Raikkonen matches Hakkinen’s race win tally

2013 Australian Grand Prix stats and facts

March 18, 2013 at 4:18 pm by
123 comments

Mika Hakkinen, McLaren-Mercedes MP4-13, 1998Kimi Raikkonen’s 20th career victory ties him with Mika Hakkinen as the second most successful Finnish F1 driver of all time in terms of race victories.

Raikkonen began his F1 career in 2001, the year Hakkinen retired from the sport. He previously won the Australian Grand Prix in 2007, and on that occasion Fernando Alonso also finished second. However Sebastian Vettel, third in yesterday’s race, was still three months away from making his F1 debut.

Raikkonen won from seventh on the grid in car number seven. It was only the 21st time a race has been won from that position, yet Raikkonen has done it three times now.

He scored his maiden win from seventh in Malaysia in 2003, and did it again in Canada in 2005. The only other time it’s been done since then was also at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, by Jenson Button in 2011.

This was the first time a Lotus car had won the first race of a season since 1978. On that occasion Mario Andretti won the Argentinian Grand Prix in Buenos Aires in a Lotus 78, going on to win the drivers’ championship in the year Lotus won their last constructors’ title.

The identity of the team which won the opening round of the season has changed every year since 2006. And a different constructor has won each of the last five races:

Track Winner Team
2006 Bahrain International Circuit Fernando Alonso Renault
2007 Albert Park Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari
2008 Albert Park Lewis Hamilton McLaren
2009 Albert Park Jenson Button Brawn
2010 Bahrain International Circuit Fernando Alonso Ferrari
2011 Albert Park Sebastian Vettel Red Bull
2012 Albert Park Jenson Button McLaren
2013 Albert Park Kimi Raikkonen Lotus

Raikkonen also added the 38th fastest lap of his career, meaning he is now just three behind Alain Prost who has the second-highest count. And with his next one he’ll be past halfway to Michael Schumacher’s record tally of 77.

Sebastian Vettel achieved his 37th career pole position and for the second time in his career did so on Sunday. He did likewise at Suzuka in 2010, another occasion when qualifying was postponed to Sunday due to rain.

The only other time this happened was at Suzuka in 2004, when the circuit was closed on Saturday due to an approaching typhoon.

Drivers, Melbourne, 2013Speaking of 2004, that was the last time a field with less experience than this one lined up for a Grand Prix, as noted here earlier:

It was also the youngest field ever assembled for a Grand Prix, with an average age of 27 years and 61 days. The youngest was Esteban Gutierrez (21 years, 230 days) and Mark Webber is now the grid’s eldest driver, aged 36 years and 211 days yesterday.

Jenson Button never looked likely to score a fourth victory in Australia which would have put him level with Michael Schumacher as the most successful driver in this race.

But his ninth place finish did move him past the milestone of 1,000 points, which only Schumacher, Alonso and Vettel have managed. It’s a rather meaningless tally, however – F1 has used three different points systems since Button’s career began and several more before that.

Raikkonen was joined on the podium by Alonso and Vettel, making this the 27th time in F1 history the podium was filled entirely by champions.

Only once in F1 history have more drivers led a race than the seven who took turns at the head of the field on Sunday. That was the famed 1971 Italian Grand Prix, which ended with five drivers crossing the line covered by 0.61s.

Here are the five races which featured seven or more leaders:

Race Leaders Drivers who led
1971 Italian Grand Prix 8 Clay Regazzoni, Ronnie Peterson, Jackie Stewart, Francois Cevert, Mike Hailwood, Jo Siffert, Chris Amon, Peter Gethin
1973 Canadian Grand Prix 7 Ronnie Peterson, Niki Lauda, Emerson Fittipaldi, Jackie Stewart, Jean-Pierre Beltoise, Jacky Oliver, Peter Revson
1975 British Grand Prix 7 Carlos Pace, Clay Regazzoni, Tom Pryce, Jody Scheckter, Jean-Pierre Jarier, James Hunt, Emerson Fittipaldi
2008 Canadian Grand Prix 7 Lewis Hamilton, Nick Heidfeld, Rubens Barrichello, David Coulthard, Jarno Trulli, Timo Glock, Robert Kubica,
2013 Australian Grand Prix 7 Sebastian Vettel, Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Adrian Sutil, Kimi Raikkonen

Among yesterday’s leaders was Adrian Sutil, who led a race for the first time on his F1 comeback. This was the fourth race led by Force India, and the first time they have led two in a row.

Start, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 2008On each occasion the race was led by a different driver: Giancarlo Fisichella (Spa 2009), Paul di Resta (Bahrain 2012) and Nico Hulkenberg (Interlagos 2012).

Hulkenberg’s first appearance for new team Sauber did not go well as he failed to make the start due to a fuel pressure problem. In three appearances at Albert Park he is yet to complete a racing lap, having been involved in first-lap collisions in 2010 and 2012.

Finally, five drivers made their debut in yesterday’s race, which was the most since the Bahrain Grand Prix three years ago. Hulkenberg made his first start in that race and is still part of the F1 field, but Vitaly Petrov, Lucas di Grassi, Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok have all been and gone.

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

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123 comments on Raikkonen matches Hakkinen’s race win tally

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  1. Avatar Image

    andae23 (@andae23) said on 18th March 2013, 16:25

    This is what I noticed:

    - The average age of the Australian GP was 27 years, 2 months and 20 days, meaning it’s the youngest starting field in history. Previously the record was held by the 1997 French GP, which was mainly due to the absence of Gerhard Berger and debuts of Fontana and Marques.

    - Seven drivers qualified in the position of their start number: Vettel (1), Webber (2), Massa (4), Raikkonen (7), Grosjean (8) Hulkenberg (11) and Van der Garde (21).

    - Kimi Raikkonen gave start number ‘7’ its 27th victory. The last driver to win with the number ‘7’ was Jarno Trulli at the 2004 Monaco GP.

    - Fernando Alonso has already secured his streak of eleven consecutive years with at least one podium that started at the 2003 Malaysian GP, equalling Alain Prost. The record is held by Michael Schumacher with 15 consecutive podium years between 1992 and 2006. Mansell and Berger are in-between Schumacher and Alonso with 12 consecutive years.

    - Australian drivers have had 90 podiums and 28 home Grands Prix, but yet again the Australian drivers failed to finish on the podium at the Australian GP, meaning they won’t be added to the list of 16 nations that have had a home driver on the podium during a GP that counted towards the world championship.

    - The podium was a copy of last year’s Abu Dhabi GP, just three race ago. The last time identical podiums occurred that ‘shortly’ after each other was in 2010: VET WEB ALO occurred at the Brazilian GP just two races after the Japanese GP.

    - Adrian Sutil led the first eleven laps of his Formula 1 career. The last time a driver, who hadn’t driven in F1 for at least a year, led a GP was in 2007: at the European GP, Markus Winkelhock led the race in his first (and only) GP. Sutil also scored his 100th point for Force India.

    - On lap 13, Rosberg led the GP from Sutil and Vettel, which means that three Germans led the Grand Prix. I do not have the tools to figure this out, but does anybody know when was the last time something like this happened??

    - Four French, British and German drivers started the race. For France, this was the highest number of entrants since the 1995 Pacific GP: Panis, Alesi, Gachot and Boullion. This is the first time in history that all three countries had at least four drivers starting the race!

    - McLaren scored 2 points – not a great result, but it means they continue their record-breaking streak of 59 consecutive races in the points that started at the 2010 Bahrain GP. Two points was also their worst result since that 2010 Bahrain GP. For Button however it was enough to break the 1000-point barrier: he now has 1001 points.

    - Amazing coincidence: for the third consecutive year, start numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14 and 15 have all picked up points in Melbourne!

    - Pastor Maldonado retired for the 15th time in 40 Grands Prix. He now has the highest retirements percentage (37.5%) of all drivers on the grid, having passed Romain Grosjean (37.0%).

    - Sergio Perez has finished 28 races. Of those, he finished 11th nine times without ever finishing 12th!

    I missed this…

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    OmarR-Pepper (@omarr-pepper) said on 18th March 2013, 16:27

    Raikkonen won from seventh on the grid in car number seven. It was only the 21st time a race has been won from that position, yet Raikkonen has done it three times now.

    That means he is skilled to overcome “bad” qualifyings, and that was even more impressive in Suzuka 2005 from 17th place on the starting grid

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  3. Avatar Image

    Kodongo (@kodongo) said on 18th March 2013, 16:29

    and Button is now the grid’s eldest driver, aged 33 years and 66 days yesterday.

    Button has contested the most grands prix, Keith, but Mark Webber is the oldest having been born on 27 August 1976. He is currently 36.

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    Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989) said on 18th March 2013, 16:40

    Felipe Mass has now 68 consecutive race without winning since interlagos 2008

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    the_sigman (@sigman1998) said on 18th March 2013, 16:45

    Hulkenberg has never completed more than 1 lap at Melbourne. He retired in the first lap in 2010 and 2012 and didn’t start this year.

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  6. Avatar Image

    Txizzle (@txizzle) said on 18th March 2013, 16:52

    Another interesting stat: both Alonso and Webber are to move in to the ‘club of 200′ as I used to know it (back when I starting following F1 it was a remarkable thing to reach). :P

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      Nick.UK (@nick-uk) said on 18th March 2013, 18:44

      Stats like those are becoming less impressive with the calendar being much longer these days. It’s what I still maintain Mansel has the true record for most poles in a season 15 in 16 races I think, whereas Vettel did 15 in 19. Not so impressive (Still obviously a mamoth achievement though).

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  7. Avatar Image

    Girts (@girts) said on 18th March 2013, 16:53

    Every driver on the podium has won the same number of world championships as his finishing position in the race.

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  8. Avatar Image

    Ciaran (@walsh-f1) said on 18th March 2013, 17:07

    Yesterday’s race was Kimi Raikkonen’s 200th single seater open wheel car race. 23 of them were in junior categories and 177 in Formula 1.

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    Tom (@newdecade) said on 18th March 2013, 17:11

    Kimi Raikkonen’s 20th career victory ties him with Mika Hakkinen as the second most successful Finnish F1 driver of all time in terms of race victories.

    How can they be tied for second most successful in terms of wins? Surely they are tied for 1st.

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  10. Avatar Image

    Aish Heydrich (@aish) said on 18th March 2013, 18:13

    What a beautiful looking McLaren Hakkinen is driving there. They have really stopped making them like that. Those days they were driving beauty pageants, now they drive a duck billed platypus.
    Was that a V12 engine back then?

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  11. Avatar Image

    craig-o (@craig-o) said on 18th March 2013, 18:19

    Fernando Alonso has been outqualified for his teammate for the third time in a row. This hasn’t occurred since 2007 I believe, where Lewis Hamilton outqualified him in the last 3 races that season.

    Sebastian Vettel has an unusual record at Melbourne: RET, RET, RET, 1st, 2nd, 3rd.

    Kimi Raikkonen has lead the world championship for the first time since Turkey 2008.

    Pastor Maldonado was the only driver to retire in the race due to driver error.

    This is the first time that Sauber failed to start one of their cars since Monaco 2011 after Perez’s crash.

    Speaking of Perez, he has become the first McLaren driver since David Coulthard in 1996 to fail to score on his debut for the team.

    Only 9 of the drivers who started the last race where 22 cars were entered took part in the previous one (2008 Spanish GP – RAI, MAS, HAM, WEB, BUT, ROS, ALO, SUT, VET)

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  12. Avatar Image

    sumedhvidwans (@sumedhvidwans) said on 18th March 2013, 18:20

    Not much, but every time Michael Schumacher retires, Kimi and Fernando finish 1st and 2nd at the next race.

    In his 6 Australian GPs, Vettel has either finished on the podium or not finished the race (retired in 2008-10, on podium in 2011-13)

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  13. Avatar Image

    HoHum (@hohum) said on 18th March 2013, 18:20

    So we now have GP’s as interesting as the early 70′s, anyone know how many pit-stops were normal in those years?

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    Donald Anderson (@bigdon1281) said on 18th March 2013, 18:42

    It was the first time a team’s drivers finish both first (win) and last in the points since the 2008 Monaco GP, where Hamilton won and Kovalainen finished 8th.

    Anyway, great work with the stats. I had heaps but this was the only one which hasn’t already been mentioned!

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  15. Avatar Image

    paulgilb (@paulgilb) said on 18th March 2013, 18:55

    5th fastest lap for Raikkonen in Australia – more than any other circuit.

    Raikkonen has scored more points in Melbourne than any other venue (helped by having raced twice there under the current system).

    First podium for Alonso in Australia since 2007 – he finished either 4th or 5th every year from 2008 to 2012.

    6 different leaders in first 14 laps (and the race winner wasn’t one of them) – no idea if this is a record.

    Button breaks McLaren’s win-then-no-score jinx.

    On all occasions that 7+ drivers have led laps, the eventual race winner was the last to lead.

    And some more thanks to http://www.magnetimarelli.com:

    Last race to be won from 7th or lower without safety car – M Schumacher in USA 2003 (from 7th).

    Last dry race to be won from 7th or lower without safety car – Raikkonen in Malaysia 2003 (from 7th); Malaysia 2003 is the earliest race to have been won by a driver still in F1.

    First time Raikkonen leads the championship since Turkey 2008.

    Shanghai and Spa are now the only current tracks on which Alonso has not scored a podium with Ferrari.

    In the last 10 years Alonso has always finished the season opener in the top 5.

    Both Raikkonen and Alonso have managed Melbourne podiums with 3 different teams (Ferrari, McLaren, the Enstone team).

    First mechanical DNF for Rosberg since Japan 2010.

    13 out of 18 Melbourne races have seen a team lock out the front row – on 4 of those occasions (1999, 2000, 2003, 2010), the team didn’t even manage a podium between them.

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