Virgin match record for most starts without a point

2011 Belgian GP stats and facts

August 29, 2011 at 6:00 am by Keith Collantine

Timo Glock, Virgin, Spa-Francorchamps, 2011

Red Bull maintained their unbeaten run in qualifying, Vettel setting his ninth pole position of the year.

That was the 24th pole position of his career, putting him eighth on the all-time list, with as many as Niki Lauda and Nelson Piquet.

One race day he claimed his seventh win of 2011 and the 17th of his career. It was also his 30th podium finish.

Mark Webber set fastest lap for the 11th time.

But at the opposite end of the performance spectrum, Virgin equalled the record for most starts by a team without scoring a point.

They have started 31 races, the same as RAM did between 1983 and 1985 without scoring a point. HRT have only started 30 races having failed to qualify in Australia.

Of course, when RAM competed points were only awarded down to sixth place, and they had a best finish of eighth with Jonathan Palmer at Jacarepagua in 1984. But it’s also true that reliability was far worse then than it is now.

But that’s not to say Virgin won’t grab some points in the future, and hand this unwanted record to someone else.

Jenson Button failed to reach Q3 for the first time this year. That leaves Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and the two Ferrari drivers as the only drivers to have reached Q3 in all 12 races.

Jaime Alguersuari and Bruno Senna enjoyed their best qualifying performances to date with sixth and seventh respectively. Unfortunately Senna crashed into Alguersuari at the start, ruining both their races.

Venezuela has its second points-scorer in F1 in the shape of Pastor Maldonado, who finished tenth and claimed a point. The only previous Venezuelan driver to score in F1 was Johnny Cecotto, who finished sixth at Long Beach for Theodore in 1983.

Nico Rosberg has now led six different races for a total of 60 laps without having won one. Only four drivers have led more laps in world championship races without winning one:

	Driver	Laps led
1	Chris Amon	183
2	Jean Behra	107
3	Jean-Pierre Jarier	79
4	Jack McGrath	70
5	Nico Rosberg	60

McGrath’s all came in the Indianapolis 500 when the race counted towards the world championship.

Starting positions

Michael Schumacher raced through the field from 24th to an improbable fifth place.

As you’d expect, starting on pole position gives you the best chance of winning the race. But what about the rest of the starting positions?

Here’s the average finishing position each starting position has yielded this year:

Michael Schumacher, Mercedes, Spa-Francorchamps, 2011

Start position	Average finish
1	1.83
2	3
3	3.25
4	4.17
5	4.67
6	7.3
7	8.33
8	11
9	10
10	8.27
11	12.56
12	11.45
13	10.8
14	11.78
15	11.89
16	10.64
17	13.3
18	12.1
19	17
20	18.11
21	16.63
22	18.64
23	16.63
24	16.33

Review the year so far in statistics here:

Spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Belgian Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.

2011 Belgian Grand Prix

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50 comments on Virgin match record for most starts without a point

Paul Gilbert said on 29th August 2011, 23:29

Michael Schumacher becomes the first driver to gain 19 or more places in a GP since Kimi Raikkonen went from 22nd to 3rd in Bahrain 2006.

Daniel said on 30th August 2011, 1:05

Probably it happened at Hungary, but anyway it’s worth mentioning that, with the new pointscoring system, Nico Rosberg already holds an unpleasant record: most points (273.5) without a win, ahead of Heidfeld with 259.

Dzsoz said on 30th August 2011, 12:13

Last time Robert Kubica managed to take the lead starting from a lower grid position than 4th: in 2008 Fuji.

Don’t know when it happened before that, but I remember Jean Alesi led in 1996 Monza from 6th, though he lost the lead at the half of the lap.

- Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 30th August 2011, 12:19
  
  Surely Button at Canada this year? He started seventh:
  
  2011 Canadian Grand Prix grid
  
  - Paul Gilbert said on 30th August 2011, 22:07
    
    I think he means taking the lead on lap 1, something that Button was unable to do at Canada thanks to Charlie Whiting.
    
Paul Gilbert said on 30th August 2011, 22:15

I believe Lewis Hamilton has gone off the track at some point during every Belgian GP that he has raced:

2007 – Alonso forced him wide at the start
2008 – he was forced onto the grass by Rosberg spinning in front of him
2009 – he was taken out on the first lap
2010 – he slid wide on the damp track
2011 – he crashed with Kobayashi, sending him into the escape road

Macca (@macca) said on 31st August 2011, 2:53

Didn’t Webber lead his first laps for the season, or did he lead in Germany for while?