2008 Turkish GP stats and facts

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I’ve had a rummage through the data and pulled out some interesting statistics and facts on the Turkish Grand Prix. Have I missed anything? Post your findings in the comments.

Plus the full drivers’ and constructors’ championship tables after round five.

Felipe Massa won his third Turkish Grand Prix in a row from his third pole position in a row at the circuit. Giancarlo Fisichella crashed on the first lap of the Turkish Grand Prix for the third race in a row.

Happily, Sebastian Vettel did not retire on the first lap for the third consecutive race this year, and was a classified finisher for the first time in 2008. He is the last driver to finish a race this year.

Massa’s seventh Grand Prix win puts him level with Rene Arnoux and Juan Pablo Montoya. It was also his 11th pole position and 20th podium finish, and he passed the 5,000 laps raced mark having now amassed 5,022.

Massa also has the best average starting position (see right) of 2.2. Robert Kubica is second with 3.2 as his fifth on the grid this weekend was his worst starting position of the year. There are some big gaps between team mates, particularly the Toyotas (Jarno Trulli 6.4, Timo Glock 14) and Renaults (Fernando Alonso 7.8, Nelson Piquet Jnr 14.8).

It was the 23rd consecutive race won by a McLaren or a Ferrari, which equals the all-time record held by the same two teams between the 1987 Japanese and 1989 United States Grands Prix. Of those, 19 were won by McLaren and four by Ferrari. This time, Ferrari have 14 and McLaren nine.

Heikki Kovalainen started from the front row of the grid for the first time in his career. Compatriot Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest lap for the second race in the row, his 27th, which puts him fourth in the all-time list of drivers with the most fastest laps, one behind Jim Clark.

Mark Webber scored points for the fourth consecutive race, which equals the best he has ever achieved. He scored points in the Bahrain, San Marino, Spanish and Monaco Grands Prix for Williams in 2005.

With Super Aguri no more the race saw the fewest entrants since the 2005 Chinese Grand Prix when there were also 20.

It was the 40th consecutive points-scoring finish for a Ferrari-engined car.

Alonso is poised to break the 500 points mark having now scored 499. Nelson Piquet Jnr finished 15th, Renault’s worst finishing position since Kovalainen in the French Grand Prix last year, who at least had the excuse of being hit on the first lap. The worst classified finish for a Renault car was Arnoux’s 16th in the 1982 Swiss Grand Prix (“Isn’t motor racing banned in Switzerland?” I hear you ask. Indeed it is – the race was held at Dijon in France).

Jenson Button completed his 100th race distance from 142 Grand Prix presences.

And last, but certainly not least, Rubens Barrichello set a new record for the most Grand Prix starts, with 257. He eclipses Riccardo Patrese’s mark of 256, which has stood since 1993.

Drivers’ championship standings

Kimi Raikkonen 35
Felipe Massa 28
Lewis Hamilton 28
Robert Kubica 24
Nick Heidfeld 20
Heikki Kovalainen 14
Mark Webber 10
Fernando Alonso 9
Jarno Trulli 9
Nico Rosberg 8
Kazuki Nakajima 5
Jenson Button 3
Sebastien Bourdais 2

Not scored

Rubens Barrichello
David Coulthard
Anthony Davidson*
Giancarlo Fisichella
Timo Glock
Nelson Piquet Jnr
Takuma Sato*
Adrian Sutil
Sebastian Vettel

Constructors’ championship standings

Ferrari 63
BMW 44
McLaren 42
Williams 13
Red Bull 10
Renault 9
Toyota 9
Honda 3
Toro Rosso 2

Not scored

Force India F1 Team
Super Aguri*

*Team has withdrawn from the championship

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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26 comments on “2008 Turkish GP stats and facts”

  1. One big stat Peter Windsor dropped in the TV unilaterals yesterday – Massa is the first man since Michael Schumacher to score 3 consecutive wins at the same venue.

    From what I remember, Michael last did it at Indy (actually, he won 4 in a row there, from 2003-2006).

  2. And Schumacher won four in a row at Catalunya. Alonso is currently on two in a row at Monaco – will be quite a feat if he can make it three!

  3. Given his car right now, that will be a HUGE feat for Fernando.

    Speaking of which, Renault was the last team to win 4 in a row (back in 2006) – all those wins came from Alonso (Spain, Monaco, GB, Canada).

    The last time a team won 5 in a row was McLaren in 2005. As a matter of fact, they won 6 in a row then (Hungary, Turkey, Italy, Belgium, Brazil, Japan).

  4. Interestingly enough I think Renault if they have half decent pace will short fuel Alonso so he can get a better grid position at the start. But more interestingly how many other teams will short fuel their drivers? Surely BMW will be one of these teams.

  5. I did the check on the consecutive wins today. The last 3 wins in the same race go to Kimi Raikkonen in Belgium 2004 – 2007, but there is a year break as there was no Belgian GP in 2006

  6. Whewbacca the Cookie
    12th May 2008, 13:32

    My two cents:

    As far as the consecutive pole positions are concerned, Senna still has the most poles in a row (eight). Schumacher and Prost follow him with seven each. Among the active drivers Alonso has five, Coulthard has four, Massa and Raikkonen three each.

  7. Ah, good point, milos. I wonder how Peter Windsor missed that. Anyway, this is Ferrari’s longest streak since 2004 (when Michael Schumacher won 7 in a row for them and 12 out of the first 13 races).

  8. Now it is clear that the pressure must be on Glock and Piquet…

  9. Who are the other drivers with more fastest laps?

  10. Drivers with most fastest laps:

    Michael Schumacher 76 (248 starts)
    Alain Prost 41 (199 starts)
    Nigel Mansell 30 (187 starts)
    Jim Clark 28 (72 starts)
    Kimi Räikkönen 27 (125 starts)

    Coming up next race: Giancarlo Fisichella’s 200th start.

  11. Keith: as for the driver’s standings, Massa is actually 2nd, not 3rd, because of his two race wins, against Hamilton’s single victory until now…

    With this, for the first time in his career, Massa is second in the standings… Barrichello did the same frequently during his Ferrari years, finishing as the season’s runner-up twice (2002 and 2004), but the last time a brazilian lead the championship was, that I recall,early 1993 season, after Donington Park, courtesy of Ayrton Senna…

  12. True – my system only outputs them alphabetically and I always have to remind myself to fix those. Done now.

  13. One thing I just noticed about the start at the Turkish Grand Prix is just how much of an advantage being in an odd-numbered grid position is (ie. being on the cleaner outside line).

    Almost every odd-numbered starter over-took the person infront of them before the first corner, eg:

    * Hamilton (3) overtook Heiki (2)
    * Kubica (5) overtook Kimmi (4) and Heiki (2)
    * Alonso (7) overtook Webber (6) and Kimmi (4)
    * Heidfeld (9) overtook Trulli (8)
    * Rosberg (11) overtook Trulli (8) and DC (10)

    So being on the clean side at Istanbul is worth at least a single grid position..

    They should probably do something about that

  14. Piquet had another horrible start. He was down at the back and couldn’t take advantage of a better line to gain any position, instead he dropped down to last once the first corner was done with. Considering that Alonso was able to pull 4.5s ahead of the Red Bull of Mark Webber, Piquet should have done *a lot* better than he did both with his start and with the race against the back markers. He may have been more wary and cautious after Bahrain, but these guys should be professional enough to be able to flat a faster car out and around the slower back markers with ease (Heiki demonstrated that while Piquet made the Renault look no better than a Force India car)

    Glock was at least fast in Q1, and has had moments where he has displayed what he can do. He just needs to settle a bit, but on the other handle I would put Piquet on watch as the first driver to get the boot due to very poor performances so far (very, very poor). He is both very impatient during a race (Bahrain), not a good attacking driver (Istanbul) and has had very poor single-lap form (no consistancy)

    He just doesn’t look like the same guy who raced in GP2, which demonstrates that the 10s a lap the F1 cars are faster is still a huge leap and only the very best (Hamilton, Rosberg to an extent) can make it look easy

  15. not trying to make an excuse for Piquet, but the lack of opportunities for 3rd drivers to actually drive the F1 cars makes it more difficult these days for the new guys to adapt to F1 … Kubica jumped into F1 car after Villeneuve was dumped and was quite good right away. He had chance to run Friday practices for half the season and that probably helped him to adapt to F1 car. Kovalainen “tested” for Renault for a year but took him half a season as a race driver to find his rhythm … Piquet may be the same case…

    Perhaps time to bring the 3rd drivers back for Fridays, especially when we only have 20 cars on grid again …

  16. Wow, Kimi is already amongst the best ever in fastest laps!
    That brings an interesting point: After MS’s era, who of the current drivers will be remembered as an All-time great?
    Alonso has an amazing record, being the youngest WDC ever, a record long held by Emerson Fittipaldi, but I know many rate Kimi so much higher. And then there are Hamilton and Kubica (2nd tier?), Kovalainen and Massa (3rd?). Ten years from now, who’ll be breaking records?
    My bets: Alonso – 200+ GP starts; Hamilton 1000+ points, with WDCs spread all over (sweet…)

  17. @Keith

    True – my system only outputs them alphabetically and I always have to remind myself to fix those. Done now.

    I love the fact that Keith “Wins are more important than points” Collantine has alphabetical as standard in case of a win!!!

  18. Studying deeply the “hat-trick” wins in a single Grand Prix, I could notice that very few drivers acheived the feat during the entire Formula 1 history, but some of them did that quite a lot of times…

    Felipe Massa, by doing that, joined a select club formed by Kimi Raikkonen, Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Jim Clark and Graham Hill, if I didn’t miss anyone else…

    Surely Felipe Massa was only the second brazilian ever to do this (Senna in Monaco, Belgium and United States being the other) and the only non-champion to achieve the feat, even though Kimi Raikkonen, by the time he scored his, wasn’t a champion yet…

    I hope Felipe will soon be getting rid of this uniqueness, and will win his WDC!

  19. is heidfield the only driver to not be beaten by a teammate over a season?.

    I’m probably wrong, but i’m pretty sure I read that somewhere.

  20. sChUmAcHeRtHeGrEaTeStEvEr
    13th May 2008, 13:20

    @sush i think heidfeld is the only driver not to have been beaten by a teamate over a season….at least till the end of this year, doesnt seem to be able to match kubica now!

    @diacho intresting point. in my opinion you cant say it all depends on what cars certain drivers are in at certain times! way to early to say hamilton could be an all time great remember villeneuve’s start to his career and subsequent fall (id say hamiltons start has been better though)

    Alonso is still young yet he is in his 7th full season of racing in f1 (2002 he was testing for renault) so i wonder hoe many more years hel go on for..schumacher did 16. If rumours that raikkonen is going to retire after next year are true then i think hel be remembered as a driver who should have ended up with more titles.

  21. Drivers who have never been beaten over a season by any team-mate in F1*:

    Hamilton (though it was a close thing…), Kovalainen, Heidfeld and Sutil.

    * – 2008 rookies and near-rookies not included in list

  22. michael counsell
    13th May 2008, 19:14

    Alonso could win at Monaco. The car may work well there or he could fuel light in qualifying again, stop early again, put on hard tyres a lot of fuel again maybe fill the tank. Then wait for the safety car to come out (it might) everyone queues up and pits Alonso leads the field possibly with Piquet behind him. Alonso pulls out a huge lead pits again and wins. If they do it right there could be an 8 or so lap window in which a safety car could hand them the race.

    Everyone is probably thinking this so it might not happen but so far Renault and Alonso have been the only ones on this strategy for the last two races.

  23. I could buy that Michael, except for the bit about piquet

    if anything, Piquet is most likely to hand Alonso the safety car he requires for that strategy :)

  24. Michael Counsell
    14th May 2008, 2:21

    Very true, although a one stopping Honda or Toro Rosso could step into that role.

  25. mr La canta, cheers for that, I see heidfield is the only one with more than a season under his belt too.

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