Red Bull completed their strong end to the season with a third consecutive win at Abu Dhabi.
But for the likes of Fernando Alonso and Kazuki Nakajima their final races with their teams didn’t go according to plan. Read on for the facts and stats from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton set pole position for the 17th time in his career, matching Jackie Stewart’s tally. The only active driver with more is Alonso, who’s on 18.
But Hamilton wasn’t able to follow it up with another win. In fact, for the first time in his 52-race F1 career, Hamilton was forced to retire with a mechanical problem.
Sebastian Vettel scored his fifth career win and his first victory not taken from pole position – he started second. Vettel also took his third fastest lap and Red Bull’s sixth.
Vettel’s team mate Mark Webber achieved his tenth career podium. His second place gave Red Bull their fourth one-two of the year, matching Brawn’s tally.
Kamui Kobayashi scored the first points of his career for sixth place in only his second start for Toyota. He is the 20th Japanese driver to start a Grand Prix and the seventh to score a point, joining Ukyo Katayama, Shinji Nakano, Aguri Suzuki, Takuma Sato and father-and-son Satoru and Kazuki Nakajima.
The younger Nakajima, however, became the only driver to start every race in 2009 without scoring a point. Team mate Nico Rosberg amassed 34.5.
The final race for BMW saw their cars finish fifth (Nick Heidfeld) and tenth (Robert Kubica).
Fernando Alonso finished his final race for Renault with his worst result for the team – 14th, which is also where he finished at Silverstone this year.
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was the first race at which both the drivers’ and constructors’ championship had already been decided since the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Unusually, this new addition to the calendar was not named after the country the race was held in (the United Arab Emirates) but its capital, Abu Dhabi. The UAE is the 28th different country in which a round of the world championship has been held, but the only one not to have given its name to the race.
The opposite is true of Luxembourg and San Marino, both of which have given their names to Grands Prix but never held a world championship round within their borders. Switzerland also did this in 1982, with a race at Dijon in France, but it held world champinoship races of its own from 1950 to 1954, after which motor racing was banned in the country following the Le Mans disaster of 1955.
Spotted any more interesting facts and stats? Post them in the comments.
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Ned Flanders
3rd November 2009, 12:09
I wondered why it was called the Abu Dhabi rather than the UAE GP. You don’t get the English GP or the Indiana GP or the Victoria GP, why should Abu Dhabi be any different? But then I suppose the race was just a really expensive 2 hour advert put on by the Abu Dhabi tourist board…
Stealthman
3rd November 2009, 12:16
Abu Dhabi rolls off the tongue better. Think of it: “You are watching the United Arab Emirates Grand Prix”… Try saying that fast ten times. :P ;)
GeeMac
3rd November 2009, 12:20
If it was the UAE GP this could happen next year:
“USGPE wins the UAEGP.”
Ned Flanders
3rd November 2009, 12:26
Well the emirates can’t be all that united if one part of the country wants to hog all the publicity!
NomadIndian
3rd November 2009, 12:37
haha…
maybe they are so united that if one of them has a big event all to itself, the others dont want to butt in…
PJA
3rd November 2009, 12:50
Personally I have been calling it Abu Dhabi Doo in the style of Scooby Dooby Doo.
Bullfrog
3rd November 2009, 13:33
and Jonathan Legard has been calling it “Aberdabi” as if it’s somewhere in Wales
Red Andy
4th November 2009, 11:01
True. But in Arabic the “Dh” sound is pronounced closer to a “Z” rather than the hard “d” you usually hear. So none of us really have the right to complain about mispronunciation.
ajokay
3rd November 2009, 12:58
I think it is due to the reason that, as the name suggests, the United Arab Emirates is made up of several Emirates, one of which is ‘Abu Dhabi’ The city of Abu Dhabi happens to be the capital of both the Abu Dhabi Emirate, and the UAE as a whole.
So it’s kind of the same as calling the last few US Grand Prix the ‘Indianan Grand Prix’, or how one of the Spanish rounds of the Moto GP is known as the ‘Catalan Grand Prix’. It’s named for the state or region, rather than the country.
Anthony
3rd November 2009, 16:18
Brahain has its grand prix and its in UAE too… so maybe its why, because then we will have to call 2 different races the “UAE Grand Prix”
SaloolaS
3rd November 2009, 16:34
In Germany they solved the exact problem with German GP and European GP. Same in Spain.
Ned Flanders
3rd November 2009, 17:16
Nope… Bahrain is it’s own country, it’s not part of the UAE
Apparently Abu Dhabi and Dubai are don’t much like each other, but then that just leads me back to the question: why name your country the United Arab Emirates if all the states hate each other???
MattB
3rd November 2009, 18:51
They only hate each other in the same way that the Scots and the Welsh hate the English in the United Kingdom!..
Ned Flanders
3rd November 2009, 18:57
Ha ha, good point!
Brian
3rd November 2009, 19:46
The should just call it the Arab GP.
Zahir
3rd November 2009, 19:01
Bahrain isnt in the UAE… its just in the middle east.
a1varo
3rd November 2009, 20:00
anthony, sorry to correct you but Bahréin is not a UAE but is also located in the persian golf
The_Pope
4th November 2009, 13:54
Sorry to correct you, but it’s Persian Gulf, not golf :P
lokiparan
4th November 2009, 6:50
Alonso’s worst finishing result in six seasons with Renault is only 14th and a quick check of Wikipedia suggests his next worst finishing result with Renault was 11th on three occasions. I think that is an absolutely astounding fact, very consistent results! So apart from retirements and one non-start, Alonso has placed in the top ten in every race (bar those five) since the beginning of 2003.
nik
4th November 2009, 13:28
The Emirates that make up the UAE are all separate principalities. Abu Dhabi (yes, pronounced more like abadabi) aggressively competes with Dubai on bragging rights. They are ‘united’ mostly in defense, customs and foreign policy, and ‘loose association of emirates’ doesn’t have the same ring to it (there are 5 other Emirates and Emirs, but not as prominent).
most important reason for the naming, Dubai will have its own Grand Prix ..
GeeMac
3rd November 2009, 12:18
Jenson’s final points tally of 95 is the second lowest collectd by a WDC since the 10,8,6,5,4,3,2,1 points system was introduced in 2003.
Only Mike Shoe’s tally of 93 in 2003 is lower.
nb
4th November 2009, 1:13
Oh this again. Did you take into account the half-points from Malaysia’s rain out? At full points he would have been at 100 so what’s your point? Also note the Canadian GP didn’t run, so correct me if I’m wrong but I thought the season was a bit shorter than previous. Think of total points possible and you’ll find his percentage better than Kimi’s or Lewis’. Did you object to their titles as well?
plushpile
4th November 2009, 2:09
2005-19 races
2006-18 races
2007-17 races
2008-18 races
2009-17 races
not much shorter…
GeeMac
4th November 2009, 5:28
Easy tiger, I’m a fan of Jenson’s, I just wanted to put that stat up there before someone else did…
IDR
3rd November 2009, 12:25
First time (I think) a team member asked his girl friend to marry him using a pit board meanwhile she was at home in Spain. (She answered Yes, btw)
http://joesaward.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/img_1032-copy.jpg
TommyB
3rd November 2009, 12:34
Did anyone else read the press conference about Vettel and Webber teasing Button about how he hasn’t proposed to his girlfriend yet when he said he would when he won the championship
Becken
3rd November 2009, 14:19
Yes and I love this chat:
lol
Chalky
3rd November 2009, 17:23
My favourite part was this bit….
Brian
3rd November 2009, 19:49
does anyone have a video of the press conference? I wanna watch it, not just read about it over and over.
Ned Flanders
3rd November 2009, 12:33
Adrian Sutil’s qualifying positions in the last 5 races of the season were 2nd, 16th, 4th, 3rd, 18th.
What consistency!
TommyB
3rd November 2009, 12:39
Haha! Nice!
These are Buttons
5th, 14th, 8th, 11th, 6th
Everyone has been really close this year all the qualifying positions are crazy!
Ned Flanders
3rd November 2009, 12:48
Red Bull had four 1-2 finishes this season (China, Silverstone, Nurburgring, Abu Dhabi), yet they didn’t win the Constructors title. Presumably this has never happened before.
2009 has been such a great season and yet such a disaster for Red Bull. It was the one big chance they had to win the title while Ferrari and Mclaren were struggling, but they blew it with there awful run of form in the late summer. Think of how many points they dropped at Spa, Monza, Valencia etc
David A
3rd November 2009, 15:43
Mclaren in 2000 (Britain, Spain, France, Austria).
sato113
3rd November 2009, 20:02
they didn’t win the constructors in 2000.
SaloolaS
3rd November 2009, 20:27
Red Bull didn’t win it this year neither.
sato113
4th November 2009, 2:02
McLaren didn’t win the constructors in 2000.
Phil T
4th November 2009, 4:02
Thats the point
sato113
4th November 2009, 20:57
oh yeah, sorry misread it!
Jelle van der Meer
3rd November 2009, 12:48
UAE is made up out of 7 individual oil states, Dubai being the most famous one.
Abu Dhabi is the name of 1 of the 7 oil states – so with above logic it is named after the country.
Sebastian Vettel 5th win matches Nino Farina, M. Alboreto, John Watson, Tony Brooks and Keke Rosberg.
Hamilton(21.2%), Alonso(15.0%), Vettel(11.6%) and Raikonnen(11.5%) are the only 4 active drivers in top 50 highest GP win rate.
Hamilton(51.9%), Raikonnen(39.5%), Alonso(37.9%), Barrichello(23.7%) and Vettel(11.6%) are the only 5 active drivers in top 50 highest podium place rate.
Heidfeld is the driver with 2nd most GP’s(168), most points(220) and most podiums(12) without a win.
Kobayashi is ranked 241st on points out of 310 drivers with minimal 0,5 point.
Based on my points awarding system for 2009 the driver/team winners are: (1st = 20/10points 20th/10th= 1 point)
Optimal laptime (practice+qualify)
1st Vettel (303) Red Bull (154)
2nd Barrichello (272) Brawn GP (139)
3rd Button (271) Mclaren (103)
Race position
1st Button (283) Brawn GP (148)
2nd Barrichello (265) Red Bull (124)
3rd Vettel (240) Ferrari (102)
Fastest lap in race
1st Button (277) Brawn GP (143)
2nd Vettel (259) Red Bull (140)
3rd Webber (256) Toyota (104)
Surprissing to see Ferrari 3rd on race position and Toyota 3rd on fastest lap. If there was any discussion on Button being a worthly champion let it than now be closed with Button winning easily race position and fastest lap competition.
Looking at within team driver battle, getting 1 point for beating your teammate on practice time, qualify position, fastest lap and race position:
Mclaren: Lewis 48 vs Heikki 20
Ferrari: Raikonnen 45 vs Massa 23 (Fisi&Luca 0)
BMW: Kubica 36 vs Heidfeld 32
Renault: Alonso 52 vs Piquet 11 (Grossjean 5)
Toyota: Trulli 39 vs Glock 26 (Kobayashi 3)
T. Rosso Buemi 48 vs Bourdais 13 (Jaime 6)
Red Bull Vettel 44 vs Webber 24
Williams Rosberg 56 vs Nakajima 12
F. India Sutil 39 vs Fisichella 22 (Luizzi 7)
Brawn GP Button 41 vs Barrichello 27
Alonso and Rosberg were most dominate, Alonso only lost 1 qualifying battle from Piquet in Germany. Buemi and Vettel both have 15-2 as score on qualifying
Terry Fabulous
3rd November 2009, 21:57
That is some great analysis there.
Amazing that Lew wins one race out of every five starts. Amazing.
And I hope that Poor ol Nick Heidfeld can get himself a win sometime soon!
GeeMac
3rd November 2009, 12:54
“Kobayashi is ranked 241st on points out of 310 drivers with minimal 0,5 point.”
I’m very confused by this…
Michel S.
3rd November 2009, 13:09
There’s only been 310 drivers to score 0.5 points or more (you get 0.5 points if the race does not go near enough to full distance), and of them, 3 points is enough for 241st place.
GeeMac
3rd November 2009, 13:29
Oh I see, it was just grammar that was confusing me.
The way the sentence is written it implies that Kobayashi is in 241st place because he has only scored 0.5 points.
Sorry for being a grammar Nazi…
James G
3rd November 2009, 19:57
Lella Lombardi is the only driver with a career total of 0.5 points, as well as being the only female driver to score.
Other unusual career totals:
Onofre Marimon: 8.143
Umberto Maglioli: 8.33
Alberto Ascari: 107.64
James G
3rd November 2009, 19:59
Oops. Umberto Maglioli actually received 3.33 points in his career.
sato113
3rd November 2009, 20:12
how do you score those kind of points?
SaloolaS
3rd November 2009, 21:54
@sato113 – years ago there was one additional point for fastest lap. As they could measure the time only by one second exact (no tenths or hundreths of a second), sometimes two or three drivers had the fastest lap and got 0,50 or 0,33 point each. At one race, 7 drivers had the same fastest lap (within one second). Each got 0,14 – and one of them finished the season with alltogether 0,14 points!
sato113
4th November 2009, 2:03
cheers SaloolaS!
pSynrg
4th November 2009, 16:51
Never knew that, thanks!
They should seriously bring back a point for fastest race lap, time it down to hundredths maybe as there could be some distribution at this resolution.
If not then thousandths going by the tight 2009 season.
Tightest spread over a season ever, anyone looked at this? Come on statitfiers!
Andrew White
3rd November 2009, 13:14
– Rubens Barrichello completed the most laps this year, with 977 out of 988.
– Jenson Button led the most laps this year, with 279, despite not leading a race since Turkey.
– Button increased his points tally this year by over 3000% compared to last year :P
– If we were on 10-6-4-3-2-1, Button would have won the championship by 7 points, with 76 to Vettel’s 69. Brawn would have won the constructors’ championship by just 5.5 points, clinching it in the last round
– If the championship had been based on qualifying results, Vettel would have won the championship by 18 points, with Button third, and Red Bull and Brawn would have been tied on 166 points
– Barrichello partipicated in the most qualifying sessions, missing just one of the 51 sessions (Q3 in Hungary)
– Nine races were won from pole this year, and there were winners from every place in the top six on the grid
James
3rd November 2009, 13:39
Also, Button would have won under the medals system, with two races to spare.
So no matter what system would have been used in this year’s season, Button would have won the champion regardless. Undeserving? Well, all the evidence suggests otherwise.
Icthyes
3rd November 2009, 23:09
If we used the system previous to that (9-6-4-3-2-1, best 11 from 16), Jenson would have only won by 2.5 points! (had it been 12 from 17, it would have been 4.5 points I believe)
Had Vettel’s season gone a little differently (any combination involving Australia/Barcelona(stuck behind Massa)/Monaco/Hungary and Valencia mechanical failure), he might have found himself leading the title by 1 point as things stood on Abu Dhabi, which would have made that last-lap duel between Button and Webber even more epic!
James
4th November 2009, 10:36
Fact of the matter is though, Jenson won under the current system and IS a worth champ :)
UnicornF1
3rd November 2009, 13:17
is there any other time that a driver went for a pit stop to another’s team garage?
Jaime could be the first doing this :-D
Anonymous
3rd November 2009, 14:34
Being a sister team, he’s welcome! Just kidding.
Ferrari vs McLaren have 1 point between them.
Kimi got 48 to Hamilton 49, Massa and Heikki got 22 equal points.
Only if Massa didn’t had that unfortunate event, it’s highly that Ferrari emerged as third in the Constructor in normal circumstance. Considering the capability of Massa even the car is said to be hard to drive and stoppage of car development, he surely have had collected a good share of points. Ok, “if” is not acceptable in Formula 1. So be it.
Bleu
3rd November 2009, 20:14
Frentzen did the same in Jerez 1997 and I recall Irvine doing it in his Jordan days.
Daniel
3rd November 2009, 13:28
About Grand Prix names:
First of all, the British Grand Prix should be called the United Kingdom Grand Prix if it was to follow strictly the “country name” rule, but it rather follows a “nationality” rule (British, Brazilian, French, Belgian, and so on…)… curiously, the brazilian media calls it “England Grand Prix” (Grande Prêmio da Inglaterra), since we don’t say English, or British or Belgian Grand Prix (that would be Grande Prêmio Belga, Grande Prêmio Britânico), but Belgium Grand Prix (that is Grande Prêmio da Bélgica)…
Grand Prix have already been named after continents (European), oceans (Pacific), cities (Dallas, Pescara), cities that are also countries (Singapore, Monaco) countries’ regions (USA West) and now after a city that is also an emirate (equivalent to a state in federal republics, but yet more autonomous) (Abu Dhabi).
matt
3rd November 2009, 13:48
Monaco isn’t a city, Monte Carlo is.
Daniel
3rd November 2009, 16:03
Yeah, you’re right… It’s still correct for Singapore anyway :)…
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
3rd November 2009, 22:27
Daniel, is there not a term for ‘British’ in Portuguese? Calling something ‘English’ when it’s ‘British’ will not please the Scots/Welsh/Northern Irish!
Daniel
3rd November 2009, 22:53
Yeah, it should be “Grande Prêmio da Grã-Bretanha” (Great Britain Grand Prix) and the equivalent for British is “Britânico”.
Don’t ask me why they call it English Grand Prix here, but I suspect it is because our sports media is very much soccer-oriented, and therefore the journalists are used to refer England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as separate entities like they are for FIFA(for example, Irvine was always an Irish driver…)
Bullfrog
3rd November 2009, 13:31
The Brawn team took Heikki’s fuel hose out in the last race – does that count?
I’m sure we’ll have more races within the UAE before long, if Bernie has his way.
Kav
3rd November 2009, 13:42
Both the 2008 and 2009 constructors champions (Ferrari and Brawn) scored 172 points in their title winning seasons. Red Bull scored 2.5 more points than McLaren did last year.
DomPrez
3rd November 2009, 15:31
nice one!
SaloolaS
3rd November 2009, 13:50
Villeneuve and Hamilton were both 2nd, 1st and 5th in WDC in their first three years.
In Interlagos 08 and 09 a British driver with number 22 and Mercedes Engine won the championship with being 5th, with his main rival from Brazil having pole position. In both races the previous WDC was 3rd.
And – in some article Keith wrote that Vettel was doing Doughnuts…it was actually Webber (saw the helmet).
Pink Peril
4th November 2009, 1:30
Was definitely Webber, and knew that without seeing the helmet. You can take the boy out of country New South Wales, but you can’t take the country New South Wales out of the boy !
Daniel
4th November 2009, 21:18
Nice one, but not for Hamilton… if he keeps his “Villeneuve pattern”, he’ll be, in his next seasons, 21st, 7th, 7th, 12th, 16th, 21st, 14th and 15th… He’ll surely be hoping to end these coincidences in 2010 :D
Robert
3rd November 2009, 14:10
I examined the driver’s championships since 1989, and compared the percentages of wins, podiums, and points scoring races for the WDC.
Jenson:
Wins 6/17 = 35.29%, ranked 17 out of 21
Podiums 9/17 = 52.94%, ranked 19 out of 21
Points 16/17 = 94.12%, ranked 2 out of 21
For the curious:
Most wins in season: Michael Schumacher, 2002 (11/17 = 64.71%)
Fewest wins in season: Alain Prost, 1989 (4/16 = 25.00%)
Most podiums in season: Michael Schumacher, 2002 (17/17 = 100.00%)
Fewest podiums in season: Jacques Villeneuve, 1997 (8/17 = 47.06%)
Most points scoring races in season: Michael Schumacher, 2002 (17/17 = 100%)
Fewest points scoring races in season: Michael Schumacher, 1994 (10/16 = 62.25%)
For the more curious, Lewis last year:
Wins 5/18 = 27.78%, ranked 20 out of 21
Podiums 10/18 = 55.56%, ranked 18 out of 21
Points 14/18 = 77.78%, ranked 13 out of 21
neracer
3rd November 2009, 21:49
wasn’t fewest wins in season keke rosberg, 1981/2 with just 1 win but becoming WDC?
Random Chimp
3rd November 2009, 22:55
This is only since 1989
Harv's
3rd November 2009, 23:00
but lewis scored more points
GeeMac
4th November 2009, 5:33
But Lewis had more points scoring opportunities. There was one more race in the 2008 calendar and half points were awarded in Malaysia this year…so Jenson’s points percentage is higher.
sumedh
3rd November 2009, 15:18
First race since probably 1993 when he had 4 current or past WDCs starting the race. Alonso, Lewis, Button, Kimi.
After 1993, We had just 4 WDCs for the next 12 years. MSC, Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Hakkinen. And none of them competed in a race together with all of them being WDCs.
In the last 4 years, more drivers have scored 100 points or more and still lost the championship (MSC ’06, Lewis, Alonso ’07) than the number of drivers winning inspite of scoring less than 100 points (Lewis ’08, Jenson ’09)
Jenson is WDC with the least number of career wins: just SEVEN. Previous record was Lewis with NINE.
stjoslin
3rd November 2009, 15:37
I might be wrong here but didn’t that happen in 1999. They were all racing back then. It was Hill’s last season though
David A
3rd November 2009, 15:52
It was Hill’s last season but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong.
DanThorn
3rd November 2009, 16:40
Rosberg was WDC after only 1 win, or am I missing something?
sumedh
3rd November 2009, 17:08
I meant career wins at the time of being WDC, not wins in a season.
But as adz2193 pointed out, Keke Rosberg definitely holds that record.
Jenson Button might have the record for the most number of seasons before becoming WDC. 2009 was his 9th season, I think, isn’t it?
sumedh
3rd November 2009, 17:12
Oh no, that record is held by Nigel Mansell, who won in his 12th season.
Button might be the 2nd on that list.
adz2193
3rd November 2009, 16:43
I read further up the page that Keke Rosberg was a Grand Prix winner just 5 times, and I know for a fact he took the championship with just 1 victory?
Chalky
3rd November 2009, 17:17
Yes. Keke only had 5 wins and 1 of those was in his WDC year (1982).
Daniel
3rd November 2009, 18:23
In fact it is Phil Hill the record holder for champion with least victories… 3 in total, the 3rd being 1961 Italian Grand Prix, the last race on his championship winning season, before the Indy 500, where he didn’t race…
Daniel
3rd November 2009, 18:26
And Keke is record holder for career wins by the time he won the title, like many of you pointed out, with only one Grand Prix victory (1982 Swiss Grand Prix)…
Ben
3rd November 2009, 23:37
along with Mike Hawthorn who only won 3 GP’s in his career, and his championship season was won with only 1 victory.
SaloolaS
3rd November 2009, 18:53
Actually Keke won the last race I think (not sure) and he would be a champion if he was 2nd as well
GeeMac
4th November 2009, 5:37
There were only 2 past or current WDC’s on the grid in 1993, Senna and Prost. Mansell was messing around on ovals in America in 1993…
sato113
4th November 2009, 21:01
and we could have 5 WDCs next year if the champ is decidede before the final round and the champ is a first timer.
David A
3rd November 2009, 15:54
Buemi scored a 7th and 8th in the first and last three races of the season, with no points in the 11 races inbetween.
Hallard
3rd November 2009, 16:45
I love this website.
IDR
3rd November 2009, 17:26
Welcome to the club!!!!!
As “Hotel California” lyric says:
“You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave!”
mp4-19b
4th November 2009, 2:27
@ IDR
;) :) :D :P 8)
carldec
3rd November 2009, 17:42
by far and away the best f1 blog on the web.
David A
4th November 2009, 2:58
Better than the official F1 website, tbh.
sato113
4th November 2009, 21:03
f1.com only reports what they want to. for example, they had almost no articles on the FOTA split from F1 earlier this year. coz it seemed too damaging.
sumedh
3rd November 2009, 17:41
I think this was my 50th race on F1Fanatic, I have been posting since around 3rd or 4th race of 2007.
It is also the only race covered on this blog which had no significance to either of the drivers or constructor’s championships.
Since, this blog wasn’t there in 2004. Was it?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
3rd November 2009, 22:28
Nope, it started at the beginning of 2005.
mp4-19b
4th November 2009, 6:43
But the 2007 constructor championship was gifted to Ferrari by Max & FIA ;P. Think the decision to exclude McLaren from the classification took place in Spa. So this isn’t the first time.
mp4-19b
4th November 2009, 6:46
Discovered this “Diamond” in 06 :) Been addicted ever since!
mp4-19b
4th November 2009, 6:48
And of course the 05 races.Alonso won it with 2 races to spare.
BT52/B
4th November 2009, 12:52
Weren’t there some races in the USA that were not named “United States GP” (Detroit GP, Dallas GP, Grand Prix of the West)? Also, wasn’t there a Pacific GP (although it was held in Japan)?
Changing the subject but staying on stats: How long did Button take to win the win the title and where does he rank? By mu counts he is third behind Mansell and Andretti…
Brian Baum
5th November 2009, 5:50
@mp4-19b:
“But the 2007 constructor championship was gifted to Ferrari by Max & FIA”. No… McLaren were caught cheating and were punished. Get over it.
Robert
3rd November 2009, 17:42
This is the only race to have an identical podium to another race in the season, matching exactly with China.
SaloolaS
3rd November 2009, 18:56
good notice
sato113
4th November 2009, 21:04
surely during 2007 there were two idential podiums? (coz of the ferrari/ mcalern dominance.)
Daniel
4th November 2009, 22:40
I think Robert meant THIS season, 2009… Anyway, you got me thinking about identical podiums on past seasons, and I instantly reminded 2004, when Ferrari was annoyingly dominant, and Button’s BAR was clearly the best of the rest…
There were identical podiums (1st – Schumacher, 2nd – Barrichello, 3rd – Button) in three Grand Prix: Bahrain, European and Canadian… the Italian Grand Prix also feature those three drivers, but with Rubens 1st and Michael 2nd…
In 2007, there were two identical podiums: Australian and British Grand Prix, both with Raikkonen 1st, Alonso 2nd and Hamilton 3rd…
aguy
3rd November 2009, 18:05
one thing that caught my attention is the lack or poor strategy from Mclaren, it was at least the 2nd tym Hamilton lost the 1st place in the box after starting on pole. Is it normal?? They should b glad that refuelling is over, lol
bruffdug
3rd November 2009, 19:18
HI In the great scheme of things who really cares what it is called,I personally thought it was a damn good race all in.but the cost is mind boggling, I hope the poision dwarf does not want Silverstone to match that,history is important
sato113
3rd November 2009, 20:24
anyone got a stat for the biggest gap in points between two team mates in a season???
perhaps 2001 when Schumacher ended with a 58 point gap to Barichello?
ROS and NAK had a pretty big gap too this year…
SaloolaS
3rd November 2009, 20:30
94 – Schumacher and Verstappen. 92-10. But I’m not sure if Jos the boss drove in all GPs
Bleu
3rd November 2009, 21:56
Verstappen drove 10 races that year. If you count Lehto’s 1 point, Schumacher outclassed team-mates 92-11. In races together, the situation is 92-9 as Verstappen was fifth
AFAIK Jacques Laffite (1981) has biggest point total when team-mates have failed to score. He had 44 points. Ralf Schumacher had 35 in 1999 so he beats Nico by half a point.
In both those cases, team-mates had 7th or 8th places which weren’t point-scoring positions back then.
Harv's
3rd November 2009, 23:07
Over Hamiltons entire F1 career no one has score more points than him over the 3 years, he now has 256.
No one has score more wins in those 3 years, or had more poles.
And Hamilton has always finished below his starting position in the final race of the year so far.
Prisoner Monkeys
3rd November 2009, 23:44
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned yet, but by taking third place, Jenson Button became the only driver to score points in every race he finished (and if Grosjean hadn’t taken him out in Spa, he would have been the only driver to finish every race and score point in all seventeen).
Hakki
4th November 2009, 0:16
Hello Keith
In Japan、Toyota announced that they will pull out F1!
Let’s tall about this!
Pink Peril
4th November 2009, 1:41
Looks like it !
Does this mean that Qadbak will now get a look in for the 2010 season? And why is it that the Concorde agreement is not legally binding on Toyota?
sato113
4th November 2009, 2:05
as long as Kobayashi stays i don’t care. (kind of…)
C4
4th November 2009, 4:02
you took the words right out of my mouth… F1 fans want to see some action, more Kobayashi please
Pradeek
4th November 2009, 4:05
Looks like it was the last race for Toyota as well…
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/80002
devotee
4th November 2009, 10:04
McLaren took the pole position in the last race of a season for the first time since 1993.
SiY
4th November 2009, 14:41
A straightforward but interesting set of statistics that seems to have been missed, relating to Sebastian Vettel’s Fastest Lap, his third of the season: surprisingly, this was enough to win him the DHL Fastest Lap Trophy for the driver with the greatest number of fastest laps over the course of the season. Mark Webber also set three FLs, but Vettel set more second-fastest laps.
An amazing 10 different drivers and 7 different teams set fastest laps in 2009. The breakdown, from DHL’s site:
Fastest lap drivers:
Sebastian Vettel 3
Mark Webber 3
Rubens Barrichello 2
Fernando Alonso 2
Jenson Button 2
Felipe Massa 1
Jarno Trulli 1
Timo Glock 1
Nico Rosberg 1
Adrian Sutil 1
Fastest lap Teams:
Red Bull 6
Brawn GP 4
Renault 2
Toyota 2
Ferrari 1
Williams 1
Force India 1
The winner of last year’s trophy, Kimi Raikkonen (who set 10 FLs in 2008), didn’t set a single fastest lap this year.
JeseyF1
4th November 2009, 19:00
Surely Ferrari becomes the first team to have two faster drivers on the pit-wall (Massa and Schumi) than in its cars.
Matt
5th November 2009, 1:31
lol cheeky
sumedh
5th November 2009, 11:05
I remember the comment made by Luca about having a bench as strong as Real Madrid’s.