[gmsabu]
Charles Leclerc has become the fifth driver to win the Italian Grand Prix in his first start as a Ferrari driver.
By doing so, the 21-year-old has ensured his name already belongs among the team’s great heroes. He follows in the footsteps of Clay Regazzoni (1970), Jody Scheckter (1979 – 40 years ago to this very day), Michael Schumacher (1996) and Fernando Alonso (2010).
The latter was the most recent Ferrari driver to win the team’s home race, in 2010. The team had gone eight years without a victory at Monza, equalling its win drought of 1980-1987. However Ferrari did not go without a home win during that time. It won the San Marino Grand Prix at the Imola circuit in Italy in 1982 and 1983. Leclerc therefore ended Ferrari’s longest win drought in Italy.
He has also joined exclusive company by scoring his first two victories consecutively. Only eight other drivers have done this. Six drivers won their first two races back-to-back: Alberto Ascari, Peter Collins, Bruce McLaren, Rene Arnoux, Nigel Mansell and Lewis Hamilton. The latter, like Leclerc, took his first two wins within eight days of each other.
If Leclerc wins in Singapore he will equal the record for starting a career with the most consecutive wins. Damon Hill and Mika Hakkinen both scored their first three wins consecutively.Leclerc also racked up his fourth pole position, putting him level with Mike Hawthorn, Didier Pironi, Jarno Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella. Hamilton beat him to fastest lap, taking a numerically-satisfying 44th.
Despite starting second and running within two seconds of Leclerc for much of the race, Hamilton failed to lead a single lap for the first time since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg took fourth and fifth for Renault. This is the team’s best result since the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix, where Alonso won for them and Nelson Piquet Jnr finished fourth. On Saturday the Renault drivers claimed the third row of the grid, which was the best qualifying result for the team since Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen did the same at Magny-Cours in 2007.
Antonio Giovinazzi also brought a little extra home cheer by being the first Italian driver on the grid for eight years. He did rather better than Jarno Trulli, who finished a twice-lapped 14th in 2011, and vastly better than Vitantonio Liuzzi, who in the same race took out Nico Rosberg and Vitaly Petrov at the first corner. Giovinazzi bagged ninth place, his best career result to date, unless Alfa Romeo are successful in having their German Grand Prix penalties overturned.
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Review the year so far in statistics here:
- 2019 F1 championship points
- 2019 F1 season records
- 2019 F1 race data
- 2019 F1 qualifying data
- 2019 F1 retirements and penalties
- 2019 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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2019 Italian Grand Prix
- ‘No simple rules fix’ for F1’s Monza Q3 farce
- Monza Q3 farce unlikely to be repeated this year – Verstappen
- Top ten pictures from the 2019 Italian Grand Prix
- Teams should have helped Vettel and Stroll avoid Ascari incidents – Masi
- 2019 Italian Grand Prix Star Performers
Nikki (@nikkit)
9th September 2019, 11:28
A less enviable stat for Vettel is that this the second Italian GP in a row that he’s spun out and received damage to his car.
Last year Kimi came so close to ending th ewin drought at Monza for Ferrari, but perhaps it is more appropriate that with Ferrari finally bringing some young blood into the team, that it should be Leclerc to do it.
Ipsom
9th September 2019, 11:43
Insane that Ferrari’s last win in Monza was in 2010… funny that Alonso was there during the weekend
Esploratore (@esploratore)
13th September 2019, 0:14
Last time ferrari won at monza before this I was at the higher school, ages ago.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
9th September 2019, 11:47
“If Leclerc wins in Singapore he will equal the record for starting a career with the most consecutive wins. Damon Hill and Mika Hakkinen both scored their first three wins consecutively.”
This would be spectacular. Very low chance of that, but if he does it that will just destroy Vettels career.
David BR (@david-br)
9th September 2019, 12:27
Sadly his Monza performance compared to Leclerc just did that.
Julian
9th September 2019, 11:49
Great, back to Ferrari cheating ways! I thought we’d seen the back of it with Schumacher&co but no, you can be pressured into a mistake, contravene the rules blatantly and still pick up all the accolades! Triffic!
carbon_fibre (@carbon_fibre)
9th September 2019, 12:30
I’m surprised that only 5 Ferrari drivers have won at Monza.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
9th September 2019, 12:44
@carbon_fibre …on their first attempt as a Ferrari driver.
Several others have: Ascari, Phil Hill, Surtees, Berger, Barrichello and the last Italian to do so in a Ferrari: Ludovico Scarfiotti. His only world championship race win, but what a race to win…
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
9th September 2019, 12:44
@carbon_fibre No it means the 5th Ferrari driver to win it at the first
GeeMac (@geemac)
9th September 2019, 16:00
Coincidentally, two of Damon’s first three wins were at Spa and Monza as well. The other was in Hungary, the first of that trio.
hamiledon
11th September 2019, 18:05
Leclerc has a huge natural talent.