French GP 2007: Statistics & Facts

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Kimi Raikkonen finally won at a track where he’s never failed to finish before. Lewis Hamilton goes after more records but one of his amazing runs has come to an end.

Two drivers are still yet to out-qualify their team mates and F1 refugee Juan Pablo Montoya has joined a very select groups of legendary drivers. Find out why in our statistical review.

Kimi Raikkonen’s victory means the eight victories of the season so far have been shared equally among four drivers – he plus Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton have each won twice.

Raikkonen will be sorry to see the back of Magny-Cours – it’s been a happy hunting ground for him. He’s finished in the top eight in every race, only failing to score in 2001 with Sauber when he finished seventh and points stopped at sixth. This was his first win at the circuit.

Ferrari scored their first one-two of the season – the team’s 73rd of all time – and picked up more points than McLaren for the first time since Bahrain.

Lewis Hamilton scored his eighth consecutive podium finish, putting him one short of Jim Clark’s record for a British driver. Michael Schumacher achieved 19 from 2001-2.

However, Hamilton failed to lead a race for the first time this year.

Ralf Schumacher turned 32 on Saturday, at the scene of his last race win in 2003, and celebrated with his best qualifying position since Sepang. He’s 8-0 against team mate Jarno Trulli, though. Alexander Wurz is similarly beaten by team mate Nico Rosbeg in the other Toyota powered outfit.

Jenson Button gave Honda its first point of the season. The French round was also where the team broke its duck in 2005 (when it was BAR) and Button went on to score in every remaining race that year.

If there is no French Grand Prix on next year’s calendar it would be a first. A French Grand Prix has been planned for every round in the championship’s history and was only dropped once, in 1955 following the Le Mans disaster. Since 1950 Britain and Italy have had an official Grand Prix every year and on occasion more than one race under some other name. Magny-Cours was the race’s seventh venue.

Meanwhile over in the United States Juan Pablo Montoya won his first ever NASCAR Nextel Cup race – a year to the race since he left F1. He is only the third driver to win in F1, CART (now Champ Car) and NASCAR – the other two being Mario Andretti and Dan Gurney.

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Tags: f1 / formula one / formula 1 / grand prix / motor sport

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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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5 comments on “French GP 2007: Statistics & Facts”

  1. Sorry, I don’t intend to sound big-headed but France did not host a world championship round in 1955 in the aftermath of the Le Mans tragedy.

    I hope I don’t irritate you with these comments. Your blog is excellent.

    Thanks.

  2. That’s very true – I’ll re-word the text accordingly. Thanks Simon.

  3. Ali AydoÄŸan
    2nd July 2007, 19:32

    Really cool site. It is nice to find interesting things to read here-so often. Thanks…

  4. Lovely stats, Keith. Too bad Albers can’t have a record for wrecking their fuel rig. haha!

  5. great stuff… thanks for putting it together.

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