Brazilian GP facts and statistics
Felipe Massa scored his fourth career hat-trick and second home win
Felipe Massa dominated in Brazil and joined three of his countrymen in becoming a two-time winner of his home Grand Prix.
Here are more facts and stats from the Brazilian Grand Prix.
First thing’s first – Lewis Hamilton won the drivers’ championship and Ferrari won the constructors’ championship. See those two articles for the full statistics on their achievements.
Ignoring the championship, Felipe Massa’s Brazilian Grand Prix was perfect. He started from pole position, set fastest lap and won the race. It is is fourth ‘hat-trick’.
Massa won his home race for the second time. It should have been his third, but he gave the lead to Kimi Raikkonen last year, allowing Raikkonen to be champion. No Brazilian has won his home race more than twice: Massa shares the record with Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna.
With David Coulthard’s retirement, Massa is the only active driver to have won his home race twice. Stirling Moss is the only other driver two have won his home race twice (or more) without winning the championship.
Massa’s 11th win gives him as many as Jacques Villeneuve, who was his team mate in 2005.
Massa’s 15th pole position means he now has one fewer than team mate Kimi Raikkonen. However Massa’s 11 fastest laps are 24 short of Raikkonen’s tally.
Raikkonen set ten fastest laps this year, matching his record of 2005, shared with Michael Schumacher in 2004. Raikkonen also finished third in the final three races.
Fernando Alonso finished on the podium without winning the race for the first time this year.
Jarno Trulli achieved his best qualifying position of the year – second – and his first front-row start since the 2005 French Grand Prix.
More on the championship statistics will follow in the 2008 F1 season review.
yorricksfriend said on 4th November 2008, 4:37
sorry to triple post but its also the first time since 1999 that the team of the Drivers’ World Champion hasn’t won the Constructors’ Championship
Lustigson said on 4th November 2008, 7:49
@ DMW, yorricksfriend
Alan Jones also won the WDC with #27, at Williams in 1980. And if I’m not mistaking, the next-highest number to win the title — of course since 1974, when the old numbering system was adopted — is #12: Lauda ’74 and Senna ’88, and #11: Hunt ’76, Lauda ’77 and Scheckter ’79.
@ yorricksfriend
McLaren took the WDC, but not the WCC in several other seasons, as well: 1976 (to Ferrari), ’86 (Williams-Honda) and ’99 (Ferrari).
Robert Silvestre said on 4th November 2008, 11:28
99th GP win by a Brazilian driver. Can’t wait to celebrate the 100th one next year :)
Robert Silvestre said on 4th November 2008, 11:31
BTW, love the site. It’s become a reference for me. Amazing job Keith!!!
Filipe said on 4th November 2008, 12:28
Robert, unless something goes wrong with next year car expect Massa to get the 100th victory in Bahrain.
keepF1technical said on 4th November 2008, 12:52
has anybody else noticed the anomaly between mclaren and ferrari tactics and their statistics:
maclaren, the ‘team’ outfit allowing drivers to race each other for the benefit of the team have won not so many constructors crowns (8) but more drivers titles (12).
ferrari, the ‘no.1 driver’ outfit have not faired as well proportionally with their drivers championships (15), and in the constructors table (16)
ironic? or is there something in these statistics?
does this suggest ferrari have somehow thrown driver titles by their tactics, or mclaren thrown constructors by their tactics?
sumedh said on 4th November 2008, 13:47
@keepF1Technical
Ferrari have always had equal driver policy except for the 10-year Schumacher era.
I particularly like their strategy which is supposedly : Drivers can race till the 2nd pitstop after which they are supposed to keep positions. I read in some news article.
Jian said on 4th November 2008, 14:09
Becken, great dig up. I also remember that most people expected Kimi and Ferrari walk it. A lot of people say that McLaren clearly has the better car these two seasons just to belittle Hamilton. But it is closer to the truth to say that Ferraris more often than not has had the edge. Hamilton’s win is massive considering the expectations.
brilliant:D Mosley comes close though with Spanking-gate
Becken said on 4th November 2008, 15:06
Jian – I´m just waiting to receive any credit for that… lol
Another point was my prediction about Timo Glock:
God bless him!
Dan M said on 4th November 2008, 15:55
Hamilton fought with Ferrari engines all day, but never once met Kimi or Felipe on the track.
David Watkins said on 4th November 2008, 20:13
I’m just mulling some all-time stats now the season is over. Poor old Massa is now fourth in the all-time list of “Most Gtand Prix wins without winning a Championshp”
Stirling Moss 16
David Coulthard 13
Carlos Reutemann 12
Felipe Massa 11
Ronnie Peterson 10
Gerhard Berger
Rubens Barrichello 9
Jacky Ickx 8
Rene Arnoux 7
Juan-Pablo Montoya
Tony Brooks 6
Jacques Laffite
Gilles Villeneuve
Ricardo Patrese
Ralf Schumacher
Marcelo said on 5th November 2008, 2:50
Try InfoRace
great, but Stats 08 portuguese only