Rosberg gets first hat-trick as Ferrari’s finishing streak ends

2015 Mexican Grand Prix stats and facts

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Nico Rosberg took his fifth pole position of the year in Mexico but converted it into victory for just the second time this season. He also took the fastest lap, giving him the first ‘hat-trick’ of his career so far.

Rosberg’s 12th career victory which is an interesting milestone for the son of 1982 world champion Keke Rosberg. He now has as many wins as 1980 world champion Alan Jones, Carlos Reutemann and Mario Andretti. These were his father’s predecessor and first two team mates at Williams in his championship-winning year. It’s also Jones’s birthday today – he’s 69.

Pole position number 20 puts Rosberg level with Damon Hill. This was Rosberg’s fourth pole position in a row – he’ll set a new personal best if he taken another in the next race at Interlagos.

Rosberg’s win means Lewis Hamilton can no longer equal the record for most victories in a season this year. However the tenth one-two for Mercedes means they can beat their own record from last year if they repeat the result in the final two rounds.

Had the Mercedes drivers enjoyed perfect reliability in the races this year, the drivers’ championship would probably still be open. Assuming Rosberg had finished third at Monza, Hamilton had beaten him to fourth at Singapore and Rosberg had stayed ahead at Sochi, Hamilton would have a 40-point lead with two races remaining.

Ferrari’s finishing streak ends

It was a dreadful race for Ferrari: for the first time since the 2006 Australian Grand Prix neither of their drivers were classified, and for the first time since the 2009 Australian Grand Prix neither was still running at the end.

How many points Ferrari’s second driver has scored as a percentage of the other driver’s haul:

YearDriver%Compared to
2011Felipe Massa45.9Fernando Alonso
2012Felipe Massa43.9Fernando Alonso
2013Felipe Massa46.3Fernando Alonso
2014Kimi Raikkonen34.2Fernando Alonso
2015Kimi Raikkonen49.0*Sebastian Vettel

Kimi Raikkonen’s fifth no-score of the year means he is now likely to end the season with less than half of his team mate’s points tally. This will be the fifth year in a row this has happened at Ferrari (see table), continuing a trend which began when Felipe Massa was at the team.

Despite posting his first non-classification of the year, Sebastian Vettel has still covered the most racing laps of any driver this year, and is the first to pass one thousand. The Lotus pair have the least of any drivers who have entered every race: Pastor Maldonado 707 and Romain Grosjean 732.

McLaren’s miserable season continued as Jenson Button amassed a record 70-place grid penalty after moving onto his 12th power unit components of the season – three times more than the original allocation of four per driver (later increased to five for newcomers Honda).

McLaren drivers have now received a total of 285 places of grid penalties over the course of the year. The other nine teams combined have had 336, including zero for Mercedes and Williams.

Along with his team mate Fernando Alonso and Raikkonen, Button was one of three world champions occupying the last three-places on the grid. The first three retirements in the race were also all champions: Alonso, Raikkonen and Vettel.

Nico Hulkenberg joined Raikkonen on his second reprimand of the year, leaving both at risk of a ten-place grid penalty if they pick up a third.

Review the year so far in statistics here:

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

2015 Mexican Grand Prix

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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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36 comments on “Rosberg gets first hat-trick as Ferrari’s finishing streak ends”

  1. Vettel and Nasr retiring from this race means that no driver has participated in every race this season and has not had a non-classification. It was in fact Vettel’s first retirement since Austria last year.

    Max Verstappen has equalled the best points run for a Toro Rosso driver. A certain German achieved five consecutive points finishes in 2008, however this was part of a run of seven top-ten finishes in the final seven races of the season.

    Pastor Maldonado’s personal best points streak of three races has come to an end.

    Force India appears set for its best championship result since the Jordan days. However their personal best total from last year of 155 (141 if Abu Double is treated as one race) is unlikely to be beaten.

    Nico Rosberg may have lost the insignificant FIA Pole Position trophy at Belgium, but the equally insignificant DHL Fastest Lap is still up for grabs. It’s currently 6-5 to Hamilton.

  2. Both Ferraris have retired from this year’s Mexican Grand Prix. Same thing has happened at the two previous Mexican grand prix.

    1. On a similar note Bottas *only* finishing in third puts an end to Williams’ unbeaten run at the Mexican GP which stretches back to 1991.

      Also ends the run for Newey designed cars with Renault engines.

  3. Vettel, Hamilton, Rosberg, Alonso and Ricciardo had won the last 54 races
    This is the longest period of five drivers winning; Piquet, Senna, Prost, Mansell and Berger won the 53 races between Brazil 1986 and USA 1989

    First time in history, two countries win 24 races in a row.
    Before this season, Great Britain and USA had won 23 races from Belgium 1962 to Germany 1964

    In the last 28 races two countries made the pole position,
    the record is 41 set by USA and Great Britain from Netherlands 1962 to Belgium 1966

    5th podium for Hamilton, Rosberg and Bottas together.
    35th podium for Great Britain, Germany and Finland together.

    81st GP with WDC already decided

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      2nd November 2015, 18:16

      impressive and interesting stat @erivaldonin

    2. @erivaldonin Also 54 races without a British Constructor winning a race…has there been a longer losing period for British Constructors (looks like possibly from inception of WC until first British constructor win in 1957? – can’t think of any significant periods since then).

      1. @jerseyf1 also 54 races with 3 winners constructors (Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari).
        8th time this happened. the last time was between Japan 1999 and malaysia 2003.
        the longest period is 58, between Japan 1990 and Britain 1994 (Mclaren, Benetton and Williams).

      2. “losing period for British constructors” being a relative term given that Mercedes chassis and engines are built at their bases in Brackley and Brixworth respectively and that Red Bull are based in Milton Keynes.

        1. @geemac Doesn’t really matter as they don’t race under that flag. Whether they import all their stuff from China or let it being assembled in Vietnam it still is Austrian or German.

          1. Couldn’t agree more, I am simply pointing out that a team’s nationality actually means very little. it is just another tool at the marketing bods these days. Take Benetton for example, they raced as a British team and an Italian team during their history, only to hand the reigns over to the French.

            And, if you want to get really technical on Red Bull, you could argue they are Thai…

      3. That’s highly debatable; aside from Ferrari they are all British constructors under funky names.

    3. Fantastic stat, @erivaldonin, a well earned COTD!
      Jumping on the bandwagon a bit late, I’ve compared it with other ongoing win-sharing streaks.
      If my notes are correct, the Malaysian MotoGP two weekends ago also marked the 54th in an ongoing series of races won by… only 4 riders! Make it 5, and you go back way further: Assen 2011 was the last time someone who isn’t Lorenzo, Pedrosa, Stoner, Marquez or Rossi won a race. That was 81 races ago! And in the last 145 races, only the big five have been multiple race winners, with just two flashes in the pan: Dovizioso and Spies.
      In comparison, the WRC has seen at least one new winner a year for the last four years (Ostberg, Sordo, Neuville, Meeke and Mikkelsen), despite Loeb, Ogier and Latvala cleaning up 45 of the last 51 rallies.

      1. And in fact, Loeb, Ogier, Latvala and Hirvonen share all but 5 (those 5 recent new winners) of the last 109 rallies! That’s going back to when Grönholm raced!

  4. ‘Along with his team mate Fernando Alonso and Raikkonen, Button was one of three world champions occupying the last three-places on the grid. The first three retirements in the race were also all champions: Alonso, Raikkonen and Vettel.’

    first time this has ever happened?

    1. this had already happened once.
      1978 Belgian GP : Emerson Fittipaldi, James Hunt and Niki LAUDA.
      retirements of 3 world champions is the 5th time

      1. yes but FIRST three retirements in a race all being champions? I’m not so sure.

        1. @sato113 1978 Belgian GP (see link above)
          the champions:
          Emerson Fittipaldi 1972/74
          James Hunt 1976
          Niki LAUDA 1975/77

  5. Top speed of 227 mph during the weekend – fastest since Monza 2005?

  6. Ferrari’s first double DNF since Australia 2006. Interestingly enough, none of the DNF’s in either Mexico 2015 or Australia 2006 had anything to do with car reliability, but rather driver errors.

    Another parallel between Australia 2006 and Mexico 2015:
    At Mexico 2015, the #1 Ferrari driver (Vettel) lost control and crashed by himself, while the #2 Ferrari driver (Raikkonen) collided with a Williams (Bottas).
    At Australia 2006, the #1 Ferrari driver (Schumacher) lost control and crashed by himself, while the #2 Ferrari driver (Massa) collided with a Williams (Rosberg).

    1. @kingshark great spots. One more (almost) parallel – Jenson Button was having trouble with a Honda engine at Australia 2006 too.

  7. Max Verstappen has the longest point streak for a Dutch F1 driver.

  8. The first time Vettel has crashed out a race in over 5 years (2010 Turkish Grand Prix).

    The top three in the championship have the same number of wins as at this stage last year (Hamilton 10, Rosberg 4, third place driver 3).

    Mercedes can still beat their tally of 701 points from last year by 2 points, despite last year’s score having 25 extra points due to Abu Double.

    If Hamilton wins one of the remaining 2 races, he will end the year on 44 wins. Daniel Ricciardo also has the same number of wins as his driver number.

    Rosberg might have lost the title and the pole trophy, but he can still get the fastest lap trophy, but only if he sets the fastest lap in the 2 remaining races to overhaul his teammate.

    Hamilton can no longer beat Vettel’s record points tally of 397 from 2 years ago. He can beat Vettel’s total of 392 from 2011 by three points.

    Ricciardo has had exactly one collision with each of the top six in the championship. He finished ahead of them in all six cases.

    Alex Rossi is yet to finish behind his teammate in an F1 race.

    1. “Ricciardo has had exactly one collision with each of the top six in the championship. He finished ahead of them in all six cases”

      yeah, man, that RedBull is a tank. kudos to them for that.

    2. End of a streak for Vettel. He now holds the record of most consecutive races without a DNF caused by crash: 106 races. That’s like twice the number of any other driver by the way.

  9. Perez held his position despite ending the race on 53-lap-old tyres.

    While impressive, this is not exactly very unique. Can anybody tell the most laps done (with out without ending in a puncture etc.) with same tires in modern F1 or even from the older times?

    1. @square-route every race in 2005, when they weren’t allowed tyre changes, so whichever has the most laps – Monaco 78 laps?

      There may be others from further back in time though, as pit stops were a rarity in the early days – you could probably have had a cup of tea in the time it took to change tyres :)

      1. @ginja42 Was that not the entire weekend though? So in fact, it would have been 84 laps across the weekend (two lots of three laps for the combined Super Pole used back at the start of 2005)

        However Monaco used to be 100 laps, and the Indianapolis 500 200 laps. But I would assume that Indy would have had refuelling in races back then.

        1. @craig-o good point, I totally forgot about the tyres lasting all weekend!!

          And, yeah, the races in the 50s and 60s were much longer, so without pitstops it would be interesting to know the most laps ever raced on a set in F1 – I think it is fair to say it will never be beaten, whatever it is!!

    2. The two that immediately spring to mind in modern F1 are Rosberg in Russia last year (52 laps on a single set) and Vettel at the 2010 Italian GP (also 52 laps on a single set).

      It wasn’t uncommon for drivers to go the whole race on a single set in the “old days”, famous examples being Gerhard Berger winning the 1986 Mexican GP on a single set (68 laps) and Senna winning the 1992 Monaco GP on a single set (78 laps).

    3. Thanks a lot @ginja42 and @geemac. :)

    4. Didn’t Paul Di Resta do some ridiculous amount of laps on the soft in India?

  10. This is the fifth time, Hamilton,Rosberg and Bottas have appeared on the podium together. Vettel, Hamilton and Rosberg have appeared ten times together. The record of the most common podium for the last ten years is Vettel,Webber and Alonso who appeared on the podium together for 13 times. I wonder is there any way we can figure out the most common podium since 1950.

    1. Since 1950 the most common podium is Vettel, Webber and Alonso (13) completing the top four;
      Mika Häkkinen Michael SCHUMACHER David COULTHARD (12)
      Vettel, Hamilton and Rosberg (10)
      Rubens Barrichello Michael Schumacher David COULTHARD (8)

  11. Mercedes’ 51st pole – equals Renault in 6th place.

    The drivers who started 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th all finished in those positions (but there were different drivers starting and finishing 3rd).

    Perez now has his most points in a season, beating the 66 he managed in 2012.

    Vettel’s DNF means that Verstappen is the only driver to have scored points in each of the last 5 races.

    First time since Austria 2014 that Vettel has not been classified.

    And some from magnetimarelli.com:

    First German driver to start from the front row in Mexico.

    Mercedes’ 13th front-row lockout this year – a new record.

    3rd consecutive race that both Force Indias have started in the top 10 – first time ever.

    Mercedes totally dominated the race (just as they did in Austria and Belgium): front-row lockout, led entire race, scored fastest lap, other driver scored next fastest lap, 1-2 in race.

    27th different track at which Hamilton has finished on the podium – equals M Schumacher, trails Prost (29).

    First time since Hungary-Turkey 2006 that Raikkonen has had 2 consecutive non-mechanical DNFs.

  12. Only wish there was an f1 fanatic app…. Would really love to see that

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