In 2001 Monza had a makeover: The first corner was reshaped into the tight turn it is today. Remarkably, last Sunday’s race was the first of the 18 races held since than that home favourites Ferrari swept the front row of the grid.
Unfortunately for them, this wasn’t the prelude to their first win in front of the Tifosi since Fernando Alonso’s 2010 triumph. This eight-year win-less streak is their longest ever drought on home ground.
Ferrari also went eight years without a Monza victory between Jody Scheckter’s 1979 success and Gerhard Berger’s 1988 win. But Monza wasn’t Italy’s only F1 race at that time: Ferrari took home wins at Imola in the 1982 and 1983 San Marino Grands Prix.Instead Lewis Hamilton gave Mercedes their fifth consecutive win in the Italian Grand Prix, extending a record they already held. They rubbed it in on the victory lap, telling their drivers to parade side-by-side around the circuit.
At least Kimi Raikkonen got to be the first driver in something other than a Mercedes to lead a lap of this race for the first time in five years, when Sebastian Vettel won for Red Bull. He also broke Juan Pablo Montoya’s 14-year-old record for the fastest lap ever seen in Formula 1 on his way to pole position.
In his 284 race career to date Raikkonen has had far fewer pole positions (18) than fastest laps (46). Raikkonen now had as many pole positions as former Ferrari drivers Rene Arnoux and Mario Andretti – the latter scored the final pole position of his career at Monza 36 years ago.
Raikkonen also became the fifth driver in F1 history to reach 100 podiums. He joins Michael Schumacher (155), Hamilton (128), Vettel (107) and Alain Prost (106). The next-highest driver is Fernando Alonso on 97, though he hasn’t finished on the podium since the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix.
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Hamilton set the fastest lap of the race on his way to victory. Despite the track record falling, his best lap of 1’22.479 was 1.4 seconds off the race lap record, set by Rubens Barrichello in 2004.
It’s been a desperate run of races for Renault-bound Daniel Ricciardo, who’s only finished two of the last six rounds. Red Bull hasn’t scored points with both cars in any of the last six races, something which last happened in 2009.
Sergey Sirotkin was took 10th place and the first point of his F1 career. Russia’s third F1 driver joins his predecessors Vitaly Petrov and Daniil Kvyat as a point scorer.
The Williams driver was promoted to 10th place following the disqualification of Romain Grosjean. Disqualifications are rare in Formula 1: The last driver to be excluded from the race results was Felipe Massa, when his pre-start tyre temperatures and pressures were found to be too high at the 2015 Brazilian Grand Prix.
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Review the year so far in statistics here:
- 2018 F1 championship points
- 2018 F1 season records
- 2018 F1 race data
- 2018 F1 qualifying data
- 2018 F1 retirements and penalties
- 2018 F1 strategy and pit stops
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Italian Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
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2018 Italian Grand Prix
- Ferrari suffering longest-ever home race victory drought
- 2018 Italian Grand Prix Star Performers
- Hamilton wins again as Mercedes break Ferrari hearts at home
- Paddock Diary: Italian Grand Prix day four
- Vote for your 2018 Italian Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend
Phylyp (@phylyp)
9th September 2018, 12:27
Yes, you warned us… but still… groan!
Bart
9th September 2018, 13:48
Point taken ;)
Phylyp (@phylyp)
9th September 2018, 16:02
Silent groan. I… just… can’t… take… it…
Oxnard (@montalvo)
10th September 2018, 11:30
Get over it, it’s pointless. or.. is it?
Bleu (@bleu)
9th September 2018, 13:29
In this century, six drivers has scored their first points due to other driver being disqualified or given time penalty.
Kimi Räikkönen in Australia 2001 (Panis 25 seconds)
Timo Glock in Canada 2004 (R.Schumacher, Montoya, Panis and da Matta DQ)
Vitantonio Liuzzi in San Marino 2005 (Button and Sato DQ)
Adrian Sutil in Japan 2007 (Liuzzi 25 seconds)
Paul di Resta in Australia 2011 (Perez and Kobayashi DQ)
Sergey Sirotkin in Italy 2018 (Grosjean DQ)
On another note, two drivers have lost their first point finish. Scott Speed finished 8th in Australia 2006 before given time penalty which dropped him out of points. Sergio Perez was disqualified in Australia 2011 as mentioned above.
Unicron (@unicron2002)
9th September 2018, 19:39
@bleu Great stats. What on Earth happened at Canada 2004? Both Williams and both Toyotas excluded. I can not remember that happening, so why on earth do I remember Glock scoring his first points, in a Jordan?! Hazy memory, it was a long time ago now.
Bleu (@bleu)
9th September 2018, 20:59
@unicron2002 They had illegal brake ducts. Although Montreal was (and still is) very hard circuit for the brakes it’s surprising that two teams fell foul of irregularities.
Unicron (@unicron2002)
9th September 2018, 21:58
@bleu ah he’s the brake ducts we’re too large, it’s coming back to me now thanks
Minardi (@gitanes)
9th September 2018, 14:31
Montoya’s outright Monza Lao record was the last of the normally aspirated area to fall as far as current circuits go. There are still a few race lap records out there from long ago that will still stand for some time probably.
Jere (@jerejj)
9th September 2018, 15:01
@gitanes Yes, and a few outright records from the N/A era as well still stand due to the drop of those circuits before the move to the current engine formula.
Gabriel (@rethla)
9th September 2018, 15:14
They could have won this year but they chose not to. They got the record with Kimi for all its worth.
BlackJackFan
9th September 2018, 16:41
OK… now here’s a really pedantic point…
As I understand it HAM was first to break Montoya’s record, but was very quickly eclipsed by VET… who was then beaten by RAI…
So, technically (I think) RAI only beat VET’s record, which had lasted just a few seconds…
And it was HAM who broke MON’s record… ;) ;) ;)
Joseph (@bigjoe)
9th September 2018, 16:51
Not until the Official race classification has been released ;)
BlackJackFan
10th September 2018, 16:21
Hi Joseph – Well… I did say: “technically (I think)”…
You say: “Official”…
I think maybe you win, technically… but it all just struck me as a fun, interesting/pedantic observation…
Thanks for the response.
Todfod (@todfod)
9th September 2018, 17:36
Interesting. I wonder if this was the first time in the history of F1 that a circuit lap record was broken 3 times in under 10 seconds.
Tango (@tango)
9th September 2018, 17:49
Probably happened a few times in 2004
Jack Jeffreys (@jack1501)
9th September 2018, 19:06
Unlikely with single lap qualifying
Tango (@tango)
9th September 2018, 19:53
Ah yes, true.
Gabriel (@rethla)
9th September 2018, 22:08
I wouldnt be surprised if it has happened already during the hybrid era.
MtlRacer (@mtlracer)
9th September 2018, 17:32
There are 20 world championships between the 5 drivers that have 100 podiums or more (7,4,4,4,1)… and people say Alonso is deserving of more championships than he has!
Tango (@tango)
9th September 2018, 17:50
Well Kimi is at one champ only… And in the 100 podium league
cduk_mugello (@cduk_mugello)
9th September 2018, 18:42
Hate to be a picky, but wasn’t it reshaped for 2000 – the year that Irvine crashed at the first chicane and the big crash happened at the second chicane?
Unicron (@unicron2002)
9th September 2018, 19:41
@cduk_mugello not picky at all – fact! Good spot. Yes I remember in the build up everyone feared a massive crash at the new first chicane. They were wrong it was at the second chicane which claimed the life of a marshall, bad times.
George O'Donnell (@georgeod)
9th September 2018, 18:52
I believe this is the first time in history in which there are no drivers with 0 points.
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
9th September 2018, 21:14
@georgeod: The pressure on the FIA to overturn Gro’s DSQ must be immense over in the stats department.
OTOH, this proves without doubt, that Liberty’s changes have made the sport more competitive than ever. Their job is done. Other than expanding the podium to include first 10 places – that’s how more even more records will fall.
;-)
Jere (@jerejj)
10th September 2018, 9:51
@georgeod No, it isn’t. I haven’t looked up for it yet, but there definitely are many seasons during which each full-time driver scored at least a single point.
Manalive
10th September 2018, 11:02
Full-time, yes. But, if we get to the end without any new drivers cropping up, it will be the first time ever that every competitor has scored at least one point. Not only that, it will be the first season ever that every competitor has finished a race in the top 10! (and no Indy 500 races were needed in that statistic).
The one caveat to this – in 1997, every driver who actually started a race, had at least one top 10 finish (two drivers never qualified).
ColdFly (@)
9th September 2018, 21:49
Has anybody else finished 3 races within the top three without making it to the podium in those races?
J Eno (@)
9th September 2018, 21:50
They were going to change the first chicane for his track last year, then this year. What happened?
F1 in Figures (@f1infigures)
9th September 2018, 22:32
@jerejj A small correction:
That was Massa in Brazil 2015, as the article stated.
Jere (@jerejj)
10th September 2018, 9:57
@f1infigures How could I have forgotten that? TBH, I didn’t even notice that in the last paragraph at the time as I didn’t even read the article entirely properly till the end then, just checked whether there’s anything I’d added to my list. I just quickly posted the list I had made for this particular article as I just wanted to get it out of the way due to this unexpectedly (and unnecessarily) long delay of the publication of this article.
Joao (@johnmilk)
9th September 2018, 22:53
The picture used in the article looks like a video-game or is it just me?