Rosberg sets fastest ‘fastest lap’ since 1996

2014 Belgian Grand Prix stats and facts

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Daniel Ricciardo is now a three-times race winner. That means he’s won as many races as at least two world champions – Mike Hawthorn (1958) and Phil Hill (1961).

Ricciardo remains the only driver to have capitalised on the dramas at Mercedes to score a win of his own this year. The upshot is he has now won 25% of the races this year despite leading just 9.6% of the laps raced.

Ricciardo also gave Red Bull their 50th F1 win, and scored the 38th for an Australian driver. That means Australians have now won as many F1 race as Argentinians have.

He’s also been in the points for the last ten races in a row. Only Fernando Alonso has a long streak at the moment, having scored in the last 15 rounds.

Following his setback earlier in the race, Nico Rosberg fell short in his attempt to catch and pass Ricciardo, but did add another pole position and fastest lap to his tally. He now has 11 poles and nine fastest laps – the latter putting him level with Jacques Villeneuve, Denny Hulme and Ronnie Peterson.

Sunday’s race must rank as one of the biggest missed opportunities by a team in F1. The Mercedes cars were over two seconds faster than their rivals in qualifying, and Rosberg’s fastest race lap was 1.902 seconds faster than the next best. Not since the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix, when Michael Schumacher lapped 2.218s faster than any of his closest pursuers, has any driver been that much quicker than his rivals in a race.

For all the intrigue and innuendo surrounding his collision with Lewis Hamilton, the salient detail as far as Rosberg is concerned is he left Belgium with a 29-point lead over his team mate.

With a win currently worth 25 points (double points season finale notwithstanding), Rosberg’s lead is the equivalent of 1.16 wins. Under the 2003-09 points system he would be leading by 1.5 wins, and using the points system before that his lead would be 0.9 wins. You can compare more points systems and work out how the championship could be decided using the updated Points Calculator:

No champion on the podium

Valtteri Bottas took third place after a late pass on Kimi Raikkonen. This was significant, as it meant there was no world champion on the podium.

This last happened at the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix, when Mark Webber led home eventual champion Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica. This year’s Australian Grand Prix was a champion-free podium, but Ricciardo’s disqualification promoted Jenson Button to third in the final classification.

Raikkonen at least enjoyed his best result of the year so far – fourth – and finished in front of his team mate for the first time this season, becoming the last driver in the field to do so this year – with one obvious exception.

That would be Andre Lotterer, who made a surprise F1 debut in place of Kamui Kobayashi, though he completed only one lap before his Caterham broke down.

Lotterer became the first driver to contest a round of the Formula One world championship using the number 45. Brian McGuire used the number at the 1977 British Grand Prix but failed to get through pre-qualifying. Aside from that, the number appeared on several occasions at the Indianapolis 500 in the fifties, which counted towards the world championship but were not Formula One races.

Making his debut at the age of 32 years and 287 days, Lotterer was the oldest rookie in an F1 field since Giovanni Lavaggi started the 1995 German Grand Prix for Pacific, aged 37 years and 191 days.

Lotterer impressed by comprehensively out-qualifying team mate Marcus Ericsson. He lined up 21st on the grid, three places behind Nico Hulkenberg who started from the second-lowest grid position of his career. The only time he started lower than 18th was at the 2012 Italian Grand Prix, where he lined up 24th after has broke broke down during qualifying.

Review the year so far in statistics here:

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

2014 Belgian Grand Prix

Browse all 2014 Belgian Grand Prix articles

Images © Daimler/Hoch Zwei, Red Bull/Getty

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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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51 comments on “Rosberg sets fastest ‘fastest lap’ since 1996”

  1. * Since practice-only drivers started in 2003, Alexander Rossi became the first driver to do so for two different teams in one season
    * For the first time since Indian GP last year, there was no grid penalties for any driver

    1. @bleu I would love to see more of that second stat.

  2. No world champions on the podium – but potentially three future world champions?

    As far as the WDC is concerned:
    Rosberg can guarantee winning the WDC with 1 win and 6 runner-up places in the last 7 races if the win is at Abu Dhabi.
    Rosberg could therefore win the WDC with 5 wins to Hamilton’s 11.
    Hamilton needs 6 wins (including Abu Dhabi) and 1 runner-up finish to guarantee winning the WDC. If Hamilton doesn’t win Abu Dhabi he needs to rely on Rosberg dropping points to other drivers (or unreliability).

    (sorry this maybe should have gone in the ‘points’ article but i missed it).

  3. André Lotterer is the first driver to debut at the Belgian GP since Philippe Adams in 1994
    Lotterer is the second driver with less Kms raced in F1 history. (7 kms)
    1 km less than the Swedish Bertil Roos and the Dutch Ben Pon
    the record is the Italian Marco APICELLA that ran around 800 meters in the 1993 Italian

    GP100th Grands Prix in points for Sebastian Vettel

    First time since the 1986 Australian GP car # 10 not lined up on the grid

    two Finns drivers in the top 4. first time since the European GP 2009

    André Lotterer is the 324th driver who retired in the racing debut

    Five German drivers on the grid.
    the last time was in 2012 Brazilian GP

    1. Lotterer stopped at the pitlane entry, so it is nearly 14 km :)

      1. @ sigman1998 Lotterer é o piloto com menos Kms corrido se contarmos apenas as voltas completas,

        1. ColdFly F1 (@)
          25th August 2014, 17:14

          @erivaldonin
          but how did Apicella get 800m then? only counting finished laps.

          great stats though – obrigado.

          1. Apicella was involved in a pile-up in the first corner in that race. And that was his F1 carreer. here’s an interesting bit of reading about Apicella’s F1 carreer if some people here are interested:
            http://www.f1rejects.com/drivers/apicella/index.html

  4. Mr win or lose
    25th August 2014, 13:38

    Sunday’s race must rank as one of the biggest missed opportunities by a team in F1. The Mercedes cars were over two seconds faster than their rivals in qualifying, and Rosberg’s fastest race lap was 1.902 seconds faster than the next best.

    Speaking about missed opportunities: Sutil was hugely underperforming. Only 14th with the second-fastest car.

    1. Second-fastest car?

  5. Sunday’s race must rank as one of the biggest missed opportunities by a team in F1. The Mercedes cars were over two seconds faster than their rivals in qualifying, and Rosberg’s fastest race lap was 1.902 seconds faster than the next best. Not since the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix, when Michael Schumacher lapped 2.218s faster than any of his closest pursuers, has any driver been that much quicker than his rivals in a race.

    Would be interesting to see this stat as a percentage, since Spa is a much longer track than Spain.

    1. The “problem” with this stat is that the Spanish GP was wet (and I’m too lazy to search for the previous largest gap between fastest laps in a dry race).

    2. It isn’t an all too interesting stat if you ask me. Rosberg was charging hard to try and get Ricciardo, while Ricciardo was holding a very steady pace in order to make the tires last.
      With a short last stint on options, I have no doubt he would have been massively quicker than the consistent 1:53’s he was pulling off.

    3. Surprising the F2002 wasn’t 2sec ahead at some races.

  6. Under the new “personal-driver-numbers”-system, 45 is the first number to be used by multiple drivers (Rossi in Canada FP1, Lotterer in Belgium).

    Rossi also became the first driver under this system that used multiple numbers (excluding No. 1 for the WDC): 45 in Canada FP1 and 46 in Belgium FP1.

    1. Quite fitting that he got #46, as that is also used by the other, more famous mr. Rossi :)

    2. Rossi used 42 in Belgium :)

      1. Indeed you are correct, just typed the comment above from my mobile at work, guess I got a little mixed up.
        For clarification: #46 was used by Robin Frijns in Bahrain FP1 and Silverstone FP1. Still quite awesome how long those “permanent numbers for the duration of their careers” seem to last…

  7. Andre Lotterer is the oldest driver to make their 1st Grand Prix start since Giovanni Lavaggi in 1996. Allan McNish in 2002 was slightly younger.

    1. @walsh-F1 Should have remember to include that as I did tweet it before the race! Have added it now.

  8. Three drivers who are not champion at the moment, but have all the credentials to be champions in the future. I’ve been monumentally impressed with Ricciardo.

    Andre Lotterer made a sudden debut with a team racing in green, at Spa, outqualified the regular driver by a big amount, and his race ended due to a mechanical problem early in the race. Sounds familiar. Both also raced at Le Mans that year for a team powered by a German engine. However, it doesn’t look likely that Lotterer’s career will go the same way. Lotterer also became the first German to race for his team, as did Schumacher.

    It was the first time since the 2003 Belgian Grand Prix (Williams) I believe that a team had a well over 1.5s advantage in qualifying with both cars but failed to convert that into victory.

    First time an Australian has won back-to-back races since Mark Webber won the 2010 Spanish and Monaco Grand Prix. It’s also the second time that former Formula Renault rivals Ricciardo and Bottas have stood on the podium together. This also happened at Silverstone this year.

    First time that Kimi Raikkonen has finished fourth since his comeback (2009 Japanese Grand Prix). He did finish fourth on the road at Hockenheim in 2012 but Vettel’s penalty gifted Kimi some silverware.

    Lotus have overtaken Toro Rosso as the team with the most retirements due to a technical problem. They have 10, five each (and a DNS for Maldonado).

    Kevin Magnussen has joined Jules Bianchi and Maldonado as joint leader in the “Naughty step World Championship”, with four points.

    Valtteri Bottas now has four victories for cars with an ‘extension’ (Williams, McLaren, Force India, Lotus, Toro Rosso, Caterham, Marussia, Sauber). He’s overtaken Hulkenberg who has three victories. Magnussen, Perez, Button and Massa have one victory each.

    1. @craig-o It’s probably because I’m not English but I don’t understand the last one.

      1. Neither do I..

        1. @xtwl @alexanderfin There are several cars with things on the end of their noses this year. Whether it looks like an alien, an anteater, or a part of a male’s body. Basically if you exclude those cars without one (the Mercedes, the Ferrari and the Red Bull) then those drivers would have the race wins this year.

          1. ColdFly F1 (@)
            25th August 2014, 18:08

            @craig-o – I though RB had the ‘extension’ as well, just camouflaged with black paint (smartly done).

          2. @craig-o Doesn’t the Red Bull have one too? It’s just very well hidden with the paint job?

          3. @xtwl it’s sort of more of a hoop than anything…

        2. The extension is in the name, as in McLaren-Mercedes, Williams-Mercedes and Force India-Mercedes. In other words, it’s a constructor which does not manufacture its own engine.

    2. Oh, spotted another one. Daniel Ricciardo has had the same number of race victories as the two Mercedes drivers combined in the last six races.

      1. And Rosberg, Hamilton, Ricciardo and Bottas have had four podiums in the last six races.

  9. Not since the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix, when Michael Schumaocher lapped 2.218s faster than any of his closest pursuers

    This (and other performances of course) is why Schumacher will always be the best ever in F1 for me. What he did that day in that Ferrari was… Unbelievable.

    1. This performance in Spain in this Ferrari-bus, the best qual time in Monaco 2012, the Hungarian GP where he clinched title in 2000 going 12 laps in qual speed, the Spa 1998 where even if collided with Coulthard, he lapped McLaren in the wet in Spa (a huge laptime) although they had the best car by miles. And many more which I need to search a bit to remeber, make the Legend! I hope he fully recovers and he drives again, even if not racing.

  10. For the first time this season the fastest lap of the race was faster than the fastest lap of the race previously held on that track. (for Hockenheim it was the 2012 race and Red Bull Ring the 2003 race)

    Valtteri Bottas became only the second Williams driver to score more than 100 points during a single season. The other one is Nigel Mansell, who scored 108 points in 1992. This also means that, with 110 points, Bottas has scored more points during a season than any other Williams driver has, helped massively by the current points scoring system of course.

    It’s the first time since 2008 Canadian GP, than none of the World Champions currently on the grid (Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso, Räikkönen, Button) were on the podium.

    It’s the second time that three drivers with Finnish nationality finish the race in successive positions. The other occation was in 2009 European GP when Kimi Räikkönen finished 3rd, Heikki Kovalainen 4th and Nico Rosberg 5th.

    Williams has now scored points in 12 consecutive races, the last time they did so was between 2004 Italian GP and 2005 Canadian GP. The last time they scored points in 12 or more consecutive races during a single season was in 2003, when they scored in the 15 first races of the season.

    Andre Lotterer became the first driver since Daniel Ricciardo to make his F1 debut mid-season. Ricciardo made his debut for HRT in 2011 British GP.

    This was Kimi Räikkönen’s fourth 4th place for ferrari.

    During their time as teammates, both Rosberg and Hamilton have won 6 races, been on the podium 14 times, retired 4 times and points are pretty equal 391 to 380 in Rosberg’s advantage. Rosberg also has 10 poles to Hamilton’s 9.

  11. This last happened at the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix, when Mark Webber led home eventual champion Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica.

    But when was the last time there was a podium with no champions past, present or future? Canada 2008 I imagine (assuming of course Robert Kubica doesn’t make a miraculous title winning return).

    I wonder how many such podiums there have been over the last couple of decades. Off the top of my head I can think of a few, like Germany and Europe 2003, Monaco 2000 and 1996, but the majority came in 1999: Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy and Europe).

    Of course, you’d have to say it’s looking pretty unlikely that yesterday’s podium trio will fail to produce a champion in the future!

    1. “But when was the last time there was a podium with no champions past, present or future?”
      The latter was the GP of San Marino 1982
      1-Didier Pironi / Ferrari
      2-Gilles Villeneuve / Ferrari
      3 Michele Alboreto / Tyrrell
      this is 100 percent without champions of the past, present or future
      because they have already died

    2. @ned-flanders
      2008 Canadian Grand Prix
      Robert Kubica – Nick Heidfeld – David Coulthard

      We also had quite a few Montoya/Ralf/Rubens/DC podiums in 2001.

  12. Hamilton and Rosberg have yet to succesfully overtake each other on track after T1 of L1.

    1. Not correct. Bahrain.

    2. Canada, Hamilton overtook Rosberg on track before retiring.

    3. @xtwl is right. In Bahrain there never was a successful attempt for an overtake, and in Canada Hamilton overtook in the pitstops. :)

  13. Rosberg sets fastest ‘fastest lap’ since 1996????
    Can you explain the title of the article as it is not further described in the article

    1. See paragraph six.

  14. Lindsay Lohan is my girlfriend (@lindsay-lohan-is-my-girlfriend)
    25th August 2014, 19:10

    is Andre Lotterer the first reigning Le Mans overall champion to start a race in Formula 1 since Yannick Dalmas 1994 (Portuguese GP for Larrousse)?

    And the last time a driver got a penalty for his pit crew not clearing the grid in time: Ralf Schumacher in Spa 2001?

    1. For the latter I remember Trulli in Nurburgring in his Toyota days and Ide in Bahrain 2006. Ralf didn’t get any additional penalty since team elected to start from the back of the grid.

    2. Seems so. Blundell and Warwick both did the same thing 1 year before (in terms of when they raced in F1 rather than when they won Le Mans), having won in 1992 and competed in F1 in 1993 while still reigning winners. 1991 winners Herbert and Gachot did likewise, and Brundle after 1990. Interestingly, there was quite a gap before that little cluster where plenty of past or intermittent F1 drivers won, but none raced F1 as reigning Le Mans winners. Pironi in ’78 was then the previous driver to do so, with Ickx in ’77, ’76 and ’75, Pescarolo in ’74, ’73 and’72, Larrousse in ’73 and Graham Hill in ’72. I can’t be bothered to go back further, but, from what I know about drivers competing more widely back then, I can only assume that it was commonplace. The 2 distinct gaps are quite interesting.

  15. Most cars overtaken during the formation lap? Alonso made a good attempt.

  16. Spa is the first track that Ricciardo has scored more than 25 points at.

    Raikkonen’s 1000th point.

    All of Ricciardo’s wins have come in races where Vettel outqualified him and was still racing at the finish.

    And some more from magnetimarelli.com:

    Biggest gap between 1st and 3rd on the grid since Belgium 2001 (2.613). Curiously, on that occasion one team (Williams) locked out the front row but failed to win the race.

    Biggest gap between 2nd and 3rd on the grid since San Marino 1988 (2.581s).

    First Belgian GP in which Rosberg lost a place on lap 1, and the first race in which he has done so since China.

    First time Alonso has been classified lower than 4th in Belgium.

    Hamilton’s last 7 Belgian GPs have seen 3 podiums and 4 collision-related DNFs.

  17. Third time l have seen a driver booed on the podium. All were German and all were leading the WDC. (Watching since 1996)

    1. Third different driver l should say

  18. I am not a Rosberg hater but was surprised to see an incident that destroyed someone’s race not even investigated by the Stewards (as opposed to investigated but no action taken). At least it wasn’t obvious from the TV feed whether any investigation took place.
    I cannot recall the last time this happened but have not thought too long about it.

  19. Ricciardo has now won 25% of the races this year despite leading just 9.6% of the laps raced.

    Ricciardo is the new Mick Doohan

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