Vettel adds to his tallies – except fastest lap (Japanese Grand Prix stats and facts)

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Sebastian Vettel was in crushing form at Suzuka and stamped his authority all over the Japanese Grand Prix weekend.

Although he wasn’t quite able to match Fernando Alonso’s Singapore feat of a perfect result he came very near to finishing on top in every session in Suzuka.

The only time his name failed to appear at the top of the screen at the end of a session was in third practice, when chose not to set a time.

The Saturday washout meant qualifying and the race were held on the same day for only the second time in F1 history. The same also happened at Suzuka six years ago.

Sebastian Vettel enjoyed near-total domination of the race weekend. He finished top of every session except the rain-hit third practice, where he didn’t set a time.

He has started from pole position in half of the races this year (eight out of 16) but has won on only three occasions, and just twice from pole.

With just three races remaining the record for most pole positions in a single season – 14, by Nigel Mansell in 1992 – is already out of his reach.

His 13th career pole position gives him as many as Graham Hill, Jack Brabham, Jacky Ickx, Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Pablo Montoya. Win number eight puts him level with Jacky Ickx and Denny Hulme.

This was also the first time Vettel has won twice at the same track. Only one driver has won more than twice in F1 races at Suzuka: Michael Schumacher, with six wins scored in 1995, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004.

Mark Webber stopped Vettel from getting fastest lap by setting a 1’33.474 on the last lap of the race. That means Webber now has as many fastest laps in his career as Vettel and Lewis Hamilton: six.

Second place for Webber sealed Red Bull’s seventh one-two. One more will give them as many as Brabham, Lotus and Tyrrell. After that the next highest on the list is Williams – with 33.

Red Bull have led 543 of the 948 racing laps so far this season – more than half. McLaren have led 230 and Ferrari 158. The remainder were led by Nico Rosberg (16) and Sebastien Buemi (1).

The most races won by any driver over the 16 races so far this year is four, which Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso have done. You have to go back to 1983 (which was a 15-race championship) to find the last time the most races won by a single driver was so low. There were eight different winners that year – so far this year there have been five.

Schumacher finished in the points for the 200th time in his career. He has scored points in 75.75% of the 264 races he has started. During the span of his career the number of points-paying positions increased from six to eight, in 2003, and now to ten.

Sauber scored their best result of the year with Kamui Kobayashi seventh and Nick Heidfeld eighth.

All the teams that had both their cars still running at the end of the Japanese Grand Prix had them in consecutive positions: Red Bull first and second, McLaren fourth and fifth, Sauber seventh and eighth, Toro Rosso tenth and 11th, Lotus 12th and 13th and HRT 15th and 16th.

Retirements

Felipe Massa failed to finish a race for the first time in 2010. That means every driver has now failed to finish at least once:

DriverMechanicalAccidentTotal retirements
Bruno Senna729
Kamui Kobayashi448
Pedro de la Rosa527
Timo Glock617
Lucas di Grassi617
Jarno Trulli606
Heikki Kovalainen325
Sebastien Buemi134
Vitaly Petrov224
Nico Hulkenberg134
Vitantonio Liuzzi134
Lewis Hamilton123
Robert Kubica303
Adrian Sutil213
Sebastian Vettel112
Karun Chandhok022
Jaime Alguersuari202
Jenson Button112
Rubens Barrichello112
Nico Rosberg101
Michael Schumacher101
Mark Webber011
Sakon Yamamoto101
Fernando Alonso011
Christian Klien101
Nick Heidfeld011
Felipe Massa011

Find more season statistics here: F1 2010 statistics

2010 Japanese Grand Prix

    Browse all 2010 Japanese Grand Prix articles

    Images © Red Bull/Getty images

    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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    47 comments on “Vettel adds to his tallies – except fastest lap (Japanese Grand Prix stats and facts)”

    1. Nice Stats….
      Happy for Vettel and Sauber…
      Nick did a Good Job too

    2. “Only one driver has won more than twice in F1 races at Suzuka: Michael Schumacher, with six wins scored in 1995, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004.”

      Didn’t Häkkinen win there in 1998 and 1999?

      1. 100% right

        (and my comment is to short…)

      2. Yes he did but that’s not more than twice.

        1. Oops, sorry, I must read the text clearer!

          1. …and I must read ALL the text.

            I was answering about Hakkinen!!!

        2. Keith, there seems to be a problem with some of your stats. Fernando Alonso had a mechanical retirement in Malaysia, and Jarno Trulli crashed into Chandhok in Monaco.

          1. But both those incidents were very near the end of the races, so I think they were still classified.

            1. OEL is right – see the stats page for an explanation.

        3. alonso had an mechanical retirement at malaysia or that doesnt count cause he was classified

        4. Keith, Hamilton failed to finish in Spain, Hungary, Monza & Singapore…. he was clasified in Spain because the race was almost finished. But it was a mechanical failure.

          1. Same as for Todfod’s comment.

    3. The only interesting stat I’m aware of to add was that at 10:10 local time in Suzuka on 10/10/10, car number 10 (Hülkenberg) was on top of the time sheets in Q1. The only way that could’ve been better were if he’d been 10th on the time sheets.

      1. jsw11984 (@jarred-walmsley)
        11th October 2010, 8:12

        thats a very interesting stat, and I imagine it would have been very spooky for Hulkenberg and even more so as you say if he had been 10th

        1. this is what Star Sports reported in their qualifying commentary – and yes, it was actually the case – very spooky – wonder what the odds on that would have been seeing as there was never any qualifying originally scheduled!

      2. Which car was then no 10 on the time sheet at 10:10 on the 10/10/10?
        Strange as beautiful statistics can occur due to a chosen convention about when to start a Calender, how to distribute the days in months and how to write the data. In my mind nothing spooky about it, just Astronomy, Tradition, Math and culture with a streak of religion…But I also believe in Science, not religion, astrology or whatever…

    4. jsw11984 (@jarred-walmsley)
      11th October 2010, 8:09

      Could someone figure out what % it would be for schumi based on current points i.e. if all his seasons had run this points season what % of times would he have scored points

      1. It would go up to 205:
        7th in Portugal 1992
        9th in Hungary 1996
        10th in Monaco 1998
        8th in Australia 1999
        10th in Italy 2005

        Amount of top 6 finishes is 186.

    5. So how many GPs, points scored without a win is that for Mr. Consistency Nick Heidfeld?

    6. this is the first time this season that the 5 title contenders all finished within top 5.

      1. No, it happened in Canada as well. I’m not sure if it’s happened anywhere else.

    7. Didn’t Fernando Alonso retire with a mechanical failure in Malaysia??

      1. I have a feeling he was still classified though, as was Hamilton in Spain.

        1. matt90 is right. same happened to Karun and Jarno in Monaco

    8. If I am not mistaken, in 1982 nobody won more than 2 Grands Prix (Pironi 2, Prost 2, Watson 2, Lauda 2, Arnoux 2, Tambay 1, Albereto 1, de Angelis 1, Patrese 1, Piquet 1 and Rosberg 1).
      This makes it 11 race winners and champion Rosberg is the only F1 champion with only one race win.

      1. champion Rosberg is the only F1 champion with only one race win.

        And Hawthorn in ’58.

        1. Oh, yes, thank you. Sorry for the mistake.

    9. Haha! I can visualise that conversation!

      Engineer: “Congrats Sebastian! You are now the equal 2nd most successful driver at Suzuka!”
      Vettel: “Yes! … wait… 2nd?”
      Engineer: “Ahh, Schumacher may a few more…”
      Vettel: “How many?”
      Engineer: “… … … 6ish?”
      Vettel: *facepalm*

      1. I hate Vettel finger showing gesture everytime he wins or takes pole.
        And why on earth he keeps on sayin after winning a race “Yes, this is what I was talking abt”. Shameless guy. Could only win 2 out 8 poles.

        1. Lol. He does go nuts with the index finger party after a win. I think he is still a kid, and the best he could come up with is “Now thats what I’m talking about.”

          1. I was waiting for him to say “I told you we’d get them!”

        2. I cringe when Seb wins – he really needs some assistance with his image. I don’t think he realizes that he comes across as arrogant.

    10. Interesting, if RedBull take two more one twos in the same order then Vettel and Webber would be level on 256 points each going to Abu Dhabi. I wouldn’t mind!

      1. And Captain Team-orders would be out of it.

    11. Interesting that out of the 5 drivers to have won, the driver with the fewest victories is Button, who was the first to 2 victories!

      This is partly reminiscent of 2007, when Raikkonen was the first driver to 1 win, the last to 2 wins, and the first to 3 wins!

      1. It seems to be the curse of driving Car no.1

        2008 – Kimi: 2 wins, 2009 – Lewis: 2 wins, 2010 – Jenson: 2 wins.

    12. It was the twelfth consecutive race to be won from the front row this season, the four races before that were all won by a driver not on the front row of the grid.

      Japan was the third race this season in which first and second were separated by less than a second. The others were Singapore and Monaco.

      Jaime Alguersuari topped an F1 session for the first time in his career.

      The top 5 are now the only ones mathemtically in the championship. Massa, Rosberg and Kubica all blew their slim chances by retiring in Japan.

      Webber has now led the WDC for the most races this season. He has led after six races, while Hamilton has led after five, Button two, Alonso two and Massa one.

      1. Nice stats. Youre genius :)

    13. Still, incredibly, no driver has won a race while leading the drivers’ championship. Webber will continue to hold the championship lead going into Korea, and unless disaster strikes him, probably also at Interlagos (where he won last year). Can this amazing series possibly continue?

      1. Last year happened the same for last 10 grand prix. Because Button was far away 1st, but the ones who were winning was Redbull

      2. I have a hunch that statistic will hold until the end.

    14. Good to see the stats, however viewing the points table I still in my mind deduct the Ferrari 1-2, where they should have had the black flag for blatant use of team orders.

    15. Seconds race in a row with exactly the same drivers on the podium. And none of them in the same place. I wonder what was the last time that has happened.

    16. “The Saturday washout meant qualifying and the race were held on the same day for only the second time in F1 history. The same also happened at Suzuka six years ago.”

      Correct me if I am wrong but the 2005 Monaco GP featured qualifying on the same day as the race (at least one session)

      1. In 2005 i think was stupid system with 2 Qs. One was in saturday and second in sunday or sth like that

    17. Surprisingly this was Virgin’s first non-mechanical DNF of the season (if a DNS counts as a DNF)!

      Also, the other 5 drivers from the new teams all managed their best finishes of the season.

    18. You know what I think is interesting:

      Alonso-vettel is 8 against 4 in the races they both finished. fernando finished 8 races ahead of vettel.

      Alonso-webber 7 vs 6

      Using these statistics the Red Bull does not seem very effective!

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