2008 Italian GP facts and stats

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Alonso became the youngest winner in Hungary in 2003 - Vettel broke his record

Sebastien Vettel broke a couple of Fernando Alonso’s records for being the youngest driver to win a race and start from pole position.

The Italian Grand Prix also saw the youngest ever podium and one of Michael Schumacher’s records was equalled as well. See the stats and facts round-up in full below.

Record-breaking Vettel

Sebastian Vettel was in record-smashing form over the weekend as covered in these two articles:

That makes Vettel F1’s youngest points scorer, pole sitter and race winner. He’s also the 101st Grand Prix winner.

Five youngest F1 race winners

1. Sebastian Vettel, 21 years, two months and 11 days – 2008 Italian Grand Prix
2. Fernando Alonso, 22 years and 26 days – 2003 Hungarian Grand Prix
3. Troy Ruttman, 22 years, two months, 19 days -1952 Indianapolis 500
4. Bruce McLaren, 22 years, three months, 12 days – 1959 United States Grand Prix
5. Lewis Hamilton, 22 years, five months, three days – 2007 Canadian Grand Prix

Alongside Vettel on the podium were Heikki Kovalainen and Robert Kubica – the two other drivers to have scored their first wins this year. The podium is the youngest ever, with the drivers having an average age of 23 years, 11 months and 16 days. They have only 96 Grand Prix starts between them.

It beats the lowest mark set four races ago in Germany. Emphasising the youth of the F1 grid, there Germany podium featured a different trio: Lewis Hamilton, Nelson Piquet Jnr and Felipe Massa, with an average age of 24 years, seven months and one day.

Toro Rosso scored their first ever Grand Prix win in the 49th race started by one of their cars. It was the 209th win for a car powered by a Ferrari engine – but the first time that engine was not in a Ferrari chassis.

Toro Rosso was formed from Minardi in 2006, the Italian team which started 340 Grands Prix without a win, podium or pole position, all of which Toro Rosso achieved for the first time this weekend.

More facts and stats from Italy

Robert Kubica were a special helmet to commemorate his first F1 podium, which he scored at Monza two years ago. He repeated that result in this race, finishing third. Kubica spent much of his junior racing career in Italy.

Lewis Hamilton recorded his worst starting position in F1 with 15th.

Nick Heidfeld finished his 24th consecutive race. His finishing streak, which stretches back to the 2007 French Grand Prix, matches the longest ever seen in F1. Michael Schumacher completed 24 races in a row from the 2001 Hungarian Grand Prix to the 2003 Malaysian Grand Prix. Can Heidfeld break Schumacher’s record at Singapore?

Kimi Raikkonen added another fastest lap to his tally, giving him 34. Seven more will give him as many as Alain Prost, who is second on the list of most fastest laps, behind Michael Schumacher.

There have been six different winners this year. The last time a season saw more different winners was 2003, when Michael Schumacher, Ralf Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello, Juan Pablo Montoya, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Giancarlo Fisichella and David Coulthard all won races. The 1982 season had the largest number of different winners – 11 (thanks to Roswelite for that stat!)

Over to you: How many starts has Williams made?

Williams made their 500th Grand Prix appearance, apparently. In other places I’ve seen them quoted as having 513 and 525 starts. What’s the real figure? Should the starts Frank Williams’ team prior to the creation of Williams Grand prix Engineering Ltd be counted? What about races like Indianapolis 2005?

Anyway, congratulations to them, although they didn’t have much to celebrate in the Italian Grand Prix. See this post from Ollie on their milestone race for more Williams stats.

Also, when was the last time a season saw two different teams score their first Grand Prix win?

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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24 comments on “2008 Italian GP facts and stats”

  1. Williams is now the only team on the grid that does not have a race winner driving for them!
    Ferrari – Felipe and Kimi
    McLaren – Lewis and Heikki
    BMW – Bob
    Renault – Fred
    Honda – Jenson and Reubens
    Toyota – Jarno
    Red Bull – DC
    Torro Rosso – SebV
    Force India – Fisi

  2. First person (outside the team) to congratulate Vettel was Alonso – the man whose record he just broke. Actually, he broke two of Alonso’s four records! Can he go for the hat trick & be the youngest WDC, and the youngest double double?

    Italy was the first time Force India made it into Q2, although sadly this did not translate into a race result.

    Might it also have been the first wet race (in awhile at least) without a crash?

  3. Pink Peril: Fisichella crashed out at low speed (was it at Parabolica?) after tagging his front wing.

    Interesting fact from Terry Fabulous there.

  4. There are now 12 race winners in the grid, 60% of the drivers. :)

  5. Ah, forgot about Fisi, prolly because it wasn’t a very good crash ;)

  6. Wasn’t there 8 different winners in 2003? What about Fisichella in Brazil and Alonso in Hungary?

  7. Kieth, what do you think about the trophy’s given out at santander sponsored events?

    A logo as a trophy is despicable, and a travesty in my opinion.

    F1 trophies i would have thought would be a very special thing, usually events have a very well designed trophy to commemorate the victory, but now – and for the rest of his life, Vettel has a Logo to commemorate his first every victory in F1.

    What a way to ruin it. Not a trophy bathed in Monza history, a ******* logo from a company that will probably be bankrupt and shrouded scandal by the time Vettel is retired and telling the story of the logo on his shelf to his kids.

    Bernie has been too greedy there IMO.

    Also, speeking of bernie’s greedyness, lots of events are in doubt because of the financial burden an F1 event places on the council, millions of dollars that could to go schools and what not get blown every year in an F1 event, surely there’s a way the event could make more, bernie makes the big bucks from it why can the events?

    would like to see post about this.

  8. Alianora La Canta
    15th September 2008, 9:34

    It says something about the standard of F1 right now that only seven drivers on the grid haven’t won a race.

  9. About the Williams stats: it depends on whether you count Grand Prix starts as a team or as a constructor. I reckon the latter, which would give the team 513 starts, according to both Forix and Wikipedia. However, Dutch commentator Olav Mol interviewed Sam Michael, last weekend, who confirmed Williams celebrated their 500th race. Odd.

  10. According to good ol’ Wikipedia, as far as I can figure, the last time 2 teams won their first race in the same season was 1979.

    Renault – French Grand Prix – Jean-Pierre Jabouille
    Williams – British Grand Prix – Clay Regazzoni

    Both at the respective team’s home grand prix, how’s that for a statistic?

    If we count backwards from this season, the last time a team won their first Grand Prix was 10 years ago – Damon Hill for Jordan at Spa in ’98. And before that was a further 12 year gap, to Gerhard Berger for Benetton in Mexico in ’86. So these new team wins are few and far between in recent decades!

    That is, of course, if you ignore Honda and Renault’s recent wins, counting them as continuations of their previous teams from the 60’s and 80’s

  11. @ ajokay
    I was just looking into that, actually. And you’re right about the two teams winning their first race.

    However, depending on whether you consider Toro Rosso to be a constructor, yesterday’s win provides us with one of two possible stats:

    1. It was the first time since 1979 that 2 constructors won their first race, namely BMW Sauber and Toro Rosso.

    2. It was the first time since 1970 that a customer car won a Grand Prix, the last time being Jackie Stewart in a March-Ford, at Jarama.

  12. @ ajokay
    > … the last time a team won their first Grand Prix was 10 years ago – Damon Hill for Jordan at Spa in ‘98…

    You forgot Stewart, with Herbert taking the honours at the Luxembourg GP (née European GP) in 1999.

  13. Gary – you’re quite right, have fixed the text.

  14. Both Gary and Lustigson forgot BMW’s maiden win with Robert Kubica in this year’s Canadian Grand Prix.

  15. @ Lustigson

    > You forgot Stewart, with Herbert taking the honours at the Luxembourg GP (née European GP) in 1999.

    Of course, how could I forget? Trying to skim-read pages of F1 results is tricky when I’m supposed to be working!

    I wonder who the next team to win their first Grand Prix will be? I’m thinking a Red Bull or Toyota, although I’m not sure which would be more likely.

  16. Ajokay – With Vettel joining Red Bull next year, I know who my money’s on!

  17. Well, I’d drink to that, lets just hope the team can give him the car to do it with.

    On a side note, I really love the way the Red Bull livery is almost identical to Sauber’s 1995 challenger, I always though that was a really neat car. Although the artwork on Toro Rosso makes it one of the best F1 liveries ever, I think.

  18. @ Daniel
    > Both Gary and Lustigson forgot BMW’s maiden win
    > with Robert Kubica in this year’s Canadian Grand
    > Prix.
    No we didn’t, cause the 2 new winning constructors were what we commented on.

    See Ajokay’s statements in post #10: “… the last time 2 teams won their first race in the same season…” and “If we count backwards from this season…” :-)

  19. Stat in facts

    I think Vettel and Toro Rosso have gathered the most numerous “first” in a single Grand Prix. I counted 8 :
    – 1st win for both (2)
    – 1st pole for both (2)
    – 1st pole an win by an under 22 driver for Vettel (2)
    – 1st pole an win by a non-Ferrari but Ferrari powered car for Toro Rosso (2)

    Can we think of more ?

  20. Correction

    S. Vettel is not the first under 22 pole man (F. Alonso is, as stated above) ; I meant to say he is the youngest one.
    To keep the post accurate, one may say it’s the first pole by an under 21.5 driver.

  21. Stat in facts

    I think S. Vettel and Toro Rosso have gathered the most numerous “first” in a single Grand Prix. I counted 8 :
    – 1st pole position for both (2)
    – 1st win for both (2)
    – 1st pole position by an under 21.5 driver for Vettel (1)
    – 1st win by an under 22 driver for Vettel (1)
    – 1st pole and win by a non-Ferrari but Ferrari powered car for Toro Rosso (2)

    Can we think of more?

  22. The boy Vettel actually has one more “youngest F1” records;
    at the Japanese Grand Prix last year he was also the youngest F1 driver to ever lead a race (20 years, 2 months and 27 days).

    At Monza he also set another world record; he bacame the “slowest” driver to ever win a race – as in his fastest lap time was only the 27th fastest of the race (in fact 13 drivers put in faster laps than Vettel’s fastest lap). The previous “slowest winner” was none other than his compatriot Michael Schumacher (Belgium ’97) – hmmmmmm…..

  23. Lustigson: sorry man, I completely misread it!

  24. The F1 drivers are no doubt getting younger and younger (well, not the drivers themselves but as a “breed”); eight out of the ten youngest F1 podiums ever has taken place over the two last seasons.

    The highest average age of an F1 podium in contrast is 46 years, 8 months and 20 days, which was the one after the Swiss (!) Grand Prix in 1950. It was comprised of Nino Farina (Alfa Romeo), Luigi Fagioli (Alfa Romeo) and Louis Rosier (Talbot). Pole-sitter Juan Manuel Fangio would surely have made it an all Alfa Romeo podium if his engine had not let go on the second lap.

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