Vettel matches Ascari and Schumacher with ninth win

2013 Brazilian Grand Prix stats and facts

Posted on

| Written by

Sebastian Vettel extended his winning streak in the Brazilian Grand Prix and has now won nine consecutive races in a row. That ties the all-time record with Alberto Ascari, though Vettel distanced himself from comparisons with Ascari’s achievement.

As noted here previously, Ascari set the record in consecutive races he entered but not consecutive rounds of the championship, as he skipped the 1953 Indianapolis 500 (as most grand prix drivers did at the time). he set the record in 1952 and 1953, when the world championship was run to F2 rules.

Of course there were far fewer races per season then than today. When Ascari won his ninth race in a row, at Spa in 1953, he was one day short of the first anniversary of the beginning of his streak at the same race in 1952.

However Vettel’s nine race wins were compressed into 91 days – exactly one-quarter the duration of Ascari’s unbeaten streak. However by the time the next season starts it will have increased to 203.

Vettel also scored his 13th win of the season, equalling Michael Schumacher’s record for the most wins in a year. Schumacher won 13 races out of 18 in 2004 whereas Vettel had 19 races to do the same.

He now has 39 grand prix victories to his name, two fewer than Ayrton Senna, and 45 pole positions – that’s 20 fewer than Senna achieved. It was also the 12th time he led every lap of a grand prix – he crossed the start/finish line two hundredths of a second ahead of Nico Rosberg on lap one.

Vettel also finished on the podium for the 11th race in a row, equalling his personal best streak. The record is 19, set by Schumacher from 2001 to 2002.

He ended the season with 397 points, the most ever recorded by a driver, five more than he managed in 2011. Of course the changes to the points system and varying length of F1 seasons means points totals like this are not useful for comparisons between drivers.

Farewell to Webber, Cosworth V8s

The only achievement Vettel missed during the race was fastest lap, which went to team mate Mark Webber. It was the 19th of his career, giving him as many as Senna, Stirling Moss and Damon Hill.

At the end of his career Webber had started 215 races, the most ever by an Australian driver, and won nine of them. He also had 42 podium finishes and 13 pole positions. He equalled his highest position in the world championship with year with third which he also achieved in 2010 and 2011.

Renault scored the final win of the V8 engine era, and by doing so continued a minor tradition. They also won the last race for 3.0-litre V10 engines (the 2005 Chinese Grand Prix, won by Fernando Alonso for Renault) and the last race for 3.5-litre engines (the 1994 Australian Grand Prix, won by Nigel Mansell in a Williams-Renault).

A Renault engine also scored points for the 100th race in a row. However this is some way short of the record – Ford-Cosworth engines scored in 228 consecutive races from 1967 to 1983. Sunday’s race was the last for a Cosworth engine for the foreseeable future.

Lotus’s 38-race run in the points, which began at the first race of last year, came to an end.

Alonso still missing Brazil win

Alonso took his eighth podium finish in the Brazilian Grand Prix but remains yet to win this race. That gives him the rather undesirable record of taking the most podium finished in the same race without winning it.

This was also the first time Alonso has gone an entire season without starting a race from the front row since his debut campaign for Minardi in 2001.

McLaren had their best result of the year in Brazil thanks to Jenson Button’s fourth place. But they were unable to claim a podium before the end of the season, something they haven’t failed to do since 1980, the last year before Ron Dennis took charge of the team.

There was some cheer for McLaren, however. They became the first team in F1 history to have both their cars classified in every race and covered 11,488km out of a possible 11,584km during the races – 99.17%.

In a similar vein Max Chilton celebrated finishing all 19 races in his debut season, something which has never been done before.

Sergio Perez climbed 13 places to finish sixth in Brazil, the second-highest position improvement seen so far this year. The best was Romain Grosjean’s gain of 14 places in India. Paul di Resta also made up 13 places at the British Grand Prix.

Button also became the most experienced British driver of all time, starting his 247th grand prix, giving him one more than David Coulthard. Button has been present at 249 races but did not start the 2003 Monaco Grand Prix due to injury and the 2005 United States Grand Prix due to the withdrawal of Michelin runners on the first lap.

Review the year so far in statistics here:

Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Brazilian Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.

2013 Brazilian Grand Prix

Browse all 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix articles

Images © Red Bull/Getty, Marussia

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...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

72 comments on “Vettel matches Ascari and Schumacher with ninth win”

  1. This is what I noticed:

    – For the very first time, four ‘Red Bulls’ started from the top eight on the grid.

    – The podium VET-WEB-ALO occurred for the fifth time in history, after Japan 2010, Brazil 2010, Turkey 2011 and Korea 2012. I’ve have seen claims that this is now the most frequent podium in F1 history, but I haven’t found time to check this. At the 2010 Japanese Grand Prix, Jenson Button also finished fourth.

    – During Sebastian Vettel’s nine consecutive wins, Nico Rosberg managed to finish in every place between second and ninth.

    – Adrian Sutil’s 109 Grands Prix starts without a podium has moved him up into second on the all-time list. Pierluigi Martini still heads this list with 118 Grands Prix without a podium.

    2013 season stats:

    – Jenson Button ended his streak of four consecutive years with at least one 1) pole position 2) win 3) podium.

    – While Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso finished first and second in the championship, their teammates both failed to win a single race this year. The last time this happened was in 1972: Emerson Fittipaldi and Jackie Stewart finished one-two in the championship, while their teammates David Walker, Reine Wisell, François Cevert and Patrick Depailler failed to win a race that year.

    – Either Sebastian Vettel or Nico Rosberg started from the front row in all Grands Prix bar the Chinese GP. Also, every Grand Prix either saw Sebastian Vettel or Fernando Alonso on the podium.

    – Renault has won the V8 era: they scored 60 victories between 2006 and 2013. Mercedes finished second with 46 victories, and Ferrari managed 39 victories. Honda and BMW both scored one victory with the V8 engine.

    – Max Chilton finished last 12 out of 19 Grands Prix.

    1. Thank you Keith and Andae for the last stastic report of the year

      1. Nice one about Rosberg’s finishing positions in the last races.

        1. Nice one about Rosberg’s finishing positions in the last races.

          @andae23 Yes — how did you notice that?? I’d love to know something about your process for coming up with these stats!

          1. @aka_robyn I kinda came across that Rosberg stat by accident. But for most of them, it’s just looking at the results and wondering if there are oddities. And then figure out if your idea is correct (which in 90% of the cases it isn’t :P)

      2. Add my thanks as well. Always look forward to the stats and facts article on a Monday.

    2. Jenson Button ended his streak of four consecutive years with at least one 1) pole position 2) win 3) podium

      Wasn’t belguim 2012 his first pole for McLaren? So that means he didn’t get a pole position in 2010 and 2011

      1. @fjc10 I think Andae meant this is the first year without any of them. He got wins in 2010 and 2011 as well as podiums.

    3. @andae23 Again nice stats, good to see again.

      Also, thanks, once again to Keith for the final stats of the year. Love this feature.

    4. Renault also won the first and last race in the V8 era and in both races Button finished fourth -(saw this somewhere here on the site posted by someone else, but forgot where and who so I can’t give credits)

    5. Michael Brown (@)
      26th November 2013, 1:02

      A few more season stats:

      – For the second year in a row, Rosberg won a race before Hamilton

      – In Hamilton’s first season with a team, his teammate won a race before he did, but finished ahead of his teammate in the WDC

      – First time Vettel won the world championship without Michael Schumacher on the grid.

  2. Since Jim Clark in South Arica in 1968
    a driver was not the fastest lap in the last race.

    It was the 5th consecutive season with only Vettel, Alonso and Button in the first two positions of the championship

    With the title, Vettel is the only driver with the same car number next season.

    It was the 100th second place for car number 2.

    1. Thank you, very good stats! ;)

    2. Since Jim Clark in South Arica in 1968
      a driver was not the fastest lap in the last race.

      -i can make no sense of it, do you mean that the driver who won the last race of the season didn’t get the flap in it?

      1. I meant that Mark Webber set the fastest lap in Brazil in his last race just like Jim Clark in South Africa in 1968.

      2. A driver got the fastest lap in their last race I assume.

    3. With the title, Vettel is the only driver with the same car number next season.

      @erivaldonin I’m going to be picky, but technically, there are a few drivers who could have the same numbers. For example, if Hulkenburg was to go back to Force India, there’s a chance he could have the number 11 car again. But really, it’s a very good point you’ve made, and really what I’ve said should be ignored :P

      Also, I really like the 100th 2nd place for the number 2 car, a nice statistic there.

  3. Jelle van der Meer (@)
    25th November 2013, 17:18

    Vettel has scored most points in any season also has the biggest points gap between #1 and #2. In his career he has scored 61.61% of max available points
    Vettel is 3rd in leading a race from start to finish, he has 12 with MSC 11. First is Senna with 19 and 2nd is Clark with 13.
    Vettel is 3rd in longest distance led with 12,889km, 2nd is Senna with 13,430km and 1st is MSC with 24,148km
    Vettel was 6 points short of beating MSC 84.71% of possible point 2002 season.
    Vettel tied with Mansell in most wins from pole in a season, 9 times

    Not specific to Brazil but interesting still:
    • 103 drivers have won a race
    • 48 drivers have won same grand prix 2 times
    • 24 drivers have won same grand prix 3 times
    • 12 drivers have won same grand prix 4 times
    • 5 drivers have won same grand prix 5 times MSC (10x), Prost(UK, France & Brazil), Senna(US, Monaco & Belgium), Clark(UK) and G. Hill(Monaco)
    • 3 drivers have won same grand prix 6 times MSC (7x), Prost(Brazil), Senna(Monaco)
    • 1 drivers have won same grand prix 7 times MSC 4x (France, Japan, Canada & San Marino)
    • 1 drivers have won same grand prix 8 times MSC 2x (France & Japan)

    1. @jelle-van-der-meer
      104 drivers have won a race
      You must have left one out

    2. Vettel was 6 points short of beating MSC 84.71% of possible point 2002 season.

      In new or old money? I think I might check that to see of it changes things :)

      1. Jelle van der Meer (@)
        27th November 2013, 6:31

        Vettel in 2013 season and MSC 2002 season.
        If you translate MSC 2002 performance to 2013 point system he achieved more than 89% so quite a bit better.

  4. Ascari shouldn’t been considered an F1 champion, but an F2 champion. So all the comparisons with Vettel are meaningless.

    1. That really doesn’t matter.

    2. An interesting technicality, but it was the World Championship for grand prix single seaters nevertheless.

  5. Oh. I thought Chilton was celebrating finishing 19 out of 19 cars (plus 3 retirements). This makes a whole lot more sense now.

    1. Chilton certainly broke the record of driver who took more blue flag in the same season.

  6. * Mark Webber is the driver since Alain Prost to finish on the podium in his last race.
    * Webber is also the first team-mate of world champion not to win the race since Rubens Barrichello in 2001.
    * Lotus is the first team since 1970 (Brabham) to win first race of the season and not to win any more Grand Prix’s during the season. It was also done in 1966 by BRM and in 1967 by Cooper.
    * Kimi Räikkönen was 12th driver to win only the opening race. Previous one was Giancarlo Fisichella in 2005.

    1. Also besides Prost in 1993, Andretti finished his last race on podium also. I wonder who was before that?

      1. Due to sad circumstances, Alessandro Nannini in 1990 Spanish Grand Prix. It also occurred with Didier Pironi and Gilles Villeneuve in 1982.

        1. Jim Clark in 1968 also

        2. Luigi Fagioli’s only win was his last race. Farina was 3rd in the last race he started (he attended a later event but did not start the race). I think Ascari may have won his last ever non-championship GP.

  7. Pretty rubbish stat but Vettel took exactly 13 wins from the ’13 season! No one has ever won the title with the same amount of wins as the last two digits of that year and it’s doubtful it will ever happen again unless someone breaks the record for most amount of wins by 1 victory next year. Or it could be done again early next century. :)

    1. Jelle van der Meer (@)
      25th November 2013, 18:08

      Vettel had 11 wins in 2011

      1. He was the one who did it and 2 times

      2. Well now I look stupid! Can’t believe I forgot that.

        Vettel has the same number of wins in both of his dominant seasons as Schumacher had with his dominant seasons. (2011/2002 had 11 wins and 2013/2004 had 13 wins).

        1. Interesting how Vettel and Schumacher’s careers mirror each other.. We all know what happens next then.. Alonso wins two in a row, then kimi, then Hamilton…

    2. Vettel won in 2011 with 11 wins!

      So 15 wins in 2015?

      1. Or 99 wins in 2099?

        1. If Bernie has his way, there may actually be 99 races in 2099. Yes, there is a good chance that Bernie will still be alive and running F1 lol.

      2. Embrace yourself. 14 wins in 2014?

  8. Does Button’s count reflect also missing the 2005 Spanish GP and Monaco GP because the BAR was disqualified following the fuel-cell cheating thing at San Marino?

    1. He did not enter those races so so they aren’t counted as races he entered.

  9. In the 2013 season, McLaren scored only 12 points according to the “traditional” counting system 9-6-4-3-2-1, yielding only some 0.63 points per GP in the season. This is the single worst result since the team started to run two cars in 1968, the second worst result was in 1980, when they scored 11 points in 14 races for the average of 0.79 points per GP.

    If we calculate points per GP per driver, we get measly 0.32 points for the 2013 season, which is the single worst result for McLaren ever, even in their very first seasons they did better: 0.75 in 1966 and 0.5 in 1967.

  10. Heikki Kovalainen extended his record number of races without scoring a point to a mighty 62…
    Maybe he should join Mark Webber in the land of the rolling start.

    1. Maybe he should join Mark Webber in the land of the rolling start.

      Thank you! Finally I understand why Webber is moving to the WEC! @tomsk

    2. Haha brilliant.

  11. It occurred to me that, while Kovalainen’s Lotus performances were indeed disappointing, it’s actually quite unusual for stand in drivers to score points.

    So I did some calculations. Of the 33 drivers I counted who drove five or fewer races in a season going back to the turn of the century, only ten of them scored points:

    2003 – Gene, Williams, 5th place
    2003 – Sato, BAR, 6th place
    2004 – Glock, Jordan, 7th place
    2004 – Pizzonia, Williams, 7th place (x3)
    2005 – Pizzonia, Williams, 7th place
    2005 – De la Rosa, McLaren, 5th place
    2005 – Wurz, McLaren, 3rd place
    2005 – Liuzzi, Red Bull, 8th place
    2009 – Kobayashi, Toyota, 6th place
    2010 – Heidfeld, Sauber, 8th place
    (honourable mention also for Kubica, who took a podium in his six race BMW cameo in 2006)

    Obviously, it’s not entirely a fair comparison since many of these replacement drivers were with uncompetitive teams whereas Lotus were a match for anyone, besides Vettel. And of course there were fewer points scoring drivers in previous years too. So make of it what you will.

    1. I guess, as it was a one-off at the time, you could count Vettel’s first race too, standing in for Kubica at Sauber. Wasn’t de la Rosa second in Hungary for McLaren?

      1. I suppose, but he drove several races for Toro Rosso later that year so he passed my arbitrary five race threshold! And de la Rosa drove almost half a year for McLaren in 2006

    2. Right before 2000 Salo was able to notch some decent points in his 6-race stint for Ferrari. He was on the podium twice, iirc.

    3. I guess that almost all of those came from a time when testing was far less restricted. I know pre-season testing was severely cut down about 4 years ago, but when was in-season testing restricted and then stopped?

  12. FlyingLobster27
    25th November 2013, 20:29

    It’s not been as bad a season as some make it out to have been. A game of two halves: a very competitive first half with five different winners, and a second half effectively dominated by Vettel and RBR. Now a really boring season would have been the other way round, like 2002 or 2004 when Schumacher won so many races at the start of the season that he was crowned by August.
    With that in mind, I’ve just drawn up what the season would have looked like if the results been run backwards in time, i.e. Vettel winning the first nine races of the year. And that looks like a classic dominator’s season: start strong and take care of the advantage later on.
    To the point where, while Vettel was effectively champion with three races to go, he would have had FIVE races in hand (crowned at Monaco of all places) if the season had been run backwards.

    1. I am not sure it makes the season much better that there are worse ones in history to point out. But you are right; in the beginning of 2013 Vettel / Red Bull almost had competition, then got the tires changed because some teams had been too “lucky” and never had to fear anything since then. Great stuff!

      Even as a massive Senna fan I found some of those dominant periods to be too predictable and yet I am supposed to be in awe of the SVRB brilliance.

      (Ans now watch my comment getting removed….)

  13. First season in which Kovalainen has not managed a top 13 finish.

    Second season in a row in which Lotus has been the only team to make a driver change.

    First season in which Hamilton has only managed 1 win.

    First time that Hulkenberg has raced at Interlagos and not led at any point.

    di Resta’s last 5 starts – 12-12-11-11-12.

    Second time in 3 seasons that Williams have scored exactly 5 points, 1 of which was scored by Maldonado.

    In his 3 seasons to date, Ricciardo has scored 0, 10 and 20 points. Somehow I fear he will score more than 30 next year…

    Alonso, Raikkonen and Webber between them finished 2nd in all bar 3 races this year.

    And some from magnetimarelli.com:

    Vettel’s pole lap was the slowest ever at Interlagos.

    In each of the last 3 odd numbered years, Ferrari have managed no poles and 1 second-place start.

    5 2nd-places for Webber in 2013 without a win – equals Patrick Depailler in 1976, and trails Francois Cevert in 1973 (6 2nd-places in his final season, albeit for a different reason to Webber).

    19 consecutive races finished outside the points by Chilton – equals Kovalainen from last year.

    Vettel scored more points in 2013 than the second-placed team – last driver to manage this was Schumacher in 2004.

    1. I assume you’re using the current layout of Interlagos when saying Vettel’s pole lap was the slowest ever, or the average speed?

    2. Interesting point about the last 3 odd numbered years. In fact going back a decade Ferrari have tended to have much worse odd years than even.

      2003 – Rule changes to try to stop Schumacher’s dominance led to him only just winning the WDC
      2005 – More rule changes and a complete flop of a car winning only the 6 car race at Indy
      2007 – McLaren should have walked 1st and 2nd in the championship but infighting and poor tactics handed the WDC to Ferrari (to be fair McLaren were cheating!)
      2009 – More rule changes, another dog of a Ferrari with Raikkonen winning only once,helped by accidents and a safety car on his ‘special’ track.
      2011 & 2013 – Ferrari trounced by Vettel/Red Bull

      In the even numbered years from 2000 Ferrari have either won the WDC (dominating in 2002 and 2004) or taken second place after taking the fight down to the wire.

  14. Lewis Hamilton has kept up his record where he is the only F1 driver to win a race in every Formula 1 season he has competed in.

    1. This can be extended to vettel as well if you say full seasons

      1. And Fangio (although technically he never raced a full season anyway because of Indy, discounting Indy he had many complete seasons plus a few lone races at the end of his career), Ascari (he only had 2 complete seasons, again excluding Indy), Hawthorn, Moss (who can be counted whether you discount Indy or not, on account of 1961 not including Indy) etc. Probably several more drivers from the ’50s in particular. Prost and Senna too despite very nearly having complete, winless seasons. These days it is of course more difficult due to virtually all drivers starting in weaker cars and being committed to full seasons in them, so, even if there are loads of drivers who have won in all of their full seasons, Vettel being counted among them is impressive nevertheless. Schumacher is a recent driver who ruined being counted due to his comeback.

  15. For the third season in a row, the winner of the British Grand Prix didn’t win another race in that season (Alonso, Webber and Rosberg).

    1. @deej92 Rosberg won Monaco this year

      1. @sato113 I meant they didn’t win another race after winning the British Grand Prix.

    2. Webber won monaco in 2012

  16. The first time since 1992 that all of the podium places are taken by the top 4 constructors in a single season.

  17. Car numbers 1, 2 and 3 finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd in order for the first time since Spain 1999.

    1. Good spot!

    2. Nice and hard to believe given that there were seven VET-WEB 1-2s over the last three years, and the many more Ferrari 1-2s at the beginning of the century. But it was indeed always the “wrong” driver in the third spot.

  18. Jelle van der Meer (@)
    26th November 2013, 10:07

    The current streak of races without a new Grand Prix winner is the 5th longest in history. It will be the longest streak if there is no new winner by the Russian GP (15th race of new calendar)
    Next year most likely new winners could be Romain Grosjean, Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Hulkenberg or Kevin Magnussen all the other drivers in top 5 teams have already won a race before.

    48 Germany 2009 Mark Webber China 2012 Nico Rosberg
    44 Japan 1989 Alessandro Nannini Belgium 1992 Michael Schumacher
    43 Monaco 2004 Jarno Trulli Hungary 2006 Jenson Button
    36 Mexico 1986 Gerhard Berger Canada 1989 Thierry Boutsen
    34 Spain 2012 Pastor Maldonado
    32 United States 1982 Michele Alboreto Portugal 1985 Ayrton Senna

  19. A new record for Seb Vettel no one seems to have noticed: Now he is in the top three of points (equalised, i.e. modern)/race. It had not changed since the fifties, with the first 3 WDC winners on top
    Juan Manuel Fangio is first with 17.12
    Alberto Ascari is second with 13.94
    Nino Farina was third with 13.55

    But now Seb has 13. 72, outscoring Farina, and Ascari seems reachable, it will be quite difficult for him to outscore the great Fangio, however.

    I am not counting Lee Wallard, with 33 modern points (one win, one 6th) in only 2 races: 16.5/race started, but both were Indy 500. Counting him, Seb still has to outscore Ascari to get in the top 3.

    1. For the record, Seb already outscored Nino after the previous race (winning at Austin he went from 13.53 to 13.62) but I didn’t notice it then.

  20. Amazing stats. Thank you all.

Comments are closed.