Ferrari ended a 16-year losing streak in Monaco last weekend. With his 45th career victory, Sebastian Vettel took another step towards emulating his hero Michael Schumacher by becoming the team’s latest champion.
Fittingly, 20 years ago it was Schumacher who ended a 16-year win-less streak for Ferrari in the Principality. His 1997 win was their first since Gilles Villeneuve did the honours in 1981.
It was a weekend for streaks coming to a close. Kimi Raikkonen took his 16th career pole position having waited almost nine years since his last one in the 2008 French Grand Prix.
He’d gone 3,262 days without starting from the front. On that day he also lost the win to his team mate who started alongside him on the front row – on that occasion it was due to an exhaust problem on his car.
Raikkonen broke the record for the longest gap between pole positions. Mario Andretti waited 2,940 days between his pole positions at Watkins Glen in 1968 and Fuji in 1976. That was a gap of 108 races, a wait which Giancarlo Fisichella equalled between his pole positions at the A1 Ring in 1998 and Melbourne in 2005. But Raikkonen’s 129-race wait – more than half the length of his career to date – beat both of them.
For the first time in 21 races there was no Mercedes driver on the podium. There last run of podium finishes began in Monaco last year, one race after Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg took each other out on the first lap of the Spanish Grand Prix.
Another streak which ended was Sergio Perez’s 15 consecutive points finishes – his personal best. Team mate Esteban Ocon also failed to score for the first time this year. It was Force India’s first no-score since last year’s Austrian Grand Prix, when both cars retired.
A consolation for Perez was that he set a new fastest race lap for this configuration of the Monaco layout. But his 1’14.820 was a few tenths of Schumacher’s 1’14.439, set during the 2004 race. Raikkonen’s pole position time was a new outright course record.
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It was Ferrari’s first pole position in Monaco since Felipe Massa’s in 2008. But Vettel’s victory means the last three Monaco Grands Prix have all been won by someone other than the pole sitter.
Vettel has now finished all of the first six races inside the top two places. The last driver to do this was Nico Rosberg in 2014 – in fact he made it to eight races, but wasn’t able to win the title that year.
Fernando Alonso’s absence opened the door for Jenson Button to return and start his 306th grand prix. He has now started as many races as Schumacher and only Rubens Barrichello, on 322, has amassed more starts.
During his sojourn to the States Alonso led a race for the first time since the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix. He spent 27 laps in the lead, the third-highest of any driver in the race. Max Chilton led 50 (one-quarter of the race distance) and finished fourth while Alonso’s team mate Ryan Hunter-Reay led 28 before also retiring with a Honda engine failure. Race winner Takuma Sato led 17 laps and set the fastest lap, averaging 364.018kph (226.190mph).
Alonso’s absence also means Nico Hulkenberg and Felipe Massa are now the only drivers to have out-qualified their team mate at every round. Stoffel Vandoorne, Jolyon Palmer and Lance Stroll have failed to out-qualify their team mates at all of this year’s races.
Finally, while Mercedes failed to make it to the podium their places were taken by the other two ‘big three’ teams. Such is their collective domination of F1 that not only have none of the other teams taken a podium finish yet, none of them have completed a lap with one of their cars inside the top three.
Review the year so far in statistics here:
- 2017 F1 championship points
- 2017 F1 season records
- 2017 F1 race data
- 2017 F1 qualifying data
- 2017 F1 retirements and penalties
- 2017 F1 strategy and pit stops
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Monaco Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
2017 Monaco Grand Prix
- 2017 Monaco Grand Prix Predictions Championship results
- Sainz takes first Driver of the Weekend win
- 2017 Monaco Grand Prix team radio transcript
- Boring or unique? Monaco GP rating hits ten-year low
- 2017 Monaco Grand Prix Star Performers
PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
29th May 2017, 18:30
According to F1 it was Ferrari their 90th 1-2, yet according to Twitter it was their 86th.
f199player (@f199player)
29th May 2017, 19:03
– Button got his best qualifying performance this year in Monaco
– Button became the first driver to end his career twice with a broken suspension
Unicron (@unicron2002)
29th May 2017, 22:06
Hehe, genius!
Ru Chern (@)
30th May 2017, 9:39
Well played.
marcusbreese (@marcusbreese)
29th May 2017, 19:11
Is Button the only driver who will have an unserved penalty hanging over him for the rest of his life?
Joao (@johnmilk)
29th May 2017, 20:07
It resets at the end of the season
David Not Coulthard (@davidnotcoulthard)
30th May 2017, 14:54
Does Webber have a pending investigation? (Helmets off post last race) :p
OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
29th May 2017, 19:15
I guess it’s the first time a driver (Alonso) runs in two categories the same month and has an engine failure in both.
Rick (@)
29th May 2017, 22:48
@omarr-pepper Get your facts straight, Alonso finished in P12 in Spain. Russia wasn’t in May and Canada won’t be either.
Cucamest (@kevincucamest)
30th May 2017, 8:36
@addvariety Alonso had an engine failure three corners into FP1 in Spain…
Rick (@)
30th May 2017, 10:18
@kevincucamest True, but that’s Free Practice. Oh and technically it was two corners. And if we want to get all into the details like you then I’m 100% certain it won’t be the first time someone has an engine failure in two different categories in the same month.
Just look at WEC and especially the 24 hours of Le Mans, Nürburgring and such. Those are filled with drivers from other categories. So it’s not about the details but more about the statement that “it’s a first”.
UnitedKingdomRacing (@unitedkingdomracing)
29th May 2017, 19:44
One I’ve read somewhere: McLaren Honda becoming the first team to have 3 DNFs in an F1 race weekend.
matt90
30th May 2017, 21:21
Funny, but almost certainly untrue.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
30th May 2017, 21:35
@unitedkingdomracing Yep Matt90 is right. In fact the last time a team was allowed to entered three cars in an F1 race, all three failed to finish. That was Renault in the 1985 German Grand Prix:
1985 German Grand Prix: Alboreto wins – but Ferrari decline begins
UnitedKingdomRacing (@unitedkingdomracing)
31st May 2017, 10:30
Your absolutly right of course. I haven’t checked it after I’ve read it on twitter. Thanks for the additional information.
Bleu (@bleu)
29th May 2017, 19:58
Found out this elsewhere so can’t give credit to me:
When Ferrari broke their previous 16-year streak of no wins at Monaco, the podium contained two Ferrari drivers and Stewart driver. Which is notable as Stewart team became Jaguar which became Red Bull later. Incidentally, 2001 race had two Ferrari drivers and Jaguar driver on the podium. 1999 quite of spoils that since there were two Ferrari drivers and one McLaren driver.
Rick (@)
29th May 2017, 22:52
@bleu That’s just looking for continuation facts that aren’t there. “If you ignore the 1999 Monaco facts”.
I know one in this category as well: tomorrow is 6-6-6 because 30-5-2017 is you know: 30 you can remove the zero and then double the 3 gets you 6. 5 plus 2 is 7, but minus 1 is 6 again. And the final 7 you can also substract the 1 from, so 6-6-6.
Joao (@johnmilk)
29th May 2017, 20:01
Seriously Keith feel free to use the nokia 3310 theory on your articles, we all know it is true it is happening. And I will keep mentioning it whenever suitable.
OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
29th May 2017, 20:58
@johnmilk you refer to that terrible sort-of-comeback phone they released this year? I don’t know why they have released it in so garish colors! Well, Maybe the original colors are licensed. It’s not even made by Nokia anymore right?
Joao (@johnmilk)
29th May 2017, 21:06
@omarr-pepper I have know idea, what I know is that last time it was on the market Ferrari dominated and won at Monaco. It’s back and look what’s happening.
EagleMk1
30th May 2017, 11:46
Sorry, I don’t get it, could you please elaborate on the Nokia 330 theory?
KaIIe (@kaiie)
29th May 2017, 20:43
Qualifying was probably the first time the top three drivers all speak Finnish (Räikkönen and Bottas being naturally native speakers and Vettel being taught the language by his personal trainer(s)).
Rick (@)
30th May 2017, 6:41
@kaiie Yup, Vettel is a proper polyglot. Fun fact along the same lines: there are also three drivers who all speak Dutch, where only Max Verstappen is a Dutch native. The other two are Stoffel Vandoorne, who’s from the Dutch speaking part of Belgium and Nico Hülkenberg who lived in The Netherlands during his early career and still gives interviews in Dutch to Dutch journalists. Oh and Vettel speaks a couple of words Dutch as well. ;-)
Jere (@jerejj)
30th May 2017, 9:34
@addvariety ”Nico Hülkenberg who lived in The Netherlands during his early career”
– Well, that explains his Dutch fluency. I haven’t heard any other person from a German-speaking country speaking Dutch.
Rick (@)
30th May 2017, 10:11
@jerejj It’s quite unique indeed. Speaking of German: Max Verstappen speaks fluent German as well, which you wouldn’t expect considering his mediocre English. Although his English is improving thanks to his British engineer(s), Australian teammate and British team principal.
Jere (@jerejj)
30th May 2017, 13:04
@addvariety I don’t think his English is ‘mediocre’. The only grammatical error from him I’ve really noticed is the use of ‘at the end’ when ‘in the end’ should be used instead. I’ve heard more grammatical errors from Massa and Alonso (not to the same extent as before though) who both have been racing internationally for much longer than Max.
Rick (@)
30th May 2017, 14:13
@jerejj I see, didn’t expect that. But then again, I’m not a native English speaker either so I cannot fully judge him myself. I guess I misjudged him based in his Dutch accent. ;-) But you’re right, most Spanish/Portugese/French speaking individuals have more trouble with English than Dutch or German people. Just compare those you mentioned and Grosjean/Perez to Verstappen/Magnussen/Hülkenberg/Vettel/Ericsson/Vandoorne. There are only two exceptions in the current field in my opinion: Wehrlein is the worst among Dutch/German speakers and Ocon is extremely good compared to other Spanish/French speakers.
David Not Coulthard (@davidnotcoulthard)
30th May 2017, 15:25
@addvariety Dutch and German are like English west Germanic languages (though they seem to be more like each other than each are to English, I guess we can thank the Plagtagnet for that).
And also I’ve read somewhere that to those who want to practice daily-life Dutch the line „ik spreek geen Engels” is an important one to learn, so I guess there’s that
safeeuropeanhome (@debaser91)
30th May 2017, 16:59
Max’s English is very good. Not quite on the par of Rosberg, Vettel or the Hulk but certainly not mediocre.
paulgilb (@paulgilb)
29th May 2017, 22:48
Second time Ericsson has crashed behind the safety car, both times in races where an English driver started from the pits.
First season since 2013 that there has been more than one non-Mercedes pole.
Bottas has started 3rd in 5 out of the 6 races so far this year, the only exception being his pole in Bahrain.
Perez’s first no-score since Hungary 2016. Both Vettel and Hamilton now have the longest uninterrupted streaks (11, last no-score Malaysia 2016). Perez still has the longest unbroken streak of race finishes (18) and classified finishes (35).
First time since Spain 2016 that no Mercedes led a lap, and first time since Spain 2016 that neither Mercedes finished on the podium.
First time since Australia 2013 that Raikkonen has led more than 10 laps of a race.
First time since Singapore – Brazil 2008 that Ferrari have had a car on the front row for 3+ consecutive races.
First time since 1980-82 that we have had 3 consecutive years in which the lap 1 leader at Monaco did not win the race.
First time since they entered F1 that McLaren have not scored in the first 6 races of the season.
First Ferrari driver to manage 7 consecutive podiums since Raikkonen in 2007.
Thanks to statsf1.com, formula1.com, and magnetimarelli.com for some of these.
Julien (@jlracing)
29th May 2017, 23:01
Raikkonen now has the most 2nd and 3rd place finishes in F1 history, 66 in total (33 times 2nd and 33 times 3rd. He overtook Alonso who has 65 and Michael Schumacher who has 64
Sumedh
30th May 2017, 0:52
First time since Singapore GP 2015 where there was a Mercedes driver in the race but not on podium. First time since Hungary GP 2015, where *both* drivers were in the race but not on podiums.
HUHHII (@huhhii)
30th May 2017, 5:19
It was 75th Monaco Grand Prix and cars number 7 and 5 started from the front row…
zimkazimka (@zimkazimka)
30th May 2017, 10:09
I give this stat a 5/7. (Sorry, couldn’t resist).
Fran
31st May 2017, 10:31
Fix!
Kim Philby (@philby)
30th May 2017, 6:32
With Monaco won now the only 2 left are Canadian and Japanese GP which Ferrari hasn’t won since the Schumacher era. Austrian gp also falls into that category but it was reintroduced only 3 years ago. Additionally they haven’t won in the US but it is a different track and we have only 5 GPs from 2012 and onwards. The strange thing about Canada and Japan is that in the Schumacher both gps were a very happy hunting ground for Ferrari. They won 6 out of 11 in Canada and another 6 out of 11 in Japan between 1996 and 2006.
Jere (@jerejj)
30th May 2017, 9:41
For the second year running Sauber endured a double DNF in Monaco meaning that Ericsson now also has two DNFs in a row on this venue, and speaking of DNFs, Kvyat now has two DNFs in a row in Monaco as well.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
31st May 2017, 6:45
@keithcollantine Not sure if anybody above mentioned it, but it was the 17th pole in Kimi’s career, not the 16th as you wrote.
George O'Donnell (@georgeod)
31st May 2017, 20:31
This is the first time since permanent driver numbers have been introduced that two pairs of cars use the same numeral as each other. Red Bull drivers had 3 and 33; and McLaren had 2 and 22.