Lewis Hamilton is fast and is now on track (ha ha) to secure his fourth FIA Formula One World Championship, which can partly be attributed to factors of his abilities like the record-setting pole lap he set at Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix.
Hamilton has been slowly chipping away at his competition, which mostly manifested as Sebastian Vettel earlier in the season but has quickly waned away. Hamilton now leads Vettel in the standings by 59 points following his win this past weekend in the Japanese Grand Prix.
In August, Hamilton demolished the track record time at Spa-Francorchamps, and in September he bested Michael Schumacher by securing the most pole-positions, so the kid is pretty darn good. He did it again over this past weekend, securing pole and beating Felipe Massa’s 2006 record pole lap time at Suzuka.
You can watch both laps side-by-side in this handy video uploaded by Formula One:
This post has been updated to clarify Massa’s lap was for pole placement, which Hamilton’s pole lap beat this weekend.