Abu Dhabi Grand Prix facts and stats

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Alonso equalled his worst result for Renault in his last race for the team

Red Bull completed their strong end to the season with a third consecutive win at Abu Dhabi.

But for the likes of Fernando Alonso and Kazuki Nakajima their final races with their teams didn’t go according to plan. Read on for the facts and stats from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton set pole position for the 17th time in his career, matching Jackie Stewart’s tally. The only active driver with more is Alonso, who’s on 18.

But Hamilton wasn’t able to follow it up with another win. In fact, for the first time in his 52-race F1 career, Hamilton was forced to retire with a mechanical problem.

Sebastian Vettel scored his fifth career win and his first victory not taken from pole position – he started second. Vettel also took his third fastest lap and Red Bull’s sixth.

Vettel’s team mate Mark Webber achieved his tenth career podium. His second place gave Red Bull their fourth one-two of the year, matching Brawn’s tally.

Kamui Kobayashi scored the first points of his career for sixth place in only his second start for Toyota. He is the 20th Japanese driver to start a Grand Prix and the seventh to score a point, joining Ukyo Katayama, Shinji Nakano, Aguri Suzuki, Takuma Sato and father-and-son Satoru and Kazuki Nakajima.

The younger Nakajima, however, became the only driver to start every race in 2009 without scoring a point. Team mate Nico Rosberg amassed 34.5.

The final race for BMW saw their cars finish fifth (Nick Heidfeld) and tenth (Robert Kubica).

Fernando Alonso finished his final race for Renault with his worst result for the team – 14th, which is also where he finished at Silverstone this year.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was the first race at which both the drivers’ and constructors’ championship had already been decided since the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Unusually, this new addition to the calendar was not named after the country the race was held in (the United Arab Emirates) but its capital, Abu Dhabi. The UAE is the 28th different country in which a round of the world championship has been held, but the only one not to have given its name to the race.

The opposite is true of Luxembourg and San Marino, both of which have given their names to Grands Prix but never held a world championship round within their borders. Switzerland also did this in 1982, with a race at Dijon in France, but it held world champinoship races of its own from 1950 to 1954, after which motor racing was banned in the country following the Le Mans disaster of 1955.

Spotted any more interesting facts and stats? Post them in the comments.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

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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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121 comments on “Abu Dhabi Grand Prix facts and stats”

  1. I wondered why it was called the Abu Dhabi rather than the UAE GP. You don’t get the English GP or the Indiana GP or the Victoria GP, why should Abu Dhabi be any different? But then I suppose the race was just a really expensive 2 hour advert put on by the Abu Dhabi tourist board…

    1. Abu Dhabi rolls off the tongue better. Think of it: “You are watching the United Arab Emirates Grand Prix”… Try saying that fast ten times. :P ;)

      1. If it was the UAE GP this could happen next year:

        “USGPE wins the UAEGP.”

      2. Well the emirates can’t be all that united if one part of the country wants to hog all the publicity!

        1. haha…
          maybe they are so united that if one of them has a big event all to itself, the others dont want to butt in…

      3. Personally I have been calling it Abu Dhabi Doo in the style of Scooby Dooby Doo.

        1. and Jonathan Legard has been calling it “Aberdabi” as if it’s somewhere in Wales

          1. True. But in Arabic the “Dh” sound is pronounced closer to a “Z” rather than the hard “d” you usually hear. So none of us really have the right to complain about mispronunciation.

    2. I think it is due to the reason that, as the name suggests, the United Arab Emirates is made up of several Emirates, one of which is ‘Abu Dhabi’ The city of Abu Dhabi happens to be the capital of both the Abu Dhabi Emirate, and the UAE as a whole.

      So it’s kind of the same as calling the last few US Grand Prix the ‘Indianan Grand Prix’, or how one of the Spanish rounds of the Moto GP is known as the ‘Catalan Grand Prix’. It’s named for the state or region, rather than the country.

    3. Brahain has its grand prix and its in UAE too… so maybe its why, because then we will have to call 2 different races the “UAE Grand Prix”

      1. In Germany they solved the exact problem with German GP and European GP. Same in Spain.

      2. Nope… Bahrain is it’s own country, it’s not part of the UAE

        Apparently Abu Dhabi and Dubai are don’t much like each other, but then that just leads me back to the question: why name your country the United Arab Emirates if all the states hate each other???

        1. They only hate each other in the same way that the Scots and the Welsh hate the English in the United Kingdom!..

          1. Ha ha, good point!

        2. The should just call it the Arab GP.

      3. Bahrain isnt in the UAE… its just in the middle east.

      4. anthony, sorry to correct you but Bahréin is not a UAE but is also located in the persian golf

        1. Sorry to correct you, but it’s Persian Gulf, not golf :P

      5. Fernando Alonso finished his final race for Renault with his worst result for the team – 14th, which is also where he finished at Silverstone this year.

        Alonso’s worst finishing result in six seasons with Renault is only 14th and a quick check of Wikipedia suggests his next worst finishing result with Renault was 11th on three occasions. I think that is an absolutely astounding fact, very consistent results! So apart from retirements and one non-start, Alonso has placed in the top ten in every race (bar those five) since the beginning of 2003.

    4. The Emirates that make up the UAE are all separate principalities. Abu Dhabi (yes, pronounced more like abadabi) aggressively competes with Dubai on bragging rights. They are ‘united’ mostly in defense, customs and foreign policy, and ‘loose association of emirates’ doesn’t have the same ring to it (there are 5 other Emirates and Emirs, but not as prominent).

      most important reason for the naming, Dubai will have its own Grand Prix ..

  2. Jenson’s final points tally of 95 is the second lowest collectd by a WDC since the 10,8,6,5,4,3,2,1 points system was introduced in 2003.

    Only Mike Shoe’s tally of 93 in 2003 is lower.

    1. Oh this again. Did you take into account the half-points from Malaysia’s rain out? At full points he would have been at 100 so what’s your point? Also note the Canadian GP didn’t run, so correct me if I’m wrong but I thought the season was a bit shorter than previous. Think of total points possible and you’ll find his percentage better than Kimi’s or Lewis’. Did you object to their titles as well?

      1. 2005-19 races
        2006-18 races
        2007-17 races
        2008-18 races
        2009-17 races

        not much shorter…

      2. Easy tiger, I’m a fan of Jenson’s, I just wanted to put that stat up there before someone else did…

  3. First time (I think) a team member asked his girl friend to marry him using a pit board meanwhile she was at home in Spain. (She answered Yes, btw)

    http://joesaward.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/img_1032-copy.jpg

    1. Did anyone else read the press conference about Vettel and Webber teasing Button about how he hasn’t proposed to his girlfriend yet when he said he would when he won the championship

      1. Did anyone else read the press conference about Vettel and Webber teasing Button about how he hasn’t proposed to his girlfriend yet when he said he would when he won the championship

        Yes and I love this chat:

        SV: I hear you are getting married.

        JB: Are you proposing?

        lol

        1. My favourite part was this bit….

          Q: (Anne Giuntini – L’Equipe) To all three of you: considering there is a long break before February, I suppose you won’t be on holiday all the time. What is your working programme?
          SV: Jenson’s getting married, we heard. So he’s busy.
          MW: And we’re all invited as well.
          SV: Yeah, everyone.
          JB: Next question.
          MW: But Japan’s a long way.

          1. does anyone have a video of the press conference? I wanna watch it, not just read about it over and over.

  4. Adrian Sutil’s qualifying positions in the last 5 races of the season were 2nd, 16th, 4th, 3rd, 18th.

    What consistency!

  5. Haha! Nice!

    These are Buttons

    5th, 14th, 8th, 11th, 6th

    Everyone has been really close this year all the qualifying positions are crazy!

  6. Red Bull had four 1-2 finishes this season (China, Silverstone, Nurburgring, Abu Dhabi), yet they didn’t win the Constructors title. Presumably this has never happened before.

    2009 has been such a great season and yet such a disaster for Red Bull. It was the one big chance they had to win the title while Ferrari and Mclaren were struggling, but they blew it with there awful run of form in the late summer. Think of how many points they dropped at Spa, Monza, Valencia etc

    1. Red Bull had four 1-2 finishes this season (China, Silverstone, Nurburgring, Abu Dhabi), yet they didn’t win the Constructors title. Presumably this has never happened before.

      Mclaren in 2000 (Britain, Spain, France, Austria).

      1. they didn’t win the constructors in 2000.

        1. Red Bull didn’t win it this year neither.

          1. McLaren didn’t win the constructors in 2000.

        2. Thats the point

          1. oh yeah, sorry misread it!

  7. Jelle van der Meer
    3rd November 2009, 12:48

    UAE is made up out of 7 individual oil states, Dubai being the most famous one.

    Abu Dhabi is the name of 1 of the 7 oil states – so with above logic it is named after the country.

    Sebastian Vettel 5th win matches Nino Farina, M. Alboreto, John Watson, Tony Brooks and Keke Rosberg.

    Hamilton(21.2%), Alonso(15.0%), Vettel(11.6%) and Raikonnen(11.5%) are the only 4 active drivers in top 50 highest GP win rate.

    Hamilton(51.9%), Raikonnen(39.5%), Alonso(37.9%), Barrichello(23.7%) and Vettel(11.6%) are the only 5 active drivers in top 50 highest podium place rate.

    Heidfeld is the driver with 2nd most GP’s(168), most points(220) and most podiums(12) without a win.

    Kobayashi is ranked 241st on points out of 310 drivers with minimal 0,5 point.

    Based on my points awarding system for 2009 the driver/team winners are: (1st = 20/10points 20th/10th= 1 point)

    Optimal laptime (practice+qualify)
    1st Vettel (303) Red Bull (154)
    2nd Barrichello (272) Brawn GP (139)
    3rd Button (271) Mclaren (103)

    Race position
    1st Button (283) Brawn GP (148)
    2nd Barrichello (265) Red Bull (124)
    3rd Vettel (240) Ferrari (102)

    Fastest lap in race
    1st Button (277) Brawn GP (143)
    2nd Vettel (259) Red Bull (140)
    3rd Webber (256) Toyota (104)

    Surprissing to see Ferrari 3rd on race position and Toyota 3rd on fastest lap. If there was any discussion on Button being a worthly champion let it than now be closed with Button winning easily race position and fastest lap competition.

    Looking at within team driver battle, getting 1 point for beating your teammate on practice time, qualify position, fastest lap and race position:
    Mclaren: Lewis 48 vs Heikki 20
    Ferrari: Raikonnen 45 vs Massa 23 (Fisi&Luca 0)
    BMW: Kubica 36 vs Heidfeld 32
    Renault: Alonso 52 vs Piquet 11 (Grossjean 5)
    Toyota: Trulli 39 vs Glock 26 (Kobayashi 3)
    T. Rosso Buemi 48 vs Bourdais 13 (Jaime 6)
    Red Bull Vettel 44 vs Webber 24
    Williams Rosberg 56 vs Nakajima 12
    F. India Sutil 39 vs Fisichella 22 (Luizzi 7)
    Brawn GP Button 41 vs Barrichello 27

    Alonso and Rosberg were most dominate, Alonso only lost 1 qualifying battle from Piquet in Germany. Buemi and Vettel both have 15-2 as score on qualifying

    1. Terry Fabulous
      3rd November 2009, 21:57

      That is some great analysis there.
      Amazing that Lew wins one race out of every five starts. Amazing.

      And I hope that Poor ol Nick Heidfeld can get himself a win sometime soon!

  8. “Kobayashi is ranked 241st on points out of 310 drivers with minimal 0,5 point.”

    I’m very confused by this…

    1. There’s only been 310 drivers to score 0.5 points or more (you get 0.5 points if the race does not go near enough to full distance), and of them, 3 points is enough for 241st place.

      1. Oh I see, it was just grammar that was confusing me.

        The way the sentence is written it implies that Kobayashi is in 241st place because he has only scored 0.5 points.

        Sorry for being a grammar Nazi…

        1. Lella Lombardi is the only driver with a career total of 0.5 points, as well as being the only female driver to score.

          Other unusual career totals:

          Onofre Marimon: 8.143
          Umberto Maglioli: 8.33
          Alberto Ascari: 107.64

          1. Oops. Umberto Maglioli actually received 3.33 points in his career.

          2. how do you score those kind of points?

          3. @sato113 – years ago there was one additional point for fastest lap. As they could measure the time only by one second exact (no tenths or hundreths of a second), sometimes two or three drivers had the fastest lap and got 0,50 or 0,33 point each. At one race, 7 drivers had the same fastest lap (within one second). Each got 0,14 – and one of them finished the season with alltogether 0,14 points!

          4. cheers SaloolaS!

          5. Never knew that, thanks!

            They should seriously bring back a point for fastest race lap, time it down to hundredths maybe as there could be some distribution at this resolution.
            If not then thousandths going by the tight 2009 season.
            Tightest spread over a season ever, anyone looked at this? Come on statitfiers!

  9. – Rubens Barrichello completed the most laps this year, with 977 out of 988.
    – Jenson Button led the most laps this year, with 279, despite not leading a race since Turkey.
    – Button increased his points tally this year by over 3000% compared to last year :P
    – If we were on 10-6-4-3-2-1, Button would have won the championship by 7 points, with 76 to Vettel’s 69. Brawn would have won the constructors’ championship by just 5.5 points, clinching it in the last round
    – If the championship had been based on qualifying results, Vettel would have won the championship by 18 points, with Button third, and Red Bull and Brawn would have been tied on 166 points
    – Barrichello partipicated in the most qualifying sessions, missing just one of the 51 sessions (Q3 in Hungary)
    – Nine races were won from pole this year, and there were winners from every place in the top six on the grid

    1. Also, Button would have won under the medals system, with two races to spare.

      So no matter what system would have been used in this year’s season, Button would have won the champion regardless. Undeserving? Well, all the evidence suggests otherwise.

    2. If we used the system previous to that (9-6-4-3-2-1, best 11 from 16), Jenson would have only won by 2.5 points! (had it been 12 from 17, it would have been 4.5 points I believe)

      Had Vettel’s season gone a little differently (any combination involving Australia/Barcelona(stuck behind Massa)/Monaco/Hungary and Valencia mechanical failure), he might have found himself leading the title by 1 point as things stood on Abu Dhabi, which would have made that last-lap duel between Button and Webber even more epic!

      1. Fact of the matter is though, Jenson won under the current system and IS a worth champ :)

  10. is there any other time that a driver went for a pit stop to another’s team garage?
    Jaime could be the first doing this :-D

    1. Being a sister team, he’s welcome! Just kidding.

      Ferrari vs McLaren have 1 point between them.
      Kimi got 48 to Hamilton 49, Massa and Heikki got 22 equal points.

      Only if Massa didn’t had that unfortunate event, it’s highly that Ferrari emerged as third in the Constructor in normal circumstance. Considering the capability of Massa even the car is said to be hard to drive and stoppage of car development, he surely have had collected a good share of points. Ok, “if” is not acceptable in Formula 1. So be it.

    2. Frentzen did the same in Jerez 1997 and I recall Irvine doing it in his Jordan days.

  11. About Grand Prix names:

    First of all, the British Grand Prix should be called the United Kingdom Grand Prix if it was to follow strictly the “country name” rule, but it rather follows a “nationality” rule (British, Brazilian, French, Belgian, and so on…)… curiously, the brazilian media calls it “England Grand Prix” (Grande Prêmio da Inglaterra), since we don’t say English, or British or Belgian Grand Prix (that would be Grande Prêmio Belga, Grande Prêmio Britânico), but Belgium Grand Prix (that is Grande Prêmio da Bélgica)…

    Grand Prix have already been named after continents (European), oceans (Pacific), cities (Dallas, Pescara), cities that are also countries (Singapore, Monaco) countries’ regions (USA West) and now after a city that is also an emirate (equivalent to a state in federal republics, but yet more autonomous) (Abu Dhabi).

    1. Monaco isn’t a city, Monte Carlo is.

      1. Yeah, you’re right… It’s still correct for Singapore anyway :)…

    2. Daniel, is there not a term for ‘British’ in Portuguese? Calling something ‘English’ when it’s ‘British’ will not please the Scots/Welsh/Northern Irish!

      1. Yeah, it should be “Grande Prêmio da Grã-Bretanha” (Great Britain Grand Prix) and the equivalent for British is “Britânico”.

        Don’t ask me why they call it English Grand Prix here, but I suspect it is because our sports media is very much soccer-oriented, and therefore the journalists are used to refer England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as separate entities like they are for FIFA(for example, Irvine was always an Irish driver…)

  12. The Brawn team took Heikki’s fuel hose out in the last race – does that count?

    I’m sure we’ll have more races within the UAE before long, if Bernie has his way.

  13. Both the 2008 and 2009 constructors champions (Ferrari and Brawn) scored 172 points in their title winning seasons. Red Bull scored 2.5 more points than McLaren did last year.

    1. nice one!

  14. Villeneuve and Hamilton were both 2nd, 1st and 5th in WDC in their first three years.
    In Interlagos 08 and 09 a British driver with number 22 and Mercedes Engine won the championship with being 5th, with his main rival from Brazil having pole position. In both races the previous WDC was 3rd.

    And – in some article Keith wrote that Vettel was doing Doughnuts…it was actually Webber (saw the helmet).

    1. Was definitely Webber, and knew that without seeing the helmet. You can take the boy out of country New South Wales, but you can’t take the country New South Wales out of the boy !

    2. Nice one, but not for Hamilton… if he keeps his “Villeneuve pattern”, he’ll be, in his next seasons, 21st, 7th, 7th, 12th, 16th, 21st, 14th and 15th… He’ll surely be hoping to end these coincidences in 2010 :D

  15. I examined the driver’s championships since 1989, and compared the percentages of wins, podiums, and points scoring races for the WDC.

    Jenson:
    Wins 6/17 = 35.29%, ranked 17 out of 21
    Podiums 9/17 = 52.94%, ranked 19 out of 21
    Points 16/17 = 94.12%, ranked 2 out of 21

    For the curious:
    Most wins in season: Michael Schumacher, 2002 (11/17 = 64.71%)
    Fewest wins in season: Alain Prost, 1989 (4/16 = 25.00%)
    Most podiums in season: Michael Schumacher, 2002 (17/17 = 100.00%)
    Fewest podiums in season: Jacques Villeneuve, 1997 (8/17 = 47.06%)
    Most points scoring races in season: Michael Schumacher, 2002 (17/17 = 100%)
    Fewest points scoring races in season: Michael Schumacher, 1994 (10/16 = 62.25%)

    For the more curious, Lewis last year:
    Wins 5/18 = 27.78%, ranked 20 out of 21
    Podiums 10/18 = 55.56%, ranked 18 out of 21
    Points 14/18 = 77.78%, ranked 13 out of 21

    1. wasn’t fewest wins in season keke rosberg, 1981/2 with just 1 win but becoming WDC?

      1. This is only since 1989

    2. but lewis scored more points

      1. But Lewis had more points scoring opportunities. There was one more race in the 2008 calendar and half points were awarded in Malaysia this year…so Jenson’s points percentage is higher.

  16. First race since probably 1993 when he had 4 current or past WDCs starting the race. Alonso, Lewis, Button, Kimi.

    After 1993, We had just 4 WDCs for the next 12 years. MSC, Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Hakkinen. And none of them competed in a race together with all of them being WDCs.

    In the last 4 years, more drivers have scored 100 points or more and still lost the championship (MSC ’06, Lewis, Alonso ’07) than the number of drivers winning inspite of scoring less than 100 points (Lewis ’08, Jenson ’09)

    Jenson is WDC with the least number of career wins: just SEVEN. Previous record was Lewis with NINE.

    1. fter 1993, We had just 4 WDCs for the next 12 years. MSC, Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Hakkinen. And none of them competed in a race together with all of them being WDCs.

      I might be wrong here but didn’t that happen in 1999. They were all racing back then. It was Hill’s last season though

      1. It was Hill’s last season but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

    2. Rosberg was WDC after only 1 win, or am I missing something?

      1. I meant career wins at the time of being WDC, not wins in a season.

        But as adz2193 pointed out, Keke Rosberg definitely holds that record.

        Jenson Button might have the record for the most number of seasons before becoming WDC. 2009 was his 9th season, I think, isn’t it?

        1. Oh no, that record is held by Nigel Mansell, who won in his 12th season.

          Button might be the 2nd on that list.

    3. Jenson is WDC with the least number of career wins: just SEVEN. Previous record was Lewis with NINE.

      I read further up the page that Keke Rosberg was a Grand Prix winner just 5 times, and I know for a fact he took the championship with just 1 victory?

      1. Yes. Keke only had 5 wins and 1 of those was in his WDC year (1982).

        1. In fact it is Phil Hill the record holder for champion with least victories… 3 in total, the 3rd being 1961 Italian Grand Prix, the last race on his championship winning season, before the Indy 500, where he didn’t race…

          1. And Keke is record holder for career wins by the time he won the title, like many of you pointed out, with only one Grand Prix victory (1982 Swiss Grand Prix)…

          2. along with Mike Hawthorn who only won 3 GP’s in his career, and his championship season was won with only 1 victory.

        2. Actually Keke won the last race I think (not sure) and he would be a champion if he was 2nd as well

    4. There were only 2 past or current WDC’s on the grid in 1993, Senna and Prost. Mansell was messing around on ovals in America in 1993…

    5. and we could have 5 WDCs next year if the champ is decidede before the final round and the champ is a first timer.

  17. Buemi scored a 7th and 8th in the first and last three races of the season, with no points in the 11 races inbetween.

  18. I love this website.

    1. Welcome to the club!!!!!

      As “Hotel California” lyric says:

      “You can checkout any time you like,
      but you can never leave!”

      1. @ IDR

        ;) :) :D :P 8)

    2. by far and away the best f1 blog on the web.

      1. Better than the official F1 website, tbh.

        1. f1.com only reports what they want to. for example, they had almost no articles on the FOTA split from F1 earlier this year. coz it seemed too damaging.

  19. I think this was my 50th race on F1Fanatic, I have been posting since around 3rd or 4th race of 2007.

    It is also the only race covered on this blog which had no significance to either of the drivers or constructor’s championships.

    Since, this blog wasn’t there in 2004. Was it?

    1. Nope, it started at the beginning of 2005.

    2. It is also the only race covered on this blog which had no significance to either of the drivers or constructor’s championships.

      But the 2007 constructor championship was gifted to Ferrari by Max & FIA ;P. Think the decision to exclude McLaren from the classification took place in Spa. So this isn’t the first time.

      1. Discovered this “Diamond” in 06 :) Been addicted ever since!

        1. And of course the 05 races.Alonso won it with 2 races to spare.

          1. The UAE is the 28th different country in which a round of the world championship has been held, but the only one not to have given its name to the race.

            Weren’t there some races in the USA that were not named “United States GP” (Detroit GP, Dallas GP, Grand Prix of the West)? Also, wasn’t there a Pacific GP (although it was held in Japan)?

            Changing the subject but staying on stats: How long did Button take to win the win the title and where does he rank? By mu counts he is third behind Mansell and Andretti…

      2. @mp4-19b:
        “But the 2007 constructor championship was gifted to Ferrari by Max & FIA”. No… McLaren were caught cheating and were punished. Get over it.

  20. This is the only race to have an identical podium to another race in the season, matching exactly with China.

    1. good notice

    2. surely during 2007 there were two idential podiums? (coz of the ferrari/ mcalern dominance.)

      1. I think Robert meant THIS season, 2009… Anyway, you got me thinking about identical podiums on past seasons, and I instantly reminded 2004, when Ferrari was annoyingly dominant, and Button’s BAR was clearly the best of the rest…

        There were identical podiums (1st – Schumacher, 2nd – Barrichello, 3rd – Button) in three Grand Prix: Bahrain, European and Canadian… the Italian Grand Prix also feature those three drivers, but with Rubens 1st and Michael 2nd…

        In 2007, there were two identical podiums: Australian and British Grand Prix, both with Raikkonen 1st, Alonso 2nd and Hamilton 3rd…

  21. one thing that caught my attention is the lack or poor strategy from Mclaren, it was at least the 2nd tym Hamilton lost the 1st place in the box after starting on pole. Is it normal?? They should b glad that refuelling is over, lol

  22. HI In the great scheme of things who really cares what it is called,I personally thought it was a damn good race all in.but the cost is mind boggling, I hope the poision dwarf does not want Silverstone to match that,history is important

  23. anyone got a stat for the biggest gap in points between two team mates in a season???

    perhaps 2001 when Schumacher ended with a 58 point gap to Barichello?

    ROS and NAK had a pretty big gap too this year…

    1. 94 – Schumacher and Verstappen. 92-10. But I’m not sure if Jos the boss drove in all GPs

      1. Verstappen drove 10 races that year. If you count Lehto’s 1 point, Schumacher outclassed team-mates 92-11. In races together, the situation is 92-9 as Verstappen was fifth

        AFAIK Jacques Laffite (1981) has biggest point total when team-mates have failed to score. He had 44 points. Ralf Schumacher had 35 in 1999 so he beats Nico by half a point.

        In both those cases, team-mates had 7th or 8th places which weren’t point-scoring positions back then.

  24. Over Hamiltons entire F1 career no one has score more points than him over the 3 years, he now has 256.
    No one has score more wins in those 3 years, or had more poles.

    And Hamilton has always finished below his starting position in the final race of the year so far.

  25. Prisoner Monkeys
    3rd November 2009, 23:44

    I don’t know if it’s been mentioned yet, but by taking third place, Jenson Button became the only driver to score points in every race he finished (and if Grosjean hadn’t taken him out in Spa, he would have been the only driver to finish every race and score point in all seventeen).

  26. Hello Keith
    In Japan、Toyota announced that they will pull out F1!
    Let’s tall about this!

  27. Looks like it !

    Does this mean that Qadbak will now get a look in for the 2010 season? And why is it that the Concorde agreement is not legally binding on Toyota?

    1. as long as Kobayashi stays i don’t care. (kind of…)

      1. you took the words right out of my mouth… F1 fans want to see some action, more Kobayashi please

  28. Looks like it was the last race for Toyota as well…
    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/80002

  29. McLaren took the pole position in the last race of a season for the first time since 1993.

  30. A straightforward but interesting set of statistics that seems to have been missed, relating to Sebastian Vettel’s Fastest Lap, his third of the season: surprisingly, this was enough to win him the DHL Fastest Lap Trophy for the driver with the greatest number of fastest laps over the course of the season. Mark Webber also set three FLs, but Vettel set more second-fastest laps.

    An amazing 10 different drivers and 7 different teams set fastest laps in 2009. The breakdown, from DHL’s site:

    Fastest lap drivers:
    Sebastian Vettel 3
    Mark Webber 3
    Rubens Barrichello 2
    Fernando Alonso 2
    Jenson Button 2
    Felipe Massa 1
    Jarno Trulli 1
    Timo Glock 1
    Nico Rosberg 1
    Adrian Sutil 1

    Fastest lap Teams:
    Red Bull 6
    Brawn GP 4
    Renault 2
    Toyota 2
    Ferrari 1
    Williams 1
    Force India 1

    The winner of last year’s trophy, Kimi Raikkonen (who set 10 FLs in 2008), didn’t set a single fastest lap this year.

  31. Surely Ferrari becomes the first team to have two faster drivers on the pit-wall (Massa and Schumi) than in its cars.

    1. I remember the comment made by Luca about having a bench as strong as Real Madrid’s.

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