).

What's fascinating to me as well is that you can see the intelligence behind his approach to quali, building up his q3 through different sessions and putting everything together to pull the most out of the car at the right moment.

Charles also has multiple poles on street circuit and that’s an undeniable proof of his talent as a qualifier because street tracks demand precision and talent. In Monaco, Las Vegas, Singapour, Baku… Charles has made some mighty laps there (I’ll forever regret not seeing Charles finishing his lap in Monaco in 2022, that lap could have been magical)

His nickname as the king of quali is undoubtedly rightly earned: he pushes the car to the limit and that’s what makes him extraordinary. He can extract every ounce of performance from a car and more.

Anyway I hope this all helped, sorry it was quite long and there's a lot of numbers and stats 🫣