Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri, Monza, 2020

Gasly beats Sainz in closest F1 finish for 10 years

2020 Italian Grand Prix stats and facts

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A remarkable Italian Grand Prix yielded many major new entries in the record books. These were led by F1’s latest new winners, Pierre Gasly and AlphaTauri.

Gasly is the 109th different driver to win a round of the world championship, and the first French driver to do so since Oliver Panis triumphed in the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix. France is Formula 1’s fourth most successful country in terms of race wins behind Britain, Germany and Brazil: Gasly took their 80th victory.

AlphaTauri are the 35th different team to win a race and the first new race-winning team since Red Bull in the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix. However AlphaTauri did win a race in its previous guise, as Toro Rosso. That 2008 victory, coincidentally also at Monza, was also the last time both a team its driver were first-time winners – Sebastian Vettel did the honours.

AlphaTauri ended a 2,730-day wait for anyone other than Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull to win a race. That run stretched back to Kimi Raikkonen’s victory for Lotus in the 2013 Australian Grand Prix.

This also means Honda have become the first engine manufacturer two win races with more than one team since the V6 hybrid turbo era began. It was the 77th win for the Japanese engine manufacturer, whose previous victories have come with Lotus (two), its own works team (three), Red Bull (four), Williams (23) and McLaren (44).

Sebastian Vettel, Toro Rosso, Monza, 2008
Gasly emulated Vettel’s 2008 breakthrough win
Not only did Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull fail to win, none of their cars finished in the top three places. You have to go back to the 2012 Hungarian Grand Prix, won by Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren ahead of Lotus pair Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean, for the last time that happened.

Gasly led a race for the first time in his career, as did Carlos Sainz Jnr. The pair were separated by 0.415 when they took the chequered flag. This was the closest finish to an F1 race for 10 years, when Fernando Alonso denied Vettel in Singapore by just 0.293s.

Lance Stroll joined them on the podium. For all three drivers, it was the second time they’d officially finished in the top three. However Sainz has only officially stood on the rostrum once – he was promoted to third place after the podium ceremony took place in Brazil last year.

Neither Hamilton nor Max Verstappen were able to extend their run of consecutive podium finishes. Hamilton, however, was a classified finisher for the 41st race in a row, equalling Nick Heidfeld’s record which was set at this race 11 years ago. Hamilton, however, scored points in all of these finishes, which is already a record of its own.

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On Saturday Hamilton broke the record for the fastest lap ever in a Formula 1 car. He rounded Monza in 1’18.887, an average speed of 264.362kph. Team mate Valtteri Bottas set the second-fastest lap of all time.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Monza, 2020
Ferrari had a grim weekend at home
Ferrari endured a terrible home race. Charles Leclerc and Vettel lined up 13th and 17th on the grid respectively. This was the team’s worst qualifying performance in the Italian Grand Prix since they began regularly fielding two cars.

The last time two Ferrari lined up as far down the grid at home was in 1962 when Lorenzo Bandini and Giancarlo Baghetti were 17th and 18th respectively. But the three other Ferraris on the grid that day fared better: Willy Mairesse was 10th, Ricardo Rodriguez 11th and Phil Hill 15th.

Neither Vettel nor Leclerc finished the race, which was Ferrari’s first double retirement at Monza for 25 years. On that occasion they had at least been running one-two, before Jean Alesi’s onboard camera fell off and smashed Gerhard Berger’s suspension, prior to Alesi’s retirement from the lead with a wheel bearing failure.

Finally, the mid-race red flag meant we saw the first use of F1’s recently introduced rules allowing standing starts after race suspensions. The race therefore had two standings starts, which last happened at the Belgian Grand Prix in 2001.

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Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Italian Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.

2020 Italian Grand Prix

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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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66 comments on “Gasly beats Sainz in closest F1 finish for 10 years”

  1. * The gap between two French victories was second-longest between two wins for same country. Only longer gap was for Australia between Alan Jones’s last win in 1981 and Mark Webber’s first in 2009.

    * Previous race where two drivers led their first laps in the same race was Bahrain GP 2012 with Romain Grosjean and Paul di Resta leading in the pit stop window.

    * In the 21st century, Gasly joined Pastor Maldonado, Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen in winning the first race they led.

  2. “AlphaTauri are the 35th different team to win a race and the first new race-winning team since Brawn in the 2009 Australian Grand Prix.”

    What about Red Bull, 2009 Chinese Grand Prix?

    1. @hammerheadgb although it is not exactly written that way, I believe the stat is for a new team that wins a race in their first year. Brawn was a new team in 2009 and AlphaTauri is also a new team, at least in name.

    2. THat stat was corrected to the Red Bull one now.

  3. None of the drivers on the podium had won a race prior to this weekend. I believe the last time that occurred was Canada 1995 (Alesi, Barrichello, Irivine).

    1. 2006 Hungary: Button, de la Rosa, Heidfeld.

      1. 2007 Canada: Hamilton, Heidfeld, Wurz

  4. Gasly beats Sainz in closest F1 finish for 10 years

    Shows how much F1 has regressed in terms of close racing, MotoGP regularly there are riders finishing closer than this and even at circuits like Silverstone and Red Bull Ring which for F1 are supposed to be easy overtaking circuits.

    1. F1 & MotoGP are quite different. If you want really close finishes, check out top fuel dragsters, or athletics, 100m sprint. Top five within 10ths regularly!

  5. Jelle van der Meer (@)
    7th September 2020, 17:51

    Since start of 2000 season (380 races) Pierre Gasly is the 21st first time race winner.
    Splitting them into 3 equal groups of 7 shows that the last group took longer than the other 2 groups combined.

    1) Barrichello Germany 2000 – Trulli Monaco 2004 = 1,393 days / 63 races
    Counting since Irvine Australia 1999 = 1,904 days / 103 races

    2) Button Hungary 2006 – Webber Germany 2009 = 1,071 days / 50 races
    Counting Since Trulli Monaco 2004 = 1,876 days / 93 races

    3) Rosberg China 2012 – Gasly Italy 2020 = 3,066 days / 166 races
    Counting Since Webber Germany 2009 = 4,074 days / 214 races

    From those 21 first time winners there are 8 still active with the 3 oldest being Raikonnen (Malaysia 2003), Hamilton (Canada 2007) and Vettel (Italy 2008).
    Till now 5 of those 21 only won 1 race (Trulli, Kubica, Kovalainen, Maldonado and Gasly)

    Looking back at the full history the # of first time winners have declined from +/- 2 per season to 1 per +/- 2 seasons.
    1950-1959 84 races 24 first time winners = 1 per 3.5 race
    1960-1969 100 races 18 first time winners = 1 per 5.6 race
    1970-1979 144 races 22 first time winners = 1 per 6.5 race
    1980-1989 156 races 14 first time winners = 1 per 11.1 race
    1990-1999 162 races 10 first time winners = 1 per 16.2 race
    2000-2009 174 races 14 first time winners = 1 per 12.4 race
    2010-2019 198 races 6 first time winners = 1 per 33.0 race

    1. That’s some quality work here @jelle-van-der-meer , I just wonder, did you exclude the Indy rounds from the first decades ? I’m asking just to be sure as it would screw up the stats (also, as careers become longer and the rotation in top cars is slower, it is possibly skewed in a sense, but great great analysis non the less)

      1. Jelle van der Meer (@)
        8th September 2020, 7:49

        The stats are based on all 1,026 officially counted F1 races so YES also the Indy rounds.
        It also include the 3 shared drive wins (France 1951, Argentina 1956 and UK 1957) from the Fifties, these shared wins are the reason why Gasly is the 109th race winner instead of the 107th.
        Luigi Fagioli (France 1951) and Luigi Musso (Argentina 1956) are the only 2 Luigi’s that ever won a F1 race – both only won 1 race in their careers and both did it with a shared drive with none other than the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio (24 race wins).
        The shared drive winners of the UK 1957 race were Tony Brooks (6 race wins) and Stirling Moss (16 race wins)

      2. Yes, and shows the extent of dominance in the last decade, making it a lot harder for most drivers to ever win.

  6. 2017 Azerbaijan GP (the most recent race up to the last one to be red-flagged):
    Race winner: Daniel Ricciardo from P10 on the grid featuring a red flag-stoppage and Lance Stroll finishing 3rd.
    2020 Italian GP:
    Race winner: Pierre Gasly from P10 on the grid featuring a red flag-stoppage and Lance Stroll finishing 3rd. Gasly is the 10th driver to win a race from 10th on the grid, and the first since that dramatic Baku-race.

    2nd DNF in a row for Kevin Magnussen in Monza.

    The streak of only Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull Racing winning races got to 146 races before coming to an end, while Mclaren’s winningless streak increased by yet another race now standing at 148.

    Olivier Panis might’ve been the most recent French-driver to win a Grand Prix before the last race, but the last occasion the French national anthem was played on a podium happened in Fuji in the 2008 Japanese GP when Fernando Alonso won for Renault.

    RP’s first podium finish since the 2018 Azerbaijan GP under the Force India name.

    McLaren got both cars in the top-four in Monza for the first time in nine years.

    Sergio Perez has finished in the points in Monza for seven consecutive seasons.

  7. When was the last race with a no previously race winning drivers’ podium?

    1. Someone posted it earlier, looks like canada 2007, if you mention that race to me I only remember it was hamilton’s first win, didn’t remember heidfeld and wurz were on podium.

    2. Mmmm, it’s been really ages ago now I think about it, one of the first hamilton’s races and now he’s a very experienced driver.

  8. I believe these are correct but the last time the French and Italian national anthems played in combination was the 2002 Malaysian Grand Prix were Italian Giancarlo Fisichella won for French outfit Renault.

    The last time we had a French driver in an Italian car win, was the 1995 Canadian Grand Prix where Jean Alesi brought home his Ferrari in first.

    1. @dragon86 I assume you mean 2006 and not 2002 there…

      1. The hazards of going off memory without double checking. I did mean 2006. Thanks.

        1. Interesting stats @dragon86, though as the post by @jerejj above indicates, you might also have skipped past Alonso’s 2008 Japanese GP win in a Renault?

          1. @bosyber, @jerejj was just pointing out the last time the French National anthem was played on the podium. I looked at when it played in combination with the Italian National anthem.

          2. Ah, right you are @dragon86

  9. Having pit lane closed with safety car is a very rare occurrence. It did happen often in 2007 and 2008 where the pit lane was closed by rule (during pit stop) and that resulted in fairly unfair penalties and even disqualifications (Massa, Fisichella 2007 Canada).
    This rule also played an important role in helping Alonso get his infamous 2008 Singapore GP win.

    This rule was scrapped since 2009 season. If I am not wrong, it was the first race where it actually got implemented since then!

    1. You are indeed wrong, it happened in 2016

      1. Which race? if I may ask?

        1. sumedh, the 2016 Brazilian Grand Prix appears to be the last time the pit lane was closed during a race. It also saw Ricciardo drive into the pit lane when it was closed, for which he was given a 5 second time penalty.

          1. Interesting! How come Ricciardo got such a light punishment? Hamilton for the same offence got the strictest penalty!!

        2. Brazil, when Erricson crashed at pit entry I would assume

        3. Check your facts .. and stop having a little cry.
          All the teams decided the punishment was too light & the 10 stop go penalty was added to the rules for the offence.
          Now move on already.

          1. His comment doesn’t denote any crying, there’s no evidence he’s even a hamilton’s fan from the commment, he just said there was an inconsistency, but I see it was changed after then.

  10. Since 2008, Alpha Tauri(Former Toro Rosso), RBR and Ferrari have won 2 races in Monza.

  11. Lenny (@leonardodicappucino)
    7th September 2020, 20:45

    This was the third youngest podium in F1 history. Only last year’s Brazilian GP (with Verstappen, Gasly, and Sainz combining for an average age of 23 years, 8 months, 23 days), and the 2008 Italian GP (with Vettel, Kovalainen and Kubica having an average age of 23 years, 11 months, 16 days) could beat Gasly, Sainz and Stroll’s average age of 24 years, 1 month, and 24 days.

  12. Seen this one elsewhere – least amount of previous podiums for a top three since the 1959 Dutch Grand Prix.

  13. This is the longest gap between maiden constructor victories since Benetton in 1986 and Jordan in 1998.

    First time that 2 teams have scored their maiden podiums in the same race (albeit both have had podiums under former names) since 1956 Indy 500 (Watson and Phillips). The only other time this has happened in an F1 World Championship race is Monaco 1950 (Maserati and Ferrari).

    Leclerc keeps alive his record of either finishing in the top 4 or not scoring in every 2020 race.

    Verstappen keeps alive his record of either finishing in the top 3 or not finishing in every 2020 race.

    Norris has already exceeded his points total from the whole of 2019.

    On both occasions that Latifi has started 20th, he has finished 11th (his best finish to date).

    Mercedes equal Williams’ record of 31 consecutive races (France 1995 to San Marino 1997) with at least 1 lap led.

    Thanks to the official F1 site and statsf1 for some of these.

    1. Ahah, interesting that both verstappen and leclerc have such stats!

  14. Average starting position by engines (after 8 races):
    8,438 – Renault
    8,715 – Mercedes Benz
    8,875 – Honda
    14,708 – Ferrari

    1. @chmateus can you please confirm what you mean by average starting position and how you calculated this? An average starting position in the thousands is rather nonsensical

      1. Average: “the result obtained by adding together several quantities and then dividing this total by the number of quantities”

        Renault engines:
        Carlos Sainz Jr. 8 3 9 7 12 7 7 3 = 7,000
        Lando Norris 3 9 8 5 10 8 10 6 = 7,373
        Daniel Ricciardo 10 8 11 8 5 13 4 7 = 8,250
        Esteban Ocon 14 5 14 9 14 15 6 12 = 11,125

      2. @minnis It’s not in the thousands. A comma is widely used as a decimal separator.

        1. @chmateus @retardedf1sh
          Oops, yes, sorry, that’s the britishness in me seeing a comma followed by 3 digits!

    2. Nicely done. The Ferrari PU really does stick out there at the back there!

      While that statistic is likely accurate @chamateus, the difference between the average and the median (which I didn’t calculate) will be quite large especially for Mercedes, as they have the two Williams cars to drag it down, so it is a bit misleading in the best way statistics can be (and maybe a lot less for Ferrari who are closest to their customers) ;-)

      Also, I didn’t calculate anything, certainly no confidence interval, I doubt that all three decimals are significant here, and unless they really are, I’d stick to just the 1st one.

      Oh, another question, since Honda and Renault only power two teams, that set of data has a wider confidence interval right – does that influence the picture? Again, Ferrari is the clear loser, and the rest you could say are in the same ballpark, so that’s a useful bit of info, but some small data-questions!

  15. * 8,613 – Mercedes Benz
    (Don’t forgot The Hulk, Don’t forgot The Hulk)

  16. That’s some quality work here @jelle-van-der-meer , I just wonder, did you exclude the Indy rounds from the first decades ? I’m asking just to be sure as it would screw up the stats (also, as careers become longer and the rotation in top cars is slower, it is possibly skewed in a sense, but great great analysis non the less)

    1. Jelle van der Meer (@)
      8th September 2020, 11:26

      The stats are based on all 1,026 officially counted F1 races so yes also the Indy rounds.
      It also include the 3 shared drive wins (France 1951, Argentina 1956 and UK 1957) from the Fifties, these shared wins are the reason why Gasly is the 109th race winner instead of the 107th.
      Luigi Fagioli (France 1951) and Luigi Musso (Argentina 1956) are the only 2 Luigi’s that ever won a F1 race – both only won 1 race in their careers and both did it with a shared drive with none other than the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio (24 race wins).
      The shared drive winners of the UK 1957 race were Tony Brooks (6 race wins) and Stirling Moss (16 race wins)

  17. “Alpha tauri are the 35th team to win a race”.

    This stat is confusing, is in not the same team as TorroRosso, same legal entity, same owners? Just different Brand awareness in the name.

    Williams is still the same team but with different owners officially, it’s a continuation. Racing point is a different team officially as they changed owner and name.

    For me Alfa Romeo is still Sauber as they have a sponsor deal, not ownership, yet BMW Sauber was a different team even though it was a controlling share rather than the whole team. Can someone explain how this works because I certainly consider Gaslys vicrory as that teams 2nd victory

  18. Ferrari left Monza 6th in the constructors world championship.
    Only once since constructors points started being awarded in 1958 have they finished the season in a worse position … 1980, when they finished in 10th.

  19. First time since 2018 that the grid has 08 race winners

    1. Jelle van der Meer (@)
      8th September 2020, 11:44

      Who was the 8th race winner in 2018, I only count 7 (Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso, Raikonnen, Bottas, Verstappen and Ricciardo).
      In 2018 there were no 1st time race winners, Leclerc was not yet a race winner in 2018, his first race win was Belgium 2019.

      For 8 or more race winners you need to go back to 2017 where there were 9 during the season (Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso, Rosberg, Raikonnen, Button, Massa, Bottas, Verstappen, Riccardio), at the same race it was only 8 as Button replaced Alonso during the Monaco 2017 race.

      In 2016 there were 9 race winners at the same time from the Spanish GP when Max won his 1st race.

      1. Jelle van der Meer (@)
        8th September 2020, 11:46

        Correction – there are still 9 during the 2017 season but I incorrectly listed 10 by adding Rosberg who left the sport at the end of 2016.

      2. @jelle-van-der-meer

        Leclerc wins made it 8 GP winners last year. Hamilton, Bottas, Verstappen, Leclerc, Vettel, Ricciardo Raikkonen and Kubica.

  20. Anyone know last time the top 4 were all outside of Red Bull/Merc/Ferrari? Hungary 2012 where the top 3 were not part of these teams had Vettel in 4th so must be further back than that.

    1. @t1redmonkey Malaysian GP 2009. The top 4 were Brawn-BMW Sauber-Toyota-Toyota

  21. I remember Oliver Panis’ win. It was on his birthday. What a present!

    1. Not his birthday. His birthday is on September

  22. No Italian driver has won a GP since Fisichella at Malaysia 2006.

    1. Brazilian anthem has never been heard since Barrichello’s win at Monza 2009.
      Colombian anthem has never been heard since Montoya’s win at Interlagos 2005.

      1. Mmm, I guess all of these stats will continue for a while since giovinazzi’s chances to win races are remote and there’s no brazillian or columbian drivers atm.

        1. Also curious but in the circumstances all of these last winners for a country had the best car, renault was superior to ferrari that early in 2006, mclaren 2005 was clearly the fastest car as long as it finished the race and while brawn was losing out to red bull in late 2009, monza was an exception where they got a 1-2.

  23. First time Ferrari have failed to score for 2 consecutive races since the first 3 races of 2009.

    One from Channel 4 – Kvyat has managed 22 top 10 finishes for Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri, of which only 3 have been top 8 finishes.

    1. Mmm, if they don’t get their act together, since not only they’re making mistakes and have reliability problems, but also low performance, they risk not scoring for 2 more races and going even further back with the negative streak!

  24. “AlphaTauri are the 35th different team to win a race and the first new race-winning team since Red Bull in the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix.”

    How do you treat the team that in 2012 entered as Lotus? Do you merge their stats (and therefore their 2 wins) with the prior Team Lotus that ran until 1994? Many stats separate Team Lotus from Lotus Racing, which I personally think is the right thing to do.

  25. I’m not sure I agree with the stat that AlphaTauri is a different team than Toro Rosso. They are the same team with the same owner, who just decided to promote a different brand. I’m not sure if change of owners is necessarily a new team either, but this is just marketing. Are we categorizing McLaren Honda as a different team than McLaren Mercedes? Are Force India, Racing Point Force India, Racing Point, and Aston Martin, 4 different teams?

    I’m not sure I can parse where the line is, but Toro Rosso to AlphaTauri does not seem like it meets that threshold, imo.

    It’s not a big deal, and it 100% is not my site. Just seems like an odd distinction. If there is some rule that every name change or engine change or ownership change or factory change = new team, it’s fine. Still seems odd here. @keithcollantine

    1. What word or combination of words above is tripping the mod sensor? So that I can avoid those words in the future. I have said nothing worth scanning.

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