McLaren’s points run ends as Raikkonen equals record

2013 Canadian Grand Prix stats and facts

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Sebastian Vettel ended Red Bull’s losing streak at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and gave them their first victory in the Canadian Grand Prix.

They have now won every race on the calendar at least once apart from the United States Grand Prix, which was absent from the calendar for four of the nine years Red Bull have been competing in F1.

The Circuit of the Americas is one of only two tracks in regular use they are yet to win at, the other being the Hockenheimring, which only holds races on alternate years.

Vettel’s win is the 29th of his career, leaving him two shy of Nigel Mansell’s tally and three behind Fernando Alonso. He also achieved his 39th pole position and third in a row in Canada.

He missed out on fastest lap which Mark Webber claimed despite having lost part of his front wing. It was the 15th for Webber, giving him as many as Jackie Stewart and Clay Regazzoni.

Vettel is now the only driver to have completed all 441 laps so far this year. Only five drivers were on the lead lap at the end of the race, which last happened at the 2011 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Vettel briefly lost the lead to Lewis Hamilton during the race, meaning Mercedes-engined cars have led the last ten consecutive grands prix.

Fernando Alonso took second place for his 90th podium finish. Third place for Hamilton was his first finish in the Canadian Grand Prix in a position other than first. He won in 2007, 2010 and 2012 and crashed out in his other two appearances.

Hamilton continued his record of never being out-qualified by a team mate at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve by inflicting a first qualifying defeat for Nico Rosberg at this track.

Among those to achieve career-best results during the weekend was Jean-Eric Vergns. He finished sixth, which was also the best result for Toro Rosso since Vettel took fourth for them at Interlagos in 2008.

However Valtteri Bottas was unable to convert the best qualifying performance of his short career so far – third – into a points finish for Williams. He only spent 13 laps inside the top ten.

Force India logged their 100th start. They made their F1 debut at the beginning of the 2008 season.

By finishing ninth Kimi Raikkonen equalled Michael Schumacher’s record for most consecutive finishes inside the points. During this time Raikkonen has been able to score points for finishing in the top ten which was not the case when Schumacher set his record. Here’s how their finishing positions compared:

RaceKimi RaikkonenMichael Schumacher
121
231
394
482
521
651
733
821
931
1051
1161
1262
1351
1472
1511
1661
17101
1812
1971
2022
2122
2221
23104
2496

Schumacher’s run began at the 2001 Hungarian Grand Prix, in which he clinched his fourth world championship title, and lasted until the 2003 Malaysian Grand Prix. It ended when he crashed out of the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Raikkonen has scored in every race since making his F1 comeback apart from last year’s Chinese Grand Prix, where he finished 14th.

However McLaren’s record-breaking streak of consecutive points finishes has come to an end. They hadn’t failed to score since Jenson Button joined them at the beginning of 2010, a run of 64 races.

The question now is whether Ferrari can beat McLaren’s record. They’ve scored for 55 consecutive races having last failed to do so at Silverstone in 2010.

Button increased his total of racing laps completed to 12,445. That moves him ahead of David Coulthard on the all-time list, but needs over 4,000 more to catch Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. Felipe Massa became the 11th driver in F1 history to cover more than 10,000 racing laps:

RankDriverLaps
1Michael Schumacher16,825
2Rubens Barrichello16,631
3Jenson Button12,445
4David Coulthard12,394
5Jarno Trulli12,368
6Giancarlo Fisichella11,509
7Riccardo Patrese11,346
8Fernando Alonso11,311
9Alain Prost10,540
10Mark Webber10,327
11Felipe Massa10,005

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.

2013 Canadian Grand Prix

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Image © McLaren/Hoch Zwei

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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92 comments on “McLaren’s points run ends as Raikkonen equals record”

  1. Michael Schumacher’s points-scoring record is amazing. If you exclude his 6th at Malaysia 2003, he actually had 23 consecutive top-4 finishes. And if you exclude his 4th at Australia 2003, he only missed the podium once in the first 22 races. Simply extraordinary.

    1. Yep, the Ferrari’s he drove were frightening dominant. Like Vettel’s Red-Bull but with no Alonso/Hamilton to challenge him.

      1. I Love the Pope
        10th June 2013, 14:05

        You seem to suggest that you could put a teddy bear in the cockpit and it would still win.

        If the RB is the only reason why Seb has so many wins, where is Webber?

        1. David not Coulthard (@)
          10th June 2013, 14:42

          I read it as “Vettel driving a RBR, with the SFs, Mercs, and McLarens and Tolemans driven by Luca Badoer, Christian Horner, Karthikeyan, Bruno Senna, Bourdais, and Liuzzi”, instead of “RBR is as fast as Bloodhound” or something like that.

          1. @davidnotcoulthar
            You are correct. Some people are just far too paranoid

      2. @brum55

        Well Schumacher had as stronger foes as Vettel. Hakkinen, Coultard, Montoya, young Alonso, young Kimi… It’s just him and that Ferrari truly were on another league.

        1. True that. Plus what he did in the late 90’s was as extraordinary as those achievements with a dominant car (only ever had a superior car in 01, 02, and 04). You didn’t have the parity at the front of the field in the 90’s like you do today. Those Williams and McLarens of the mid to late 90’s had a huge head start on the Ferrari (and even Benetton).

          And people forget with the likes of Barrichello that he was outstanding in 1999 driving the Stewart and many predicted that he’d match Schumacher, if not beat him. Numerous times he was ahead of Irvine in the Ferrari or even the McLaren before his engine would expire. Must have happened 4-5 times. In 1999 in Australia he got up to 4th after starting from the pitlane, ended up getting a stop n go or whatever it was then still finished 5th. Amazing in a Stewart.

          But people forget how good Barrichello was. He was brought into Ferrari in 2000 specifically because Irvine wasn’t good enough to win the title in 1999.

          1. Actually they signed Rubens months before Schumacher’s accident that gave Irvine the title chance.

          2. Point taken, but Barrichello had incredible drives in the Stewart at the beginning of the season and was considered the best of the young drivers.

        2. @ivano At the time Schumi set this record – Alonso was in a minardi, Raikkonen in a Sauber, Montoya in a fast but incredibly fragile BMW, Hakkinnen was past his prime in a Mclaren past its prime and Coulthard was never really a serious competitor to begin with.

          I would have to agree with @brum55 , no one had the machinery to match Schumacher.. and there was a serious lack of good talent in the right cars to match Ferrari during the 2000-2004 seasons.

          1. @todfod

            Hakkinen and Coultard almost beat Schumacher in the previous year, 2000. Alonso joined Renualt in 2003, Kimi joined McLaren in 2002. And the BMW had as many poles and first rows as Ferrari, but Montoya tested it’s fragility to the limits. ;)

            But yeah, there was plenty of championship talent in other cars, very good cars too considering they were faster and better than their previous year’s versions, just the Ferrari and Schumacher combo was better than the rest.

            With that said, this year it’s Vettel making the diffirence compared to the other drivers, and I feel if he was in a Ferrari or Lotus, he’s Championship lead would be wider. I’m fearing he’s only now beginning to refine his skills which is doom for the rest.

      3. Tell Barrichello about it!

    2. The dark days of F1. That’s why I immediately became a Raikkonen and Alonso fan. They were the only ones who were finally able to challenge Schumacher.

      1. @f1lipino

        They were the glory days in Germany and Italy.

    3. @journeyer Raikkonen’s average finish was 4.83, Schumacher’s 1.79!

      1. Schumacher had a red rocket at his disposal while Raikkonen had a fidgety lotus !

        1. Schumacher only had 6 places available to score points, Raikkonen 10. Statistics like these are nice, but useless. You cannot really compare them, although they’ll go into the books either way.

          1. Schumacher’s scoring streak would only be 24 races even with the 10 place scoring system, as he retired from the two races at either end of the scoring streak. Consecutive top 10’s would be more accurate.

      2. @keithcollantine That average is wow – and that still includes the 2003 results! If you again exclude the last 2 results (from 2003), MSC’s average actually goes down even further – to just 1.5. Simply staggering.

      3. The points might only have gone to 6th place, but Ferrari was very dominant, in every race it was almost guaranteed that they would end up on the podium. There wasn’t much competition. The gaps to the front was much larger then we have these days, the midfield is much stronger now.
        Reliability was much worse, in most races only 10 -14 cars or so finished the race, so even if you could only score up to 6th place, it is really not that different.

        1. During Schumacher’s point streak the average percentage of cars finishing on points (out of classified cars) was 48.17% (approximate value, of course) and during Räikkönen’s it was (or is, currently) 51.58%. (I have the Excel file I used to come up with these numbers if anyone wants to have a look, took some time to enter all the data).

          Statistically it was around as easy to finish on points if you classified in 2001-2003 but as you explained the Ferraris of 2001-2003 were very reliable, consistent and fast (dominant even) and there wasn’t as much competition as there is now so I’d say that it was significantly easier for Schumacher to finish in the top six 24 consecutive times then than it is to Räikkönen to finish in the top 10 now.

          Obviously not trying to undermine Schumacher’s achievement in any way, it’s still as impressive as it has always been.

      4. Well, you could also say that Raikkonen had to fight his way through the field, fight packed first corners, fight fading brakes, degrading tires, Alonso running him clean off the track, Perez trying the same multiple times and much, much more, yet somehow he has always survived.

        Schumacher on the other hand was mostly cruising around in front from start to finish. Amazing streak but all things considered Raikkonen’s stands out as well, regardless of the average finish.

  2. It was also only second Hamilton-Vettel-Alonso podium ever. The previous was in last year’s US GP, with Hamilton on top then.

    1. @randy Funnily enough, both occurred in North America. :)

    2. @randy And the first one without ruddy hats…

  3. *Perez finished 11th, which means in his 3 year F1 career, he has still yet to finish in 12th.

    1. @bosley maybe he is a dodecaphobe? ;)

      1. @vettel1 perhaps there’s some Mexican superstition which brings bad luck among those who finish twelfth.

  4. As much as it pains me to say it, I really think it’s time for McLaren to write off 2013 and concentrate on coming out of the gate with all guns blazing in 2014.

    I know in 2009 it took McLaren until round 10 until they got on the podium, and hope they at least look for a win and a few podiums, but it seems that they just cannot get this car to work.

    So frustrating!

    And before anyone chimes in with the usual “Lewis would have produced better results in this McLaren”, I suggest you go back and look at the results from the 2009 season…

    1. So frustrating!

      Indeed. At one point in his post race interview, Jenson actually looked like he was holding back tears!
      He knows how much of a write off this year is, and potentially doesn’t have so much confidence in next year either. His eyes looked like those of a man who’s just accepted he may never win a race again.
      Hope that’s not the case.

      1. @eurobrun
        There have been some strange rumours (which I hope are false) that McLaren are disappointed with Button’s performance, even relative to the bad car.
        The rumour goes on to say he may not have a guaranteed seat for 2014 if he doesn’t perform better soon.

        I find this notion stupid, personally, as he was notably good for the first few races; only recently has he had a slump.

    2. I personally feel that McLaren have already put its majority resources behind 2014 already although they are not readily admitting it. It was important for them to develop their car in 2009 after the slump as 2009 was the first year of changes while this is the last, so I really believe that behind those doors at Woking, 2014 is getting ready!

    3. @nick101

      I think we remember 2009. I also remember the 2 wins, podiums and fighting spirit that Hamilton showed in that year. I remember the vast gap in class between Hamilton and his teammate.

      I see that same fighting spirit, pace and ability to out do one’s teammate in Jenson’s 2013 campaign. I doubt anyone on the grid would be doing a better job in that Mclaren than Jenson Button

      1. I was being sarcastic in the 2nd para .. just in case you didn’t get it.

        1. fighting spirit that Hamilton showed in that year

          You’re kidding right?

          Team radio from round 7 of the 2009 Championship – Hamilton to team;

          “Guys, I’m as slow as a freaking boat, my tires have gone off, I can’t even keep up with the freaking Renault in front of me. We need a new car guys, you need to build me a new car if we want to win.”

          Proper fighting spirit there!

          1. Proper fighting spirit there!

            I was being sarcastic … just in case you didn’t get it.

  5. Last year, Hamilton passed Alonso on lap 64. The same happened this year, but Alonso passed Hamilton this year.

    @andae23 We are all waiting for you :P

    1. I believe it was actually Lap 63 on which Alonso passed Hamilton.

  6. This was the first time Hamilton has ever finished in a position other than 1st in Montreal. It broke his streak of win-retire-win-retire-win.

    1. mentioned in the main article mate.

      1. Not sure how I missed that paragraph.

    2. And, in 2011, he retired because, after the shunt with Jenson and the contact with the guard rail, people in the McLaren camp he had broken the left rear suspension and TOLD him over the radio to stop the car on the side of the track. . Afterwards, they discovered that the suspension was intact and the tyre had come off the rim. As JB ended up winning the race, after being dead last, now we know that LH could have won that race too.

  7. Mclaren are in a complete mess, the current car even looks slow on tv and given the performance of Force India and the developing Torro Rosso this could be the biggest disaster in recent memory for them. I’m not so sure you van blame the drivers as it seems anyone would struggle to get that box of rubbish around any track in a decent time, no coincidence either that Sam Michaels appearance at Mclaren ties in with a massive downturn in performance in both cars and background support with pit stop errors, strategy errors etc. Also as a Mclaren fan I am not so sure now that Whitmarsh can rescue the situation, the reality is that he has overseen the biggest slump in their recent history and there seems no way out of it, cant see them making up 2 secs per lap by the time they get to British GP

    1. The Blade Runner (@)
      10th June 2013, 13:59

      And yet last year they had the fastest car. Their biggest problems in 2012 were reliability and the occasional poor pit-stop.

      The MP4-28 is clearly a disaster but if you stand back from the situation it does not necessarily mean that McLaren is in freefall. What it does suggest however is that there are some poor management decisions being made which ultimately rest on Whitmarsh’ shoulders. Bringing in a completely new car for 2013 was a bold move and could have been a masterstroke had it paid-off. As it is, it was emphatically the wrong thing to do and has destroyed McLaren’s hopes of gaining anything this season.

      As a McLaren fan myself I find the concept of “writing-off” the entire 2013 season a difficult one to reconcile. I do however feel that it is the sensible thing to do. 2013 should be seen as a lesson to the team and a low-point that should never be repeated.

      1. never be repeated? so never try anything bold or daring ever again? the fduct was also a pretty bold move.

        1. The Blade Runner (@)
          10th June 2013, 14:49

          Yes, such a “low-point” should never be repeated! You can add extra words that I didn’t use to try and make it look like I was saying something else if you like… Oh, you have!

          Put simply, if you’re going to have a disastrous season then at the very least you must learn from the mistakes that led to it. That doesn’t mean no longer being bold. It just means applying the new things you have learned to future decisions. you make

      2. @thebladerunner

        A brand new car in 2013 when the current generation will end, coming from a team that head a very fast car in 2012… I wonder why the risk.

        1. The Blade Runner (@)
          10th June 2013, 15:32

          @jcost

          Yep it’s an interesting decision! They clearly thought that they had something special in the MP4-28. Results/performance suggest otherwise!

        2. A couple of talking heads, I think Peter Windsor most recently, have pointed out that there are many changes to the aero regulations for next year, and so the best time to do something dramatic and see how well it works would be this year when all the regs are consistent and can be compared to past years as well as your competitors. Next year’s engine changes could have masked the problem if they had waited to experiement.

      3. What it does suggest however is that there are some poor management decisions being made which ultimately rest on Whitmarsh’ shoulders…

        @thebladerunner – isn’t what it suggests that there are some poor design or process decisions being made, given the correlation (wind tunnel to track) issues that exist? How is it principally a management issue if the science or engineering is not being calculated and executed correctly? Unless you mean that Whitmarsh needs to fire the inept engineers and allocate $$ to assess the efficiency and reliability and accuracy of their windtunnel, sim, CAD-or-whatever, etc…

    2. As a McLaren supporter, last year was very frustrating with all those retirements and pit stop errors. I still think that without these problems they could run away with both championships. But this year is even more frustrating as they’re struggling to get into the points. The stat that they just ended their scoring streak is just painful to me. I still hope they can turn things round like 2004, altough I think they’re gonna concentrate on 2014. But for some reason I think they will do a Williams and they will become a midfield team for years to come and after that there’s no turning back…

    3. Does anyone know the rules on whether Mclaren can run both the MP4-28 and a possibly updated MP4-27 to meet the current regs on a race weekend. Maybe one driver in each for direct cmparison. They are so desperate now, it seems that going back to what worked, and to compare it to what they now have on the same track, same conditions is the only way to improve.

  8. Here’s few:

    * In the last 20 years, four rookies have achieved top 3 in qualifying in a car that hasn’t finished on the podium that year. Valtteri Bottas joined Nico Hülkenberg (pole in BRA 2010), Nico Rosberg (3rd in MAL 2006) and Heinz-Harald Frentzen (3rd in JPN 1994)

    * Bottas and Max Chilton continue their finishing streak without points which I mentioned after Monaco GP.

    * It was second straight year without SC in Canadian GP. Previous time that happened was in 2003-04.

    * Daniel Ricciardo’s grid penalty was the first penalty of any kind he received for driving infringement during his F1 career.

    1. David not Coulthard (@)
      10th June 2013, 14:51

      In the last 20 years, four rookies have achieved top 3 in qualifying in a car that hasn’t finished on the podium that year. Valtteri Bottas joined Nico Hülkenberg (pole in BRA 2010), Nico Rosberg (3rd in MAL 2006) and Heinz-Harald Frentzen (3rd in JPN 1994)

      3 of which (including Bottas) in a Williams, by the way.

  9. Wait, I didn’t get this Vettel is now the only driver to have completed all 441 laps so far this year.

    That means Hamilton or anyone else who has finished all races so far have been lapped ? please explain ? If that is the case when was Hamilton lapped ? Bahrain ? Please clear this up for me guys.

    1. @hamilfan – yes that’s what it means. Hamilton was lapped in Barcelona when he finished 12th.

      1. Thanks a lot man , Oh yes , barcelona .

  10. McLaren haven’t had both cars start AND finish outside of the top ten since Turkey 2009

  11. still no rookie’s have scored points this year.

  12. Only tracks Vetterl hasn’t won at: Circuit of the Americas, Hockenheimring, Nurburgring, Hungaroring. He must not like rings.

    1. Maybe he will start liking them soon :(

    2. And all of those races, except for Circuit of the Americas, are held in July, the month he was born in. It was mentioned last year that he had never won a race in July.

    3. …and Red Bull Ring :-P

  13. This is what I noticed:

    – This was Sebastian Vettel’s first victory in Canada, meaning that he has now won 18 different Grands Prix. He now shares second in the all-time list with Alain Prost. If Vettel wants to equal Michael Schumacher’s record of 22 different Grands Prix, he will have to wait until at least the , after he has won the German, Hungarian, United States and one of the new races in 2014.

    – Seven races in and all races have been won by odd-numbered cars so far. The last time this happened was in 2004, when the first even-numbered car to win a race was Kimi Raikkonen at the Belgian Grand Prix (round 14/18).

    – Speaking of odd and even: Fernando Alonso has scored 8.6 times as many points in odd races than in even races this season.

    – On lap 3, Sebastian Vettel drove Renault’s 50,000th lap in the lead of a Formula 1 race. They are the second engine manufacturer to reach this milestone, after Ferrari: the Italians have led for more than 70,000 laps in Grands Prix that counted towards the World Championship. Coincidentally, Red Bull has now also passed Renault in the list of number of kilometres in the lead later on in the race.

    – For the very first time in McLaren’s history, the works team McLarens finished eleventh and twelfth in a Grand Prix. Sergio Pérez finished eleventh for the eleventh time in his career (25% of races started), without ever finishing twelfth.

    – Apart from the record mentioned in the article, another record McLaren might lose is consecutive years on the podium: Ferrari and McLaren have shared this record since 2009, but if McLaren fails to finish on the podium this year, Ferrari will be the only ones to hold the record of 33 consecutive seasons on the podium.

    – 60% of all laps this season have been led by German drivers (Vettel 153, Rosberg 92, Sutil 11 and Hülkenberg 8).

    – Having ended their consecutive non-retirement streak of 18 races at the Spanish Grand Prix, Caterham has had to retire a car in three consecutive races.

    – For Sauber, this was the first time since the 2011 Italian Grand Prix that neither car finished the race.

    – Still no rookies in the points…

    – Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this was the first time someone was fatally injured on a Grand Prix Sunday since the 2001 Australian Grand Prix – which would be the longest gap between fatalities in F1 history. Let’s hope we can set a new record in the future.

    – One from the previous Grand Prix: Red Bull has finished all Monaco Grands Prix since 2010 in the top four with both cars!

    1. @andae23 When you say, “Ferrari and McLaren have shared this record since 2009”, do you mean 1980 instead of 2009? I counted back 33 years from 2013. :)

      Also, you’re right on the gap between fatalities. Since Imola 1994, there have been 0 driver deaths, but 3 marshal deaths.

      1. @journeyer No: they have scored podiums consecutively since 1981, but the actual record was broken in 2009. Up until that year, Lotus had held the record with 29 years between 1960 and 1988, which – as you do the math – was broken at the 2009 Monaco Grand Prix, when Raikkonen gave Ferrari their 30th consecutive year on the podium.

    2. Sergio Pérez finished eleventh for the eleventh time in his career (25% of races started), without ever finishing twelfth.

      If you count only the races he finished (35), his rate of 11th-place finishes goes up to 31% – almost one in every three races!

    3. @andae23 I take it this refers to Renault as a constructor?

      Red Bull has now also passed Renault in the list of number of kilometres in the lead later on in the race.

      Great statistics as always though!

      1. @vettel Yup :)

        1. whoops, I meant @vettel1

        2. @andae23 I had a bit of a moment there thinking “how is that possible?”!

  14. While Mclaren disappointed with their 2013 car it wasn’t a complete waste of time, next year a completely new car has to be designed and it’s only logical to think that they would’ve had exactly the same correlation problems like they do now.
    At least they were able to identify the problems before committing to a brand new design philosophy for the next generation of cars.

  15. i wonder what the start are for gps with wet qualy’s and dry races. i believe this is the first canadian gp with a wet qualy and dry race?
    is this much of a stat anyway…?

  16. Yesterday two of the most illustrious pilots in F1 story were defeated… in a way

    In the top scorers of all time list (in modern points/race entered), Sebastian Vettel took the 4th position -with 12.74 points- from Michael Schumacher -12.71-. On top of him still are (4th to 1st) Giuseppe Farina -13.55-, Alberto Ascari -13.94-, the mostly unkown Lee Wallard -16.5- and the great Juan Manuel Fangio -17.12-.

    And Lewis Hamilton -11.74-, having fallen temporarily behind Ayrton Senna -11.68-, overtook him again for 8th position; Alain Prost seems reachable at 7th -12.48-.

    Both Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonnen stay put at 11th -11.34- (behind Jim Clark, -11.65-) and 14th -9.85- (behind Mike Hawthorn -10.40- and Jackie Stewart -11.20-).

    1. Vettel took the 5th position from Schuey, not 4th

  17. At their respective win rates of 16% for Alonso and 27% for Vettel (32 wins & 204 starts vs 29 wins and 108 starts), Vettel is set to overtake Alonso’s win tally in 32 races (Alonso = 6.37 starts/win, 32/6.37 = ll5ll wins. Vettel = 3.72 starts/win, 32/3.72 = ll9ll wins).

    The actual value for 32/3.72 comes out as 8.6: if we change that to 31 then the value dips below 8.5 which means it is rounded down to 8 (so that’s where I’ve established 32 from incase anyone’s interested)! He obviously needs to have 4 more wins in that period to overtake Alonso.

    What I will find interesting is how long it takes in reality (as we can assume it’ll inevitably happen at some point in the future). I’ll bank on it being fewer races that that!

  18. the best position of Mclaren in the race was 8º which last happened at the 2009 Britain Grand Prix

    The last time the current champion had won in Canadá
    was in 2006

  19. Abdurahman (@)
    10th June 2013, 23:28

    McLaren should do what Ferrari did in 68?72? not sure which year exactly, but it was a year they were having disastrous results, they pulled out of a few races to go back to the factory and get things sorted. It is just embarrassing for McLaren at this stage.

    1. Not an option these days when you have hundreds of millions of monies (whatever currency) in sponsorship and the Concorde (?) agreement. Not showing up for races is simply not possible.

  20. So far Webber has finished second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh.(And a DNF) It’s a straight flush!

    A win in Silverstone would round it out nicely for him.

  21. It’s interesting how some of us (myself, for sure) become disinterested in a driver if they win too often. It happened for me with Schumacher in the dominant Ferrari years. I enjoyed his time at Benetton and I enjoyed his time at a resurgent Ferrari, for which he played a huge part. But after a while, win after win just became boring.
    It’s the same now with Vettel. Three titles on the trot; I certainly don’t want to see a fourth one in a row. And it was the same with Alonso: after he won two, I didn’t want to see him win a third immediately.
    This weekend’s race at Canada reminded me what a great driver Vettel is. Rather than look after the tyres, he decided to pound them, to show that this season doesn’t have to be about boring tyre management – it can be about all out racing for the win, with an extra pit stop than your closest foes.
    I am a Vettel fan again.
    But I still don’t want him taking the championship this year!

  22. Interesting to note that while Webber and Alonso have entered effectively the same amount of races and laps (2001 and 2002 season were raced on practically identical calendars) Alsonso has completed almost 1000 more racing laps.

    Easy to see where Webber’s reputation (in the middle part of his career) as the ‘unluckiest’ man in F1 came from.

  23. @keithcollantine Wasn’t Toro Rosso’s best result the win for Vettel at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix at Monza?

    1. @tonyyeb I didn’t say it wasn’t!

      1. @keithcollantine After reading it a few times I couldn’t decide if that is what you meant! Ha! I should have known better ;)

  24. This wasn’t just the first time Hamilton has finished lower than 1st in Canada, it was the first time he’s finished lower than 1st in North America, since he’s won both US GPs he’s started…

  25. During this time Raikkonen has been able to score points for finishing in the top ten which was not the case when Schumacher set his record.

    Pfffft… @keithcollantine never missing an opportunity to criticize, slight or demean Kimi Räikkönen in even the most token fashion…

    1. @joepa If I hadn’t mentioned it I’d have someone else complaining that I was belittling Schumacher’s achievement by not setting it in the proper context. Which is the correct and fair thing to do, as anyone without partisan blinkers on can see.

  26. 6th and 10th have each been occupied by 7 different drivers in the 7 races so far in 2013.

    And a few from magnetimarelli.com:

    First time since Malaysia 2010 that McLaren have not got either car into Q3.

    Vettel now has 28 wins with Red Bull – the same number as Mansell with Williams, 2 behind Prost with McLaren, and 7 behind Senna with McLaren, and 44 behind some German driver with some Italian team.

    Button’s 7th race without a podium – his worst streak since 2008.

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