Keen F1 statisticians will remember that the last non-Mercedes pole position stretched back to the 2014 Austrian Grand Prix held 12 months ago, with Felipe Massa setting the fastest time in qualifying.
Team-mate Valtteri Bottas even pipped Nico Rosberg to make it an all-Williams front row, while Lewis Hamilton’s Q3 flyer was thwarted when the Briton did not respect track limits in the final corner.
But given that the Grove-based squad uses Mercedes power, the German manufacturer enjoys a perfect Saturday record since the new hybrid units were introduced at the start of the 2014 campaign.
