Third Canada win for Hamilton in 300th race for McLaren-Mercedes

Canadian Grand Prix stats and facts

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Lewis Hamilton’s Canadian Grand Prix victory was the seventh different winner in a row at the start of the season.

This is already a record for the beginning of a season, and it brings F1 another step closer to the all-time record of nine different winners in a row.

Hamilton’s credentials as a specialist around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was underlined by his third win from five starts at the track.

This was his 18th career victory, putting him level with Kimi Raikkonen in 14th place on the list of drivers with most wins.

Sebastian Vettel recorded his 32nd career pole position. He now has as many as Nigel Mansell, and is tied for fifth place on the all-time record list.

It was Red Bull’s third pole position in the last four races.

Vettel set the 11th fastest lap of his career on the final tour – he now has as many as Hamilton. He is the first driver this year to set two fastest laps.

Hamilton now has more podium finishes than any other driver this year, with four. Fernando Alonso is the only other driver with more than two.

300th start for McLaren-Mercedes

The race marked the 300th for the McLaren-Mercedes partnership, which began at the 1995 Brazilian Grand Prix. Or, as McLaren put it, the 300th for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes/ExxonMobil/Mercedes-Benz/Enkei partnership.

Note this was the 301st participation for that combination in a race weekend, their cars having not started the 2005 United States Grand Prix.

McLaren have scored 177 wins, of which 73 were with Mercedes engines. The first was David Coulthard’s victory in the 1997 Australian Grand Prix.

Schumacher’s rare unreliability

Michael Schumacher’s fourth non-finish due to a technical failure is the worst reliability rate of any driver on the grid. Next is Charles Pic with three.

Schumacher has had as many race-ending technical failures in the first seven races of 2012 as he did throughout the whole of 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 – an 87-race run. His retirements then were as follows:

2001 San Marino Grand Prix – Suspension
2001 German Grand Prix – Fuel pressure
2005 Bahrain Grand Prix – Hydraulics
2005 Spanish Grand Prix – Puncture

During that period he had five other retirements due to accidents.

F1’s oldest driver dies

Formula 1’s oldest surviving driver passed away following the Monaco Grand Prix. Paul Pietsch was the first F1 driver to reach the age of 100, and died three weeks before what would have been his 101st birthday on May 31st. Pietsch started three races in the world championship era in the early fifties. Before the Second World War he drove for Auto Union and Maserati.

Robert Manzon succeeds him as the oldest surviving Formula 1 driver. The French driver, who made his final F1 start at Monza in 1956, is 95.

More Canadian Grand Prix stats and facts

Second place was Romain Grosjean’s highest finish to date. His points haul helped move Lotus back in front of Ferrari in the constructors’ championship.

Lap 19 was Fernando Alonso’s 1,500th at the front of a Grand Prix. He has now led 1,514 laps – only eight drivers in F1 history have led more.

Vitaly Petrov started from 18th place for the fourth race in a row. Pastor Maldonado’s starting positions in the last four races are 21st, 1st, 24th and 22nd.

Hamilton and Alonso remain the only drivers to have scored points in every race so far this year. Along with Vettel, Raikkonen and Nico Rosberg, they are the only drivers to have covered all 441 laps in races so far.

Maldonado has the most penalties so far this year with four, all incurred during qualifying. Vitaly Petrov is next with three, Hamilton and Schumacher are the only others with more than one.

Heikki Kovalainen has made the most pit stops this year with 22, followed by Jenson Button on 21. Felipe Massa and the Toro Rosso pair are next on 18.

Ferrari enjoyed their best combined grid positions of the year so far (third and sixth) at the track where they had their best qualifying performance last year (second and third). Alonso and Massa replicated their starting positions of 2010.

Finally, this was the first time the top three places on the podium were filled by drivers who graduated to F1 from GP2. Hamilton was GP2 champion in 2006, Grosjean in 2011, and Perez was runner-up to Maldonado in 2010.

Review the year so far in statistics here:

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

2012 Canadian Grand Prix

    Browse all 2012 Canadian Grand Prix articles

    Images © McLaren/Hoch Zwei, Ferrari spa/Ercole Colombo, Lotus F1 Team/LAT

    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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    82 comments on “Third Canada win for Hamilton in 300th race for McLaren-Mercedes”

    1. I must pay homage where it’s due, Hamilton owned this race, top drive!

      1. i gotta say, that is one incredible photo of him in the article. so close to the wall with the trees around him.

      2. @funkyf1 agreed Hamilton was on fire, however I think his team deserve a big pat on the back. The strategy was aggressive and thats what won the day. Too much has been made of McLaren letting Lewis down recently, but in Canada they got it bang on. They put all their faith in Lewis, it was the quickest strategy, but rellied heavily on Lewis making all the passes and making good decisions. Well done Lewis, great job, but a special well done to McLaren for actually going for it, and not playing safe and hoping for a safety car or extended tyre life.

        1. @Bigbadderboom you must be forgetting yet another sloppy pitstop the Mclaren team delivered to Lewis once again, they have a long way to before they are ticking all the boxes. In regards to the strategy, it turned out to be a lucky call condsidering it was based on what the other teams where believed to doing. The fact that Lewis didn’t buckle and continued to drive the wheels off that car in my mind is what got Mclaren the win, especially since his team mate 16th.

          1. @funkyf1 McLaren were brave enough to trust their data, they even said before the race that 2 stops would be quickest. Theres no doubt that HAM deserved the win and drove exceptionally. All i’m saying is that McLaren were the only team in the front 3 runners at the time that made a proactive decision. And that should be commended, had they left Lewis out the chances are he would have suffered the same fate as Alonso. Personally i would rather be watching aggresive driving backed by aggresive strategies. And as you rightly pointed out they did have a rear right gun failure, but equally so lewis missed a gear and the car kicked in auto-stall on his other stop. I’m a big Lewis fan, he grew up literally up the road from where I live, but sometimes you have to acknowledge that the team gave him the best strategy, and without the early 2 stop call I don’t think he would have won it.

    2. @keithcollantine I think there’s a typo with Petrov’s 14-race streak of starting from 18th.

      1. @plutoniumhunter Indeed – it’s four not 14, changed.

    3. The record that Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel have never shared the podium still stands

      1. that’s an amazing stat, given how they’re often rated as the three stand out drivers.

        1. Traverse Mark Senior (@)
          11th June 2012, 12:22

          They are the three best drivers.

        2. OmarR-Pepper (@)
          11th June 2012, 14:52

          @frood19 you mean they’ve never been on top this year or as a whole-career stat?

          1. Never apparently.

      2. There have been many cases where it has nearly happened,
        Korea 2010 (before Vettels engine gave way)
        Silverstone 2011 (before Hamilton went into fuel economy)
        Abu Dhabi 2011 (probably would have happened if Vettels tyre didnt spontaneously implode),
        these are to name but a few. However, it is just one of those curious coincidences that has meant they have never shared a podium together.

        1. That is incredible. It is bound to happen, but with the cars so close on performance this season, it might have to wait.

    4. Interesting reading – thanks!

      I wonder… I reckon Ferrari will snap up Perez a lot earlier than they made out last week.

    5. LOLed at that Keith

      Or, as McLaren put it, the 300th for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes/ExxonMobil/Mercedes-Benz/Enkei partnership.

      The starting positions from Maldonado really show why he did not have many good results apart from his win in the past couple of races. Starting right at the back certainly is no advantage!

      1. It can’t possibly be the 300th race for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes/ExxonMobil/Mercedes-Benz/Enkei partnership, considering Vodafone only began sponsoring the team in 2007.

        1. Read it again but more carefully :]

          1. I don’t see what I’m missing.

            1. The partnership is the team/ExxonMobil/Mercedes-Benz/Enkei.
              The official team name is Vodafone McLaren Mercedes.

            2. @alehud42, that’s pretty much what I was pointing out. It’s stupid of them to say it was the 300th race for that partnership, when it clearly wasn’t. It wasn’t even the 300th race for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, only for McLaren Mercedes.

      2. @bascb They’re nothing if not… polysyllabic.

    6. Heikki Kovalainen has made the most pit stops this year with 22, followed by Jenson Button on 21. Felipe Massa and the Toro Rosso pair are next on 18.

      I think this is a nice highlight of just how well Buttons tyre conservation policies are working out. Very hard to understand.

    7. The average age on the podium was 25 years and 0 months. We haven’t seen such a young podium at least since the start of 2011.

      1. It’s been a long time. I think Monza 2008 holds the record, with the average under 24.

      2. actually since the awful Singapore 08, but it’s only 16th youngest podium

        1. Thanks for that!

        2. Is there a list somewhere? I’d actually love to see the stats on highest and lowest average age.

    8. Vodafone were partners with McLaren in 1995?! surely not

    9. Hamilton has had a very interesting record in Montreal:

      2007 – victory
      2008 – retirement
      2010 – victory
      2011 – retirement
      2012 – victory

      So at all 5 of his Montreal appearances he’s either won or retired. The two races he retired from he could’ve won.

      1. Well we know what’s coming next year then! ;)

        1. @jamesf1 Depends … If you consider streaks, you can also consider Win – 2 years – Win – 1 year – Win
          Which gives win for next year

      2. He has as many wins as Nelson Piquet at Gilles Villeneuve circuit.

    10. When was the last time (excluding circuits making their debut or a return after a long absence) that 2 drivers on the podium had never previously started a race at that circuit?

      1. I don’t think this has happened recently. The race that comes closest is the 2007 Canadian GP (with the Kubica crash): Hamilton won on his first appearance, and Wurz was third having missed the previous two Canadian GPs. Another race that came close was the 1997 Argentine GP: Ralf Schumacher became third for Jordan on his first appearance, and Villeneuve won the race, but that was his second appearance in Argentina.

      2. At least when only F1 is considered, I believe it is Italian GP 1993. Damon Hill won and Michael Andretti was 3rd. Funny thing is that rookies achieved 1-2 in 2007 Japanese Grand Prix, but that was the first time in 30 years as the race was held in Fuji!

    11. – Not only have we had seven different winners this season, but we have also had seven different drivers finish second and five different drivers finish third. Only Hamilton has finished in any particular podium place more than once with his hat-trick of third places at the start of the year.
      – The average grid position of the drivers on the podium was 8.00, which is the lowest (i.e. furthest back on the grid) since Brazil 2009, where the average was 9.00.
      – Lotus have the second highest number of podiums for a team with 4, yet they haven’t won a race yet.
      – Rosberg is tied with Vettel for having scored the most points in the last five races, with 67. This is also the highest tally of anybody in five consecutive races this year.
      – Hamilton, Rosberg and Grosjean are the only drivers to have reached Q3 at every race this season

      1. Great stats! Thank you :-)

        Interesting about Lotus having more podium finishes than anyone but McLaren. Surely we can’t be waiting too much longer for a Lotus win…. can we?

        1. The high temperatures in Valencia might help them there.

    12. I took a look on weakest finishing positions of the team-mates while driver wins a race. On a quick search I found eight occasions during last 20 years where winner’s team-mate has been outside of top 10.
      1993 – Alain Prost 12th in Hungary
      2004 – Rubens Barrichello 12th in Germany
      2004 – Michael Schumacher 12th in China
      2008 – Sebastien Bourdais 18th in Italy
      2009 – Luca Badoer 14th in Belgium
      2009 – Mark Webber 17th in Japan
      2012 – Felipe Massa 15th in Malaysia
      2012 – Jenson Button 16th in Canada

      Of those, Badoer, Massa and Button had just no pace. Prost had broken rear wing, Barrichello suffered first-lap puncture, Schumacher had about everything going wrong, Bourdais’s car didn’t start warm-up lap and Webber had practice crash followed by multiple early pit stops.

    13. The fact that “Schumacher has had as many race-ending technical failures in the first seven races of 2012 as he did throughout the whole of 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 – an 87-race run” really impressed me. Because is usually written that MS` teammate from ferrari – Rubens – had far more bad luck in 2001-2005, I checked the thing ;) Rubinho had 9 race-ending technical failures and 7 collisions in that era. The most bad luck in a row he had at the begining of the season 2002 (10 years ago :D), when he had a collision in AUS, engine failure in MAL and hydraulic problems in BRA (in the 4th race he was second and in the following race in ESP he had a gearbox failure).

      1. So that means that Rubens really did have far more bad luck during that time then, at least relatively, with 2x as much @krtekf1!

        1. Relatively x2, yes, but in 5 years ;) Interesting is the comparrison between MS and NR for years 2010,11,12: MS – 7 race-ending technical failure (NR-1), MS-5 collisions (3/5 his fault), NR-2 (never his fault).

    14. OmarR-Pepper (@)
      11th June 2012, 14:44

      You say McLaren Mercedes started in 1995 but Coulthard won with them in 1997. That means they didn’t have any victory for 2 years? or they used the “mercedes” name but not the engine?

      1. Didn’t have a victory in the mean time. After all those were the years that the Williamses and Schumacher did the winning.

      2. they didn’t win between adelaide ’93 (senna) and melbourne ’97 (DC). they started with mercedes in 1995, but didn’t have great cars for 2-3 years. although they won 3 races in 1997, it wasn’t until ’98 that they had a Newey-designed car and proper championship winning pace.

    15. – Button scored just 2 points out of the last 4 races. He hasn’t had such a bad streak since the 2008 season at Honda.

      – Lotus has scored its fourth podium of the season. More interestingly the team has scored a podium in every season since 2003. The only other teams who can say this are McLaren and Ferrari (both since 1981). Red Bull is next up the list, having scored a podium each season since 2006.

    16. Jelle van der Meer (@)
      11th June 2012, 15:01

      That 1500 laps led stat on Alonso is interesting but most shocking was when I compared that to Vettel’s 1471 laps (Vettel led 400kms more than Alonso). Then considering how much longer Alonso is in the sport I am amazed Vettel has been leading so much already.

      1. I think 2011 had something to do with that. This is Vettel’s 4th straight year in a WDC worthy car too. Alonso, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2012. Looking back, Alonso hasn’t the luxury of a pole-grabbing car either for the past 5 years. His victories have mostly come from the back, bar Italy/Singapore 2010. You can see why they would be this close!

    17. Apart from reaching a most deserved first win of this season, Hamilton was one of the few drivers to wave a national flag on the victory lap. I know Ayrton Senna did. Two questions: How many others have done the same? Did he have the flag already in the car or was it handed to him before the BBC edited the highlights?

      1. Felipe Massa did it in 2006 after the Brazilian Grand Prix.

      2. He had it by the time he came into the pits, he looked like he was struggling to drive and hold the flag at the same time!

        The coverage I was watching cut from a bit of his victory lap so I’m not sure when it was handed to him.

    18. The big stat that is impressing me at the moment is Alonso’s 20 race finishing streak… all of which have been points scoring with only 2 failing to be double digit hauls, 11 of which have been on the podium!

      STUNNING!

      1. So that’s top 5 finishes in 18 of the passed 20 races!

      2. @nick-uk Alonso needs one more points finish for 20 in a row.

        This streak began at the 2011 European Grand Prix after he failed to score in Canada last year. If he finishes in the points in the next race, that will be his 20th in a row.

        1. Ah of course, my bad. But I’m very keen to see how long he can keep this rolling. Do you have any clue who has the best string of points finishes? @keithcollantine

          1. According to statsf1.com Schumi had a 24 race streak of consecutive points finishes, Hungary 2001 through Malaysia 2003. Also of note, Vettel had a 19 race streak (matching Alonso’s current streak) from Brazil 2010 through India 2011.

            1. Thanks for this :)

              …Although nobody cares about Vettel haha.

            2. Couldn’t agree more. I’m no fan of Vettel for sure. :)

    19. Hamilton has had a Pole position and a Race win in every season he has competed. Is he the only one?

      1. Yes he is! The only one that comes close to this record is the legendary Fangio, who had a pole and a win in every season between 1950 and 1957. Too bad he competed in the 1958 season as well, else he would share this record with Hamilton.

      2. Very interesting indeed. Although, if you count full F1 seasons, then Vettel also holds that honor. Discounting his time at Torro Rosso in 2007, he’s poled and won in every full season he’s raced.

        1. Unfortunately with statistics you can’t just pick and choose.

          If i wanted to pick and choose Vettel took 22 races to get his first win in, which is more than a full season and far inferior to Hamilton
          Vettel has enough states atleast let someone else have some of them.

    20. A stat of a different nature here. Yesterday’s race had 682.000 people watching it in the Czech Republic, ranking third behind only the movie Lidice (about the Czech town completely wiped out on this weekend, 50 years ago, after the killing of Heydrich during WWII) which drew 1,49 million and another movie having about 200.000 more viewers.

      1. I saw this, carried on reading a few more comments absent mindedly, then had a massive what the hell moment and came back to give a double look at this. Anyone know why this happened? Seems incredibly odd to me but I might be missing something…

    21. A few other interesting stats that you can consider.

      5/7 winners of the season stood on the podium for the 1st time in 2012 directly as winners.

      Button – Australia (obviously)
      Alonso – Malaysia
      Rosberg – China
      Maldonado – Spain
      Webber – Monaco

      Not only has 2012 seen 7 different winners but it has also seen all 7 different runner ups to those winners.

      1. I’ve read this 3 times now and i still don’t understand what it means??

        1. I.e. the winners hadn’t previously been on the podium all season before taking a win. Hence why Button was obvious. Not sure how likely it is that this stat will go up to 6 winners though, I can’t see anyone else managing this, except possibly Schumacher if something crazy happens at a Merc friendly track. Maybe Massa if he gets he and Ferrari get their form back. And Alonso retires before Massa has to let him through, I guess.

    22. Lewis Hamilton has now raced more races for McLaren (97) than his idol Ayrton Senna. Only Coulthard, Hakkinen and Prost have started more F1 races for the team.

    23. 1992 Peugeot Talbot Sport (@peugeot-905-92-93-le-mans-winner)
      11th June 2012, 22:03

      “Hamilton was GP2 champion in 2005, Grosjean in 2011, and Perez was runner-up to Maldonado in 2010.”

      Hamilton was GP2 Champion in 2006. Kovlainen was 2005 GP2 Champ!!!

      1. @peugeot-905-92-93-le-mans-winner – Nico Rosberg was 2005 GP2 champ.

    24. Schumacher’s list of technical retirements appears to be missing Turkey 2005, where he had a technical problem, spent about 13 laps in the pits, rejoined to improve his position (due to the qualifying format in use at the time), before retiring for good. Whilst one could argue that this wasn’t a technical retirement as such, it was a technical problem that ultimately led to the retirement (and it definitely was not a crash/accident retirement).

      1. @paulgilb He collided with Webber and damaged his steering rack (see here). He rejoined the track after spending 25 minutes in the pits, then withdrew from the race. If I remember correctly, he completed some extra laps to gain a better position for qualifying at the next race.

        In short, it wasn’t a straight technical failure, it was accident damage.

        1. @keithcollantine

          If I remember correctly, he completed some extra laps to gain a better position for qualifying at the next race.

          huh? how does that work?

          1. The Qualifying system in use at the time meant that cars took to the track in reverse order of the previous race finish

    25. Some more interesting stats, 10 different drivers have already stood on the podium and they are the top 10 in the championship.
      Lewis Hamilton – 4 Podiums (3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 1st)
      Fernando Alonso – 3 Podiums (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
      Sebastian Vettel – 2 Podiums (2nd, 1st)
      Mark Webber – 1 Podium (1st)
      Nico Rosberg – 2 Podiums (1st, 2nd)
      Kimi Raikkonen – 1 Podium (3rd)
      Romain Grosjean – 2 Podiums (3rd, 2nd)
      Jenson Button – 2 podiums (1st, 2nd)
      Sergio Perez – 2 Podiums (2nd, 3rd)
      Pastor Maldanado – 1 Podium (1st)
      Only two drivers have had multiple pole positions, and it’s no surprise who they are.
      Lewis Hamilton – 2(3) Pole positions – Aus, Mal (Spa)
      Sebastian Vettel – 2 Pole positions – Bah, Can

      1. That is a good one. Only one mistake, Raikkonen also has 2 podiums (he was 2nd in Bahrain).

    26. Good to see that Vettel isn’t disappearing into obscurity and is still going after those records, though probably not consciously!

    27. Can someone tell me how many races does Hamilton have won for Mclaren-Merc?

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