The Stats and Facts highlights of 2014

2014 F1 season review

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It was another record-smashing year in Formula One. The phenomenal performance of Mercedes’ W05 ensured that team earned a place in the history books.

However their rivals had a look in as well in a season which saw a new youngest-ever points scorer and Ferrari’s record points-scoring streak come to an end.

Here’s a look back on the key stats and facts from every round of the 2014 season.

Australian Grand Prix

Malaysian Grand Prix

  • Hamilton won a race in his eighth year of competition. No other driver with a career as long as his has won a race in every season. It was also his first ‘grand slam’ of pole position, win, fastest lap and leading every lap
  • Mercedes achieved their first one-two finish since the 1955 Italian Grand Prix
  • Valtteri Bottas became the first F1 driver to be given penalty points on his licence
  • More Malaysian Grand Prix stats and facts

Bahrain Grand Prix

  • The 900th round of the Formula One world championship
  • Button made his 250th start
  • There was no Red Bull on the front row of the grid for the first time since last year’s British Grand Prix
  • More Bahrain Grand Prix stats and facts

Chinese Grand Prix

Spanish Grand Prix

  • Ricciardo scored his first ‘real’ podium finish following his Melbourne disqualification
  • Mercedes became the first team to lead every lap of the first five races of a season since Williams in 1992
  • More Spanish Grand Prix stats and facts

Monaco Grand Prix

Canadian Grand Prix

  • Ricciardo scored his first F1 win, becoming the 105th different driver to do so
  • Felipe Massa became the first driver not in a Mercedes to lead a lap
  • Mercedes had led the first 413 laps of the year – the longest by a team since McLaren’s 477 in 1988
  • More Canadian Grand Prix stats and facts

Austrian Grand Prix

  • Williams locked out the front row of the grid for the firs time since the 2003 German Grand Prix
  • Valtteri Bottas scored his first podium finish, becoming the seventh Finnish driver to do so (out of just nine)
  • Raikkonen started his 200th F1 race
  • More Austrian Grand Prix stats and facts

British Grand Prix

  • Hamilton won from sixth on the grid – the lowest starting position from which he has taken a victory
  • Bianchi earned Marussia’s best starting position with 12th
  • Susie Wolff became the first woman to participate in an F1 race weekend since Giovanna Amati at the 1992 Brazilian Grand Prix, 8,126 days earlier
  • Massa started his 200th F1 race
  • More British Grand Prix stats and facts

German Grand Prix

  • Rosberg became the first German driver to win the German Grand Prix in a German car since Rudolf Carraciola at the Nurburgring Nordschleife in 1939
  • Hamilton climbed 17 places on his way to finish third
  • Williams took their 300th podium finish, thanks to Bottas
  • More German Grand Prix stats and facts

Hungarian Grand Prix

  • Hamilton made up 19 places to finish in third place after starting from the pits. It was the second race in a row he had improved on his personal best achievement of making up the most places in a race
  • Mercedes 100th race and 50th podium result
  • Red Bull exceeded 3,000 laps in the lead, moving them to fifth in the all-time list
  • More Hungarian Grand Prix stats and facts

Belgian Grand Prix

  • Red Bull’s 50th F1 win
  • Rosberg’s fastest lap was 1.902 seconds faster than anyone else managed – the biggest margin since the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix
  • No world champion on the podium for the first time since the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix
  • Andre Lotterer becomes F1’s oldest rookie since Giovanni Lavaggi in the 1995 German Grand Prix
  • More Belgian Grand Prix stats and facts

Italian Grand Prix

  • Massa’s first podium finish scored with a constructor other than Ferrari
  • Alonso’s first technical retirement since the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix, 86 races earlier
  • More Italian Grand Prix stats and facts

Singapore Grand Prix

  • Hamilton beat Rosberg to pole position by 0.007s – the closest front row since the 2010 German Grand Prix
  • Force India exceeded their previous best haul of 109 points
  • The Singapore Grand Prix hit the two-hour time limit for the second time in three years
  • More Singapore Grand Prix stats and facts

Japanese Grand Prix

  • Ferrari failed to score for the first time in 81 races, ending their record points-scoring streak
  • No Ferrari-powered cars scored points, which last happened at the 2009 Singapore Grand Prix
  • Before his crash, Bianchi finished lap 13 of the race in fourth place – the highest position ever occupied by a Marussia
  • More Japanese Grand Prix stats and facts

Russian Grand Prix

  • Mercedes became the 15th different team to win the constructors’ championship
  • Kvyat took his highest qualifying position with fifth…
  • …and he did it at the first world championship race in Russia, the 31st country to host F1
  • More Russian Grand Prix stats and facts

United States Grand Prix

  • F1 had its smallest field – 18 cars – since the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix
  • Hamilton beat Nigel Mansell’s tally of 31 wins to become Britain’s most successful F1 driver in terms of victories
  • Vettel was eliminated in Q1 for the first time since the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix
  • More United States Grand Prix stats and facts

Brazilian Grand Prix

  • Mercedes beat McLaren’s 1988 record for most one-two finishes in a season with their 11th
  • Mercedes also surpassed Ferrari’s 2004 record for scoring the most podium finishes in a season, taking their 30th
  • Rosberg set the fastest lap seen at Interlagos since Rubens Barrichello’s 1’09.822 the same year
  • More Brazilian Grand Prix stats and facts

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

  • Hamilton became the 11th F1 driver to win the title by taking a victory in the final race of the season
  • Vettel’s reign as champion ended after 1,470 days – the third-longest in F1 history
  • Hamilton took his 33rd career win, moving him ahead of Alonso to become one of F1’s top five grand prix winners
  • Rosberg took pole position for the 11th time and earned the FIA’s inaugural Pole Position Trophy
  • Sauber ended a season without scoring a point for the first time in their history
  • More Abu Dhabi Grand Prix stats and facts

2014 F1 season review

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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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30 comments on “The Stats and Facts highlights of 2014”

  1. Monza:
    Daniel Ricciardo clocks the highest top speed of the season in a RB10

    1. Yeah that’s true. Good spot Foosa. And out of all the cars, the Renault powered Red Bull, which never specialized in straight line speed, clocked in as the fastest of the year. Well that makes it two years in a row for Ricciardo when it comes to clocking the fastest speed in the speed trap cause he done the same thing in a Toro Rosso last year

  2. Mercedes had led the first 413 laps of the year –OMG

  3. Merc never fails to score points every race since Brazil 2012, (39 races and still going on) which means they always score points in every race with Hamilton-Rosberg, both of them now have one race when they finished the race lapped as a teammate, Rosberg in Abu Dhabi 2014 and Hamilton in Spain 2013.

    1. Get your facts right, Rosberg did not lap Hamilton in Spain in 2013.

      1. No I mean lapped by leaders

  4. Hamilton has now won a race in every season he’s competed in. I know some people don’t like him but you cannot deny his talent. He is the only current driver to win a GP in every season he has competed in- that includes some dodgy cars in the MP4-24 and the W04 (which was a tyre shredder). He has beaten two reigning world champs in Alonso (Hamilton finished 2nd Alonso 3rd) and Button. He has won the championship with two different teams (Mclaren and Mercedes) and he is the only current driver to win a championship two different teams. He is also the only current driver to win the championship with a car that finished 2nd in the constructors (so not the best car). Hamilton has also never had number one status with any of his team mates unlike some (to mention Alonso and Vettel) who have been undisputed number ones for the majority of their F1 careers. I am not even going to remotely suggest that Hamilton is the best of all time, that will be judged at the end of his career. But certainly he is among the greats. I suspect one of the reasons Hamilton is not appreciated as much is the hidden elephant in the room and most will know what I am referring to. Roll on 2015

    1. A fantastic post! The only thing I would add is that Hamilton’s race craft far exceeds any of his rivals. He is amazing in the wet: he won the British GP in the wet by over a minute. He is brilliant at defensive driving: Bahrain was one of the best defensive driving performances. He is a great overtaker: he was one of the very, very few drivers able to overtake (and often spectacularly) in the pre-DRS, pre-kERS and pre-ERS days…

    2. Fikri Harish (@)
      27th December 2014, 15:43

      You’re oversimplifying things.
      Yes the MP4-24 started out weak, but by the end of season I’d argue that it was second only to the Red Bulls in terms of pure pace.
      The W04 also liked to eat its tyres at the beginning of the season but it’s undeniable that Merc’s clandestine outing with the Pirellis helped mitigate that.
      He was never a clear number one yes, but DC has made it clear in the past that Dennis like to play favorites and Kovalainen wasn’t much of a competition, was he? Kovalainen’s speed (or a lack thereof) would also explain why the McLaren was 2nd to Ferrari in 2008.

      But yes, I’d agree that among the current drivers, you could make the case that Hamilton is at the top. I still personally think that Alonso is slightly ahead of him though.

      1. Alonso may be slightly better, but his bad decisions put him where he is now. Forced to put every hope he still has of being WDC again on the team and man he said he would have trouble to work with again.

        Hamilton’s path to this streak wasn’t the most difficult, but he has his merits. in 2009 we can say that he got a good car for half a season, and still managed to win the same number of races as Barrichello and Webber. Lost in Valencia due to team error, and Abu Dhabi to car failure. And crashed on the last lap on Monza. Was crashed on Spa too, but there the car performed poorly.

        With a little bit more luck he would be 3rd that year, scoring points on just half a season!

      2. What’s wrong with simplifying things? Anyway you are having a dig at Kovalainen’s performance but you also cannot deny that Kimi was off form in 2008. So I think that argument holds very little water. Fact is regardless of what your opinion is, or mine or whoever- history will show that Ferrari won the constructors championship in 2008 and thus had the best car. What’s interesting about 2009 is that Hamilton always achieved better positions in the MP4-24 but Kovalainen struggled all season. As for taking DC’s comments as some sort of way to suggest that Lewis had preferential treatment- let me put it to you this way. All F1 drivers say it’s a psychological game. So in DC’s case he lost to Hakkinen in terms of the championship twice and so hence the team will gravitate towards a double world champ. It’s just normal really if you ask me. But that is nowhere near the same as having undisputed number one status.

        1. Fikri Harish (@)
          29th December 2014, 1:09

          You’re not just simplifying things, you’re oversimplifying things.

          Fact is regardless of what your opinion is, or mine or whoever- history will show that Ferrari won the constructors championship in 2008 and thus had the best car

          Nuh-uh, not the best car, but the best driver-car combination. I would never suggest in a million years that Raikkonen’s 2008 performance is equal to that of Kovalainen.
          Kovalainen started scoring points regularly during the second half of 2009, but yes, he never achieved the same highs as Hamilton, which is exactly my point.

          So in DC’s case he lost to Hakkinen in terms of the championship twice and so hence the team will gravitate towards a double world champ.

          Well, not exactly.
          http://www.formula1news.net/david-coulthard-ron-dennis-always-favors-one-driver/
          1996 Australian Grand Prix was the first race of that year and it was also DC’s first race with the team.

          Again, not debating whether I think Lewis is good or not, he is, just wanted to straighten some things out.

    3. First Race Champion Races Wins Poles Record Lap
      Vettel: 2007 4 139 39 (28,1%) 45 (32,4%) 24 (17,2%)
      Hamilton: 2007 2 148 33 (22,3%) 38 (25,7%) 20 (13,5%)
      Alonso: 2001 2 234 32 (13,7%) 22 ( 9,4%) 21 ( 8,9%)
      Raikkonen: 2001 1 211 20 ( 9,5%) 16 ( 7,6%) 40 (18,9%)
      Button: 2000 1 265 15 ( 5,7%) 8 ( 3,1%) 8 ( 3,1%)

      1. The stand out stat in that list is that Kimi has achieved 18.9% lap records in his races

    4. Hamilton has now won a race in every season he’s competed in.

      And it will take at least 10 years for somebody to beat him (i.e. a rookie starting next year), unless Hamilton extends this stat (to be expected).

      1. @coldfly I think this will never be broken unless another rookie gets the lucky shot at a top car in his first season.

  5. With Abu Dhabi the longest half-points race streak was ended, 18 half-points races in total. It is unlikely that this will be replicated any time soon.

    There was also a possibility of a quarter-points race this year that did not materialize, this is also now unlikely to happen in the future, as there no longer is such a possibility in the rules.

    1. @mateuss – very good one.

    2. Brilliant

  6. Raikkonen and Massa had their 200th start one race apart. How does that work?

    Massa started his career a year later than Raikkonen, in 2002, and did not race in 2003. Raikkonen wasn’t on the grid in 2010 and 2011, and Massa missed half the 2009 season through injury.

    Basically, Massa has raced in eleven and a half seasons, Raikkonen in twelve, yet he’s started only a single grand prix more. Obviously 2001&2003 had fewer grands prix than 2010&2011, but that’s only a part of the reason. Can anyone explain that properly?

    1. @enigma Let’s go through them one by one:

      2001: Raikkonen raced all 17 races, Massa none.
      2002: Raikkonen raced all 17 races, Massa all but one (Frentzen took Massa’s place in the US to avoid a penalty), so at this point Raikkonen is leading by 18 GPs.
      2003: Raikkonen raced all 16 races, Massa none, so Raikkonen is leading by 34 GPs.
      2004: Both raced all 18 races, Raikkonen still leads by 34 GPs.
      2005: Both raced all but one GP (the US GP, obviously), Raikkonen still leads by 34 GPs.
      2006-2008: Both started every single race in this period, at the end of 2008 Raikkonen still leads by 34 GPs.
      2009: Raikkonen races all 17 GPs, Massa only the first nine, so by the end of 2009 Raikkonen leads by 42 GPs.
      2010-2011: Raikkonen is off to WRC and doesn’t start a single GP, while Massa starts 38 GPs. So by the end of 2011, Raikkonen leads by 4 GPs.
      2012: Both start all 20 GPs, Raikkonen still leads by 4 GPs.
      2013: Massa starts all 19 GPs, Raikkonen misses the last two GPs due to his (supposed?) back injury. At the end of 2013, Raikkonen leads by 2 GPs.
      2014: Both start all 19 GPs, Raikkonen leads by 2 GPs.

      So in the end, Raikkonen has two starts more, which is consistent with the record books: Raikkonen started 212 GPs, Massa 210. So it seems like 2010+2011 about equals 2001+2003+0.5*2009.

      1. @andae23 Ah, the end of 2013 escaped my mind! Thanks for the thorough explanation. I knew I could rely on you!

    2. Welk, Raikkonen missed some races at the end of 2013.

      But basically, and I don’t want to sound rude here, I’d suggest you take a look at the Wikipedia pages for both drivers. That’ll be the easiest way of getting your answer.

  7. Here’s a question for @andae23 or others.
    I read elsewhere that Vettel completed a race lap in every position, from 1st to 22nd.
    Is that true?
    Extra credit (!):
    Has a similar feat happened before?
    I also read he only completed one lap in P1. Has a defending champion ever has less success according to that factor?

    1. As a Villeneuve fan, i have an idea who could beat Vettel in that regard…

      But there should be others too: Jody Scheckter in that horrible 1980 Ferrari for example.

    2. @scalextric @andae23 @ferro

      I read elsewhere that Vettel completed a race lap in every position, from 1st to 22nd.
      Is that true?

      Indeed he did:

      https://www.racefans.net/statistics/2014-f1-statistics/race-data/#lapsperposition

      Has a similar feat happened before?

      Yes – in fact, five drivers did it last year: Lewis Hamilton, Mark Webber, Felipe Massa, Romain Grosjean and Adrian Sutil:

      https://www.racefans.net/statistics/2013-f1-statistics/race-data/#lapsperposition

      Curiously two of those drivers – Massa and Grosjean – also did it the year before (covering all 24 positions):

      https://www.racefans.net/statistics/2012-f1-statistics/race-data/#lapsperposition

  8. The race, the qualifying and all the practice sessions that took place in Russia and Abu Double were completely crash free (excluding minor spins).

  9. “Rosberg became the first German driver to win the German Grand Prix in a German car since Rudolf Carraciola at the Nurburgring Nordschleife in 1939”

    Can’t we say Rosberg was the first as the official championship only started in 1950?

  10. (without double pts) Mercedes collected as many points as numbers 2 and 3 combined!

    Last time that happened was 2004 (different pts system).

  11. Rosberg became the first German driver to win the German Grand Prix in a German car since Rudolf Carraciola at the Nurburgring Nordschleife in 1939.

    Adding on:

    Rosberg is the first F1 driver and the first German to win the German grand prix in a German team POWERED BY A GERMAN ENGINE.

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