Rosberg becomes eighth driver to win five in a row

2016 Bahrain Grand Prix stats and facts

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Win number 16 for Nico Rosberg means he has now taken as many grand prix victories as Stirling Moss. In terms of race wins, the pair are the most successful drivers of all time never to have won a world championship. Both scored their first wins with Mercedes but while that was Moss’s only victory for the team all of Rosberg’s victories have come for the three-pointed star.

Rosberg marked the tenth anniversary of his F1 debut by winning the Bahrain Grand Prix for the first time in his career. This was Rosberg’s fifth consecutive victory, making him only their eighth driver in world championship history to do so.

Just three years ago this was a feat only five drivers had achieved. Since then Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and now Rosberg have joined the five-in-a-row club:

DriverConsecutive winsRaces
Sebastian Vettel9Belgium 2013 – Brazil 2013
Alberto Ascari7Belgium 1952 – Argentina 1953*
Michael Schumacher7Europe 2004 – Hungary 2004
Michael Schumacher6Italy 2000 – Malaysia 2001
Michael Schumacher5Australia 2004 – Spain 2004
Jack Brabham5Netherland 1960 – Portugal 1960
Jim Clark5Belgium 1965 – Germany 1965
Nigel Mansell5South Africa 1992 – San Marino 1992
Lewis Hamilton5Italy 2014 – USA 2014
Nico Rosberg5Mexico 2015 – Bahrain 2016

*Ascari won nine consecutive world championship races which he entered, discounting the 1953 Indianapolis 500

With Lewis Hamilton slipping to third place Mercedes missed out on their chance to become the first team to score six consecutive one-two finishes. However they did lock out the front row of the grid for the eighth race running and take their fourth consecutive Bahrain Grand Prix pole position.

Hamilton’s 51st career pole position means he is still has a chance of reaching Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 68 before the end of the season. This was his second Bahrain pole.

Webber’s 11-year-old Bahrain track record fell
His 1’29.493 lap was the fastest ever seen in Bahrain, breaking Mark Webber’s 2005 record by 34 thousandths of a second. Webber set the time during fourth practice for the 2005 race in a Williams FW27 with a V10 BMW engine.

However in race pace terms F1 is still almost four-and-a-half seconds per lap slower than it was 11 years ago. Yesterday’s race ran Safety Car-free in the evening cool and took 93 minutes, 34.696 seconds; the 2005 race also stayed green throughout, and in blazing heat with refuelling pit stops it took 89 minutes, 18.531 seconds.

To put it another way, Rosberg would have finished the 2005 race 11th behind Tiago Monteiro’s Jordan.

Starts remain a problem for Hamilton, however. He has given away 11 places on lap one in the first two races of the year combined – just one less than he lost in all 19 of his starts last year. His 2016 record so far reads two pole positions, one lap led and zero wins – something which will surely change soon.

Kimi Raikkonen split the Mercedes drivers on the podium, finishing second for the fourth time in the last five Bahrain Grands Prix. He has now taken eight podiums in his 11 Bahrain Grand Prix appearances without winning the race. That matches Fernando Alonso’s feat of taking eight podiums in Brazil without a victory.

Vandoorne: 75th point-scoring debutant
Stoffel Vandoorne became the 75th driver to score a point on his debut after being drafted in to replace Fernando Alonso. Note that there were other drivers who scored top ten finishes on their debut but did not score points due to the different systems used in the past.

Vandoorne is the 21st Belgian driver to start an F1 race and the first since Jerome D’Ambrosio in the 2012 Italian Grand Prix. This was only the second time a Belgian driver has raced for McLaren in F1. The sole previous occasion was the 1973 German Grand Prix when Jacky Ickx finished third for them at the Nurburgring when his regular team Ferrari chose not to attend the German Grand Prix. Belgians therefore have a 100% points-scoring rate for McLaren.

Vandoorne’s race number 47 had never previously been used in a world championship race run to F1 rules. Chuck Weyant raced as number 47 in the 1959 Indianapolis 500, which did count towards the championship, but this was not a Formula One race. Coincidentally, Weyant’s 93rd birthday was on race day.

Like Rosberg, Toro Rosso also marked the tenth anniversary of their F1 debut with a Bahrain breakthrough. Max Verstappen’s sixth place was their first ever points finish in Bahrain.

Finally, Haas incredibly went one better than their debut as Romain Grosjean took fifth place. That moves him up to fifth in the drivers championship (tied on points with Raikkonen who is fourth by dint of having a higher best finishing position). This is the highest place Grosjean has ever occupied: his previous best was seventh in 2012 and 2013 while with Lotus.

Review the year so far in statistics here:

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

2016 Bahrain Grand Prix

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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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104 comments on “Rosberg becomes eighth driver to win five in a row”

  1. Nico Rosberg is on course to the greatest non-Wdc driver ever….

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      4th April 2016, 12:41

      Actually Prost had 21 wins before his WDC,
      and Mansell an amazing 30 (or 29 if you consider him WDC after Hun92).

      Good news for Rosberg is that all (AFAIK) drivers who won the first 2 races became WDC that season ;-)

      1. I believe Alain Prost won the first two races of 1982 and did not become world champion

      2. I think it’s the first 4 races, not the first 2, but that might have changed since a few years ago.

      3. @coldfly Jacques Laffite won Argentina and Brazil 1979 and didn’t won the title.

      4. In the history of F1, this is the 17th occasion a driver has won the first two races of the season. 13 drivers have achieved this so far, with Michael Schumacher being the only one to have done it more than once, with a total of four times.

        Among those who managed to win the title after winning the two openers are:
        – Juan Manuel Fangio (his last of five titles, 1957)
        – Jackie Stewart (his first of three titles, 1969)
        – Ayrton Senna (his last of three titles, 1991)
        – Nigel Mansell (his only title, 1992)
        – Michael Schumacher (his first title, 1994; Ferrari’s first WDC championship since 1979, 2000; his fourth overall title, 2001; his recordbreaking seventh and last title, 2004)
        – Damon Hill (his only title, 1996)
        – Mika Hakkinen (his first of two consecutive titles, 1998)
        – Jenson Button (his shock title win with Brawn GP, 2009)
        – Sebastian Vettel (his second of four consecutive titles, 2011)

        Out of the previous 16 occations, only four drivers did not manage to win the WDC at the end of the season after winning the two opening rounds:
        – Emerson Fittipaldi won the first two races of the 1973 season, however as a consequence of his team rivalry with Sweden’s Ronny Petersen, the Brazilian missed out on the championship that year. Jackie Stewart won.
        – Niki Lauda was well on the way to his second title in 1976 after having won the first two races of the season, however the accident at the German Nürburgring left him out of action for a while, enabling James Hunt to win the title just one point ahead.
        – Jacques Laffite won the 1979 openers in Argentine and Brazil. However, eight DNFs in 15 races cost him the title shot, despite finishing on the podium six times out of seven finishes.
        – Alain Prost finished first in the two openers of the 1982 season. His unreliable Renault failed him in the seven following races, dropping him to fourth overall, while Keke Rosberg clinched the title.

        1. great stats, thanks

          1. You’re welcome :)

    2. do you mean great by statistics or by racing speed?

  2. Schumacher also won the first five races in 2004, so his name should be on the list three times.

    1. @ogw86 Indeed he did – have added it, thanks.

      1. Pretty sure Jenson won the first 6 races in 2009

        1. ColdFly F1 (@)
          4th April 2016, 15:24

          except China (3rd race), @sonia54

        2. @sonia54
          Only 4 in a row.

  3. With Haas scoring 18 points in their first two grands prix ever, is that a record for a brand new team in their first two races?

    I know it’s difficult to qualify with all the complications over what counts as a ‘new’ team historically and with changes to points systems, but it must be pretty close?

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      4th April 2016, 12:44

      They do beat Toyota (’02) for sure, @willwood, as they ‘only’ scored a 6th and 7th (current point scoring) place in their first two races.
      Well done on Haas.

    2. No one will ever beat Brawn. 6 wins in the first 7.

      1. Brawn was not a new team. They bought the Honda F1 team.

        1. And Haas bought most of their car from Ferrari.

          1. Michael Brown
            4th April 2016, 15:11

            Did Haas buy a previous incarnation of a team? No.

          2. Exactly they also used a lot of existing infrastructure from Ferrari therefore they not really started from scratch.

          3. The model in which Haas went about setting up their team is irrelevant. Brawn wouldn’t count as a “new constructor” as they bought an existing team with existing staff including all facilities etc.
            Haas count as a new constructor as they have started up a new team without buying an existing team.
            Teams such as Redbull, Torro-rosso, BAR, Honda, Benneton do not count.

          4. Yeah @rossotoro and @unitedkingdomracing Haas bought a Ferrari and asked Dallara to design what is required by the FIA.
            Hardly a constructor if you ask me.

          5. The problem is, it’s impossible to quantify. Unless you can come up with a definition of what counts and have everyone agree (not likely), then there’s no point fighting about it.

            It’s like arguing whether Haas is an American team or not. You’re never going to get everyone to agree.

            It would be very hard to argue that Haas is a constructor in the same way Ferrari or Williams are I think.

          6. @x303 no they did not “buy a Ferrari”. They bought allowed components from Ferrari – which is not THAT unusual – and their car is a design specifically for them.

            That is a far cry from what Brawn was: the BGP 001 was entirely developed by Honda and at the time the most expensive F1 car ever.

            Frankly I don’t get the flack Haas are now receiving. They have come into F1 with a very sensible approach that would get them a decent start, and as they go maybe they could one day switch to a fully self-designed chassis. I would MUCH rather see this than another HRT, for example. They’re not a full-fledged constructor? Boohoo. They deserve every credit they get, because they have chosen their approach and it’s working. And maybe it’s the only working approach to enter F1 at this time if you don’t have £500M to spare.

          7. @unitedkingdomracing @x303 STR, RBR, Jaguar, Brawn, Brackley Honda, etc were not new constructors.

            While Hesketh, Haas, Toyota, etc can be counted as such.

            And with Hesketh there is precedent for a constructor being considered brand new despite buying large parts of a car from another team (I think Hesketh was a March customer?).

          8. @mattds @davidnotcoulthard
            Sure Brawn was not a new constructor, but they used mostly original parts.
            Haas told us what he wanted to do and he succeded so far. Fair enough as it is legal.

            His team is the live demonstration Bernie needs for the customer cars. I remember that most of the commenters of F1F were against customer cars, so they should understand my point of view.

          9. @x303 But I’m pretty sure it’s not about the parts. It’s about the team. Old license, old HQ, etc.

            Besides, there’s no way they weren’t using parts developed by Honda.

          10. @davidnotcoulthard I see what you mean, but my point being Honda collapsed for Brawn to rise.
            Ferrari is still running some of the parts that found their way to the VF-01. That’s what I meant by “Haas bought a Ferrari”.

      2. I think if we’re going by “brand new team” Brawn does not fall under that category. It was a rebranded existing team. But yeah, it’s a tricky question with all the changes to the points system.

        1. I should have refreshed the page before commenting:)

    3. @willwood Wolf won their first race in 1977 so that would be an ‘adjusted’ 25 points for them.

      1. that is a lovely piece of history, nice spot!

      2. @keithcollantine Can Wolf be classified as a “new” team given they bought the assets of the Hesketh team..? :p

        1. ColdFly F1 (@)
          4th April 2016, 16:55

          Wolf was not a new team but only a new name for the old ‘Frank Williams Racing Cars’ team.

          Frank set up a new team ‘Williams Grand Prix Engineering’

  4. Peppermint-Lemon (@)
    4th April 2016, 12:47

    So the cars STILL do need to be faster then. It’s an embarrassment that they made changes to quali. The race pace speed is still unresolved.

    1. “need” is very debatable. I don’t see how Sundays race would have been improved one iota by all the cars lapping 4 seconds faster (apart from possibly it ending quicker).

      1. This. In fact I’d argue that the faster you get the harder it is to promote passing.

    2. @peppermint-lemon

      The race pace speed is still unresolved.

      Refueling v. Non-refueling races will never get an apples-to-apples comparison.

    3. @Peppermint-Lemon The speed/lap times are less relevant in the race than in Qualifying.

  5. “Haas incredibly went one better than their debut as Romain Grosjean took fifth place.”

    So if they continue improving by a place a race Romain should take his first win in Monaco. Très bien. :)

    1. Jonathan Parkin
      4th April 2016, 14:24

      In a race that will be the 20th anniversary of the last victory by a French driver – Olivier Panis

  6. However in race pace terms F1 is still almost four-and-a-half seconds per lap slower than it was 11 years ago. Yesterday’s race ran Safety Car-free in the evening cool and took 93 minutes, 34.696 seconds; the 2005 race also stayed green throughout, and in blazing heat with refuelling pit stops it took 89 minutes, 18.531 seconds.

    Does anyone have a statistic limited to the last stint of 2005 and 2016 race winners?

    I’d like something that would factor out refuelling as much as possible.

    1. taking out refueling wont give you the full picture, because the cars are heavier now, have much less turning speed through turns, the speed now is made up on straights compared to the lighter and higher downforce and higher g-force v10 cars. watch the onboard of modern f1 cars versus super fomula cars on youtube at suzuka, the f1 cars have a better ultimate lap time, but the 2.0 liter 4 cylinder turbo super formula cars with lighter weight (though 300-400hp less) are visibly faster through the esses section of the suzuka track, but then lose time on straights.

  7. If Rosberg hadn’t retired in Russia and come across a “gust of wind” in Austin, he would now be at 7 wins on the trot, 2 shy of the record. Pretty amazing (even with luck) for a guy going up against Lewis Hamilton, the so-called quickest guy out there

    1. @mashiat – I’ve thought about that as well. But the mistake in Austin was his, so it’s difficult to rewrite that without coming across as very charitable. However, had he not had the pedal failure in Sochi, he had a decent chance to win, being in the lead and all. And had that occurred, Hamilton would not be on this list of 5 consecutive race wins.

      1. “Hamilton would not be on this list of 5 consecutive race wins”

        May want to check that table again, Hamilton’s entry is from 2014

        1. Good catch. The perfect alignment (ending in Russia/US) got me.

    2. @mashiat That’s two ifs.
      I can make Hamilton a five times world champion with two ifs:

      If he scored at least two points in China in 2007.

      If did not suffer a suspension failure on the last lap of the 2010 spanish GP.

      Rewriting history is easy, but that’s also pointless.

  8. If the next few races turn out to be similar in that Hamilton gains pole, and loses the lead off the line, only for something else to intervene and leave him behind his teammate, can he officially be heralded the new “Mark Webber”?

    1. LOL, nice one!

    2. You are not suggesting he does it deliberately do you? Maybe he’s afraid of a fourth title as it would put him no longer equal to Senna. ;)

    3. @mashiat The WDC version of WEB?

  9. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
    4th April 2016, 14:11

    5 victories but the last two used the “Hit the sister car if you dare Lewis!” to secure victory. Nico knows that Lewis won’t hit another Mercedes and is using it to full advantage.

    This guy makes it impossible for anyone to give him any credit. I was warming up to him at the end of last year…

    1. what on earth are you on about?

      1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
        4th April 2016, 14:46

        Didn’t you see Nico slow Lewis down in Australia? Didn’t also see it yesterday? If Lewis had plowed into Nico as he should have, Nico would only have had 3 victories. So the last 2 victories are a combination of a clutch issue and Lewis being a great teammate while Nico is going for his own glory at any cost.

        1. ColdFly F1 (@)
          4th April 2016, 15:05

          as @alfa145 said: what on earth are you on about?

          1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            4th April 2016, 15:26

            @coldfly – you’re right. Lewis and Valtteri are both wrong:-)

          2. @freelittlebirds Can you show where Lewis and Bottas have said what you imply they said?

          3. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            5th April 2016, 13:52

            @mike
            Lewis said in Australia and Bottas said in his interview when he said that he didn’t expect the cars to slow down so much in turn 1. Australia was evident as Lewis slowed down massively to avoid Nico and as far as I recalll a piece flew off his front wing but I’m not 100% sure.

          4. Bottas was talking primarily about the car he hit. Which was Lewis. If you are trying to suggest that it’s Rosberg’s fault that Bottas hit Lewis, it’s a very, very tough argument to make I think.

        2. @freelittlebirds
          Nah, what Hamilton did at Austin 2015 was far worse than anything Rosberg has done in the first two races this season.

          1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            4th April 2016, 15:40

            @kingshark I don’t agree about 2015 – if you watch the video, if he had given Nico space, Lewis would have had to slow down to do that and Nico would have either been in front or had the inside line on the next turn and passed Lewis – Nico could have backed down and tried the undercut, no damage to the car as far as I can see. Nico should have slowed down there and kept P2. But you are right, it did cost Nico positions but they’d already secured championships by then. Not quite the same this year – this is the start of the season and Ferrari’s unreliability has helped Mercedes and Nico as much as he has helped them.

          2. @freelittlebirds
            No, you are wrong. Go watch the onboards, Hamilton clearly opened up the steering midway Turn 1 at Austin with the deliberate intention to push Rosberg off the road. Rosberg locked up trying to outbrake Vettel and him pushing Hamilton off the road was completely unintentional. The first corner at Austin is also much wider than the first corner at Melbourne. Hamilton (as well as his fans) suffer from a severe syndrome of “can dish but can’t take”. Hamilton did the exact same thing at Bahrain 2014, Hungary 2014, and Suzuka 2015. The mere idea that any Hamilton fan can moan about Rosberg’s racing ethics is beyond laughable.

        3. “Nico is going for his own glory at any cost.”

          Please go back to what Lewis said at the Chinese GP last year.

        4. @freelittlebirds at least assign blame properly and lay it with Hamilton and his failure to get off the line well. That’s on him, not on Nico. If he doesn’t want to be in a position where he is vulnerable to attacks from others, he should start better.

          This new rationale among some Hamilton fans is showing of a terrible attitude: “it’s never Hamilton’s fault”.

          1. @mattds NEW rationale?

    2. I think Hamilton has shown often enough that he is not going to just give up a place regardless of whether its to his teammate or who ever @freelittlebirds. It is Rosberg who did that more often than not, until he “held his foot in” in Spa, got called back for it and went back to more often giving way than holing out and risking a crash.

      But the last 2 races did see him start better, get positioned for the first corner better and thus win the race. Nothing to do with holding back for a teammate either for him or for Hamilton.

    3. @freelittlebirds To complain Rosberg is using Hamiltons wariness against him completely ignores the fact that this is exactly what Hamilton has been doing ever since Belgium 2014. USA and Japan last year spring to mind as examples where Hamilton absolutely compromised Rosbergs race by giving no quarter at the first corner, so it is quite unfair to deride Rosberg for doing the same thing. The only difference I can see is that when Hamilton has forced Rosberg wide he has managed to do so without losing position himself, whereas in Australia Rosberg also lost position as a result. I don’t know how much Rosberg really forced Hamilton wide in Bahrain, I think that all Rosberg did was position his car in such a way that Hamilton would struggle to cut back on him, which is surely something he learned from the 2014 race, the incident was purely caused by Bottas attempting to take much too tight a line into the corner, which again is not Rosbergs fault. Rosbergs victories have been based on Hamiltons poor starts, not through any kind of deviousness.

      1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
        4th April 2016, 14:58

        @breesegp Lewis has never caused damage to Nico as far as I know. Nico does cause damage to Lewis’s car directly or indirectly and is in fact intentionally doing that. We’ve been seeing it since 2013 when Nico’s wing was off and he was still trying to impede Lewis or even cause him to lose the race – Mercedes were screaming, ‘he’s on a different strategy, let him by’ and he was holding him up unaware if that would cost the team a victory back when Mercedes had few of those. Nico reminds me of Balotelli as far as being a teammate and I think that might be a compliment to Balotelli:-)

        1. LOL… Nico Rosberg is simply doing a Lewis on Lewis… Cases to point, last year USA GP, … And any chance he had. We all praised Lewis for Senna like racing crash or offroad style… Now we should punish Nico for throwing “the cap” back?

          1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            4th April 2016, 15:23

            @jureo Nico got hit by Lewis slowing him down and letting others pass him? Lewis hit Nico’s car? I must have missed it. Shame for me for liking Lewis when Nico is obviously trying to buff Lewis’ car and make it shinier during the race? Australia was ridiculous – after the clutch issues, Nico turned into Enzo Ferrari and fought for the Scuderia like no one ever has…

            Telemetry will say it all yesterday , after the turn Nico wasted 0.1 seconds before hitting the gas and that’s all it took at those speeds. He should have been getting out of that corner like a bat out of hell to pull a gap but you can see as Lewis gets hit, Nico is still there. Lewis couldn’t avoid the accident and neither could Bottas when you lose a car’s length – that’s all it takes as we saw with Alonso in Australia.

            Like I said, Toto can take that corner faster with a family sedan. Nikki Lauda can take it faster with a Lada:-)

          2. @freelittlebirds Completly out of context but how do you deliberatly delay something by 0,1 of a second?

          3. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            5th April 2016, 14:02

            @xtwl you don’t accelerate as hard or brake more? Either of those will cause a 0.1 second delay. You can actually see that Nico on this site is in the picture after Lewis has been hit and quite close to Lewis (the picture about Bottas’ penalty). He should have been far away after turning. Look at their wheels…

        2. Mark in Florida
          4th April 2016, 18:09

          I need some of what your smoking, must be some good stuff. It makes no sense at all. I will say that Lewis is acting classier this year and that he and Nico are better behaved. So much respect to him.

      2. The difference between Lewis and Nico at the first corners, Nico always feel that he could go round maintain his position by then he ends up going off the track and loose 3 or 4 places, Lewis quickly backs out at the turn, Australia was tricky because Nico could have got a puncture, similar to the one he got in Hungary because he came across but the other driver has nowhere to go.

    4. @freelittlebirds I think Rosberg asked Bottas to ram Hamilton, after all he is part Finnish. In Melbourne it was obvious Rosberg had sabotaged Hamilton his start by letting Vettel and Kimi through. After all he had agreed with Arrivabene that when the SC would come out Vettel would not get mediums.

    5. ResultantAsteroid
      4th April 2016, 17:03

      “It’s not my job to look after Nico’s race” — Lewis Hamilton.

    6. Small correction: This guy makes it impossible for ‘just you’ to give him any credit.
      And I’m pretty sure neither ROS nor Lewis, cares..

    7. He was slightly slow into the first corner in Bahrain but i would say thats about all he’s really done to really affect Lewis so far. Lets wait for a race where they all get a good start and don’t get either rammed at the first corner or don’t actually make the start of the race. Here’s hoping!

    8. Even as a Hamilton fan, that’s a bit much. Hamilton has frequently done the same. After losing two championships in part from lack of aggression on track, I really do not hold it against Rosberg that he is now being equally assertive. Completely fair, I think. Rosberg now has near equal speed and equal assertiveness. It’s up to Hamilton to rise to that challenge. He has done so in qualifying this year, but a poor start from pole almost always means losing track position and ending up in the danger zone – i.e. getting clouted by another car. Hamilton can have no excuses this year other than his own poor starts. Early last season he was pulling away from Rosberg comfortably on track and had a good gap by the end of quite a few races. That’s also now vanished.

  10. Some other Vandoorne-related stats:
    -Just like the last time a Belgian driver entered a gp (d’Ambrosio, Italy 2012), it was as a reserve driver.
    -Best qualification for a Belgian since Boutsen’s 10th in Japan 1992, best race result for a Belgian since Boutsen’s 9th in Hungary 1993.
    -Although he’s the 21st Belgian to start an F1 race, he’s the first F1-driver coming from Flanders, the Dutch-speeking part of the country, which has about 60% of the Belgian population (Christian Goethals was also from Flanders and appeared at the start of the 1958 German gp, but his Cooper was entered as an F2)
    -The first time there were “a Belgian and a half” at the start of a gp since Johnny Claes (Belgian father, Scottish mother) and Jacques Swaters in the 1953 German gp.

  11. I get what you are saying (quoted below), @keithcollantine, but I don’t know that I find it a fair comparison. Full load of fuel, non-tire war tires, and fuel flow restrictions. But maybe that was sort of your point(?). I think opening fuel capacity and fuel flow rate limits would lower lap times significantly.

    And I realize that this is beating a dead horse, and say what you will about refueling, it leads to faster laps and races. So if that were someone’s major concern, and I’m neither saying it is nor that it should be, there are fixes available. Less controversially, of course, they could just bring back tires like we had in the early to mid-2000s.

    “However in race pace terms F1 is still almost four-and-a-half seconds per lap slower than it was 11 years ago. Yesterday’s race ran Safety Car-free in the evening cool and took 93 minutes, 34.696 seconds; the 2005 race also stayed green throughout, and in blazing heat with refuelling pit stops it took 89 minutes, 18.531 seconds.

    To put it another way, Rosberg would have finished the 2005 race 11th behind Tiago Monteiro’s Jordan.”

  12. Vettel and Vandoorne both got the last points scoring position in their debut race. Both did their debut mid season after a barrel roll injury for the original driver.

    1. Now let’s wait untill both are 6 times world champion?

  13. Raikkonen 2nd place finish means he now matches a record he already shares with Michael Schumacher for most 2nd places at one grand prix. Raikkonen now achieving 5 2nd place finishes at Hungary and Bahrain with Schumacher achieving that at Canada and San Marino.

    Raikkonen also now holds the record for most 2nd place finishes at the same grand prix without winning it.

  14. * First race with two drivers born in Belgium since Italy 1992
    * Stoffel Vandoorne was the first driver to score on his mid-season debut since Sebastian Vettel in USA 2007
    * Vandoorne was also first Belgian to score since Thierry Boutsen in Australia 1992
    * Nico Rosberg’s 187th consecutive Grand Prix start, equalling Riccardo Patrese’s record (BEL 1982 – AUS 1993)
    * Sebastian Vettel’s first DNS, ending his streak of consecutive races at 158.
    * Kimi Räikkönen’s eighth podium in Sakhir equals record of podiums achieved on one circuit without a win. Fernando Alonso has eight podiums in Interlagos.

  15. If I’m right with this one – For the first time since 2002, the polesitter wasn’t leading at the end of the first lap in the first two races of the season.

  16. The first time a Ferrari did not start since Massa’s accident in Hungary 2009. Before this it was Barrichello in France and Spain 2002.

    The last time Ferrari failed to start after having got to the formation lap was Schumacher in the 1999 British Grand Prix, when he crashed before the race had started.

    1. The race was started but was red flagged if I remember correctly.

    2. That was one of those “When is a start not a start” races discussed recently. Schumacher would say (if only, etc) that he definitely started a race – indeed, he was side by side with Irvine when he suffered the brake failure.

      Before that, I guess it was Imola in 1991, when Prost arrived at Rivazza backwards on the formation lap and slid off…

  17. What’s the thing on his right ankle? Electronic tag?
    Lewis isn’t wearing one – clearly it makes all the difference.

  18. It has now been over three years since a team without manufacturer backing won a race.

    1. @mazdachris RBR were sort of backed by Renault so…..more like since 2012 (It could be argued McLaren wan’t a manufacturer team anymore by then, or one could just count ESP as the last time)?

      And the last time a non-huge-budget team won a race was……ESP 2012?

      1. @davidnotcoulthard

        Well there’s some room for debate there. By my reckoning, McLaren were effectively the Mercedes manufacturer team until 2010, when Mercedes bought the Brawn team and made them the manufacturer outfit. I’m counting them as an independent between 2010 and 2015 when they joined up with Honda and became a manufacturer-backed team again.

        By my reckoning, the last time and independent team won a race was Australia 2013 whne Kimi Raikkonen won with the Lotus-Renault team. I’m not counting them as a manufacturer team since Renault were backing Red Bull at that point, and Lotus themselves didn’t have any input whatsoever other than some money (and not so much as would have been useful).

        Of course in the V8 era there wasn’t so much of a benefit to being manufacturer-backed since engine performance was more or less standardised at that point. But even still, it’s interesting that for the past three years every race has been won by a team which has been fully supported by a manufacturer. It rather underlines Ron Dennis’ point (and RBR’s) that in order to win in F1 in this era, you need to have manufacturer backing. Otherwise you’re just making up the numbers.

        Not that manufacturer backing has done much for McLaren so far…

        1. @mazdachris Whoops! Totally forgot about Australia 2013……… (and yeah team Enstone were definitely not a manufacturer team).

  19. Stoffel Vandoorne became the 75th driver to score a point on his debut after being drafted in to replace Fernando Alonso.

    That’s a lot of drivers who have replaced Alonso. But if they’re all scoring points I can understand why it’s so popular!

  20. Perez and Wehrlein are currently tied in the Championship – both have had a 13th place and a 16th place.

    Both 2016 races have seen the same driver start 1st, another driver finish 1st in both races, another driver start 4th in both races, and another driver finish 4th in both races.

    20th year in a row that at least 1 Mercedes-powered car has set a fastest lap.

    28th year in a row that at least 1 British driver has led a lap – extends the record.

    8th consecutive Mercedes win – equals their longest run (Italy 2014 – Australia 2015).

    Haas are apparently the first brand new team to score points in their first 2 races since March in 1970 (they managed 3rd and 1st courtesy of Jackie Stewart).

  21. With the 18 points he scored, Kimi is ahead of his teammate in the standings for the first time since 2013. That means he’s been behind his teammate for 39 races in a row, I think. I’m wondering if that might be a negative record. I was googling it for a while, but I didn’t manage to find statistics about this.

  22. Of the 12 tracks on the calendar that have stayed the same since the V10 era, Bahrain is the first to have a V6 turbo hold the outright lap record. V8’s have it at Melbourne, Monaco, and Suzuka.

    V10’s still hold the other 8.

  23. All (4) podiums of Kimi Raikonnen at his second Ferrari stint where at night / twilight races.

    1. And now with 81 podiums he’s number five in the ranking of drivers with most podiums ahead of Senna and Vettel who share sixth place with 80. He definitely needs a F1 with more night/twilight races :)).

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