Fernando Alonso, Alpine, Miami International Autodrome, 2022

Alonso has more penalty points than championship points after luckless start to 2022

2022 Miami Grand Prix stats and facts

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Max Verstappen’s binary season continued in Miami. In the six races so far – including the Imola sprint – he has either won or retired each time.

This was the 23rd victory of his Formula 1 career, an achievement which puts him on a par with Nico Rosberg and three-times world champion Nelson Piquet.

Verstappen added the fastest lap for what was his second consecutive maximum haul in the championship, though this weekend it was 26 points instead of 34. He now has 18 fastest laps, the same number as David Coulthard.

This was also Verstappen’s 63rd appearance on the podium, moving him out of a tie with Coulthard (again). At the age of 24, he is now among the top 10 drivers with the most podium finishes in their careers. Half of the top 10 are currently racing in Formula 1, including record-holder Lewis Hamilton (183), Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Valtteri Bottas.

Verstappen is among F1’s top 10 podium achievers
While Verstappen has drawn within striking distance of Charles Leclerc in the drivers’ championship, the constructors’ title fight is even closer. Red Bull, having scored nothing in the first race of the year, are now just six points behind Ferrari. It’s nine years since Red Bull last won the teams’ title, five years after Ferrari’s most recent triumph.

Leclerc took his third pole position of the season but, for the first time this year, failed to convert it into victory. It was the 12th of his career, putting him level with Coulthard (what is it with him this week?) and Gerhard Berger.

Having lined up an unpromising 12th, George Russell kept his streak of top five finishes going. It was a day for unexpected results, as Esteban Ocon took eighth from last on the grid, and Lance Stroll inherited the final point having started from the pit lane.

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Stroll’s promotion came at the expense of Fernando Alonso. After reliability problems in the Jeddah race and Melbourne qualifying session, then the damage inflicted by Mick Schumacher’s car in Imola, the Alpine driver needed a change of luck last weekend.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Miami International Autodrome, 2022
Leclerc set the pace in Miami
Instead he was the architect of his own demise, collecting two penalties in a single race. While Ocon has amassed 24 championship points, Alonso’s fourth consecutive no-score leaves him on just two. He’s got more penalty points – five – at this early stage in the season.

The Miami International Autodrome became the 76th different circuit to host a round of the world championship and the 11th different circuit F1 has raced at in America. The USA has had more different venues than any other country, and will get a 12th next year, when F1 races on a new street circuit in Las Vegas.

With his pole position lap of 1’28.796, averaging 219.415kph, Leclerc established the first benchmark for the circuit. This fell slightly short of the pre-race projection that lap speeds could outstrip Imola, and was slower than Jeddah and the revamped Albert Park course, but was 4kph up on Leclerc’s pole lap from Bahrain.

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

2022 Miami Grand Prix

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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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16 comments on “Alonso has more penalty points than championship points after luckless start to 2022”

  1. The recent new races (or tracks to be featured on the calendar) have been won by either Hamilton or Verstappen, unsurprisingly:
    – Verstappen: 2022 (Miami)
    – Hamilton: 2021 (Saudi Arabia, Qatar), 2020 (Algarve, Mugello).
    And the returning races:
    – Verstappen: 2021 (Zandvoort)
    – Hamilton: 2020 (Imola, Nürburgring), 2018 (Paul Ricard).

    If you include different races at same tracks, like the 70th Anniversary and Styrian GP’s, it’s still just HAM/VER.
    You have to go back to 2016 Baku to find a winner other than HAM/VER on a new track as Rosberg won the inaugural race at the Baku street circuit.

    And, of course, if you consider the 2020 Sakhir GP to be a new race/track, then Sergio Perez must be mentioned here as well.

    1. Miami was the first time someone other than those two had a realistic chance to fight for a win. I wouldn’t put any importance on stats like this, as who else could’ve won a race last year? There were lucky winners and one specific race where McLaren was competitive, that’s all. The time span is too short.

  2. Jelle van der Meer (@)
    11th May 2022, 9:47

    * Ferrari first front row lockout since Mexico 2019 – it was their 81st which puts them just 1 behind record holder Mercedes.
    * Hamilton’s 6th place on the grid was his lowest starting position ever on US soil.
    * Hamilton’s 6th place finish is his lowest finishing position ever on US soil.
    * George Russell is the only driver left on the grid that finished top 5 in every 2022 race
    * With Lando crashing, Leclerc now solely has the longest active streak of finishing races with 16 (Lando would have had 16 as well if he had finished)
    * With his 63rd podium in 146 races Max has now overtaken Vettel in ratio podiums/starts. Max finished 43.2% of his race starts on the podium and Vettel 43.1% (122/283).
    Lewis is far ahead mostly driven by 8 dominant Mercedes years with 62.5% (183/293).
    – 2007 – 2013 Lewis had 54 podiums over 129 race starts = 41.9%
    – 2014 – 2021 Lewis had 129 podiums over 164 race starts = 78.7%

    1. Crazy to think verstappen has 146 races under his belt and he’s still younger than most drivers were on their debut. Surely he’ll be the first to crack the 400 GP mark (assuming the motivation remains).

    2. Interesting about ferrari, as things are atm they might get some small margin on mercedes on the front row lockout stat; hamilton has often been good in the US ofc, russell has been maximising the potential of the car + has been lucky on SCs, also interesting the % of starts on the podium, I’m not sure, but I think on average hamilton pre 2014 had a better car than verstappen so far, verstappen started with a far worse car than the mclaren 2007.

    3. @jelle-van-der-meerle-van-der-meer actually, Vettel has 282 starts and as such is still slightly ahead of Verstappen in the podium/start ratio. No doubt that’s going to change one of the next races.
      Vettel has 283 entries – he did not take the start in Bahrain 2016.

      1. Jelle van der Meer (@)
        12th May 2022, 9:09

        Thanks for the feedback, probably should not have used the word “Starts”.

        In my statistic file I count those that participated on Sunday, so Bahrain 2016 for Vettel is a mechanical failure rather than that he didn’t participate.

    4. JM Fangio made 38 podiums in 51 starts, that’s 68.63%, and there are a few drivers with better percentages but with a very small number of starts. Luigi Fagioli is the only serious candidate to beat Fangio with six podiums in 7 starts, that’s 86.71%. And then there are the one-timers, George Amick & Dorino Serafini, both 100%. Amick won in the 1958 Indy 500 which for many purists is not a real F1 race although it counts for the stats.

      1. Jelle van der Meer (@)
        12th May 2022, 13:45

        True was just talking active drivers and I ignore any driver with less than 10 races from my statistics.

        Fangio is absolutely first then Lewis followed by 8 drivers (Farina, Gonzalez, Prost, Schumacher, Ascari, Senna, Clark and Stewart) before Max & Seb.

        Fangio is the absolute master in the statistics, in 51 races started he was on pole 29 times, set Flap 23 times, finished on podium 35 times and won 24 times as well as winning 5 world championships with 4 different constructors.

  3. Jonathan Parkin
    11th May 2022, 9:50

    Second race this year not to be a Grand Chelem, although LeClerc came oh so close at the first race of the year leading all but one lap of the first race

    1. Wow, lots of grand chelems this year.

  4. MB (@muralibhats)
    11th May 2022, 19:43

    El Plan

  5. Leclerc has qualified on pole in every odd-numbered event so far, while RB has qualified on a pole & won in every even-numbered event, ending Leclerc’s odd-numbered race win record.
    Coincidently Max has won every race he’s finished.
    However, RBR & Ferrari are still the only teams with race wins & 1-2s (one each), with their lead drivers the only ones to win & get FLAPs.

    Alfa’s best QLF & starting position since Kimi’s P5 for the 2019 German GP.

    This season’s 100% SC record continued, but an entirely SC & VSC-free race will come sooner or later.

    BIC comparison is the most direct as both lap lengths are 5.412 km, so lower pole time for Miami GP automatically means the Miami International Autodrome is outright faster than BIC.

  6. “This was the 23rd victory of his Formula 1 career, an achievement which puts him on a par with Nico Rosberg and three-times world champion Nelson Piquet.”

    This seems interesting Piquet only had 23 victories but 3 World championship (WC), would love to see stats around which drivers had minimum wins for each WC bucket. 1WC with minimum wins, 2 WC with minimum wins…so on

    1. Hawthorn and Rosberg both won their respective championships with only 1 win. They did however win some races outside their championship winning seasons. Brabham’s 14 wins would probably be the least for a 3 time champion. Ever-expanding calendars and longer careers have resulted in drivers winning multiple races without claiming championships (like Bottas, Webber, Barrichello etc.), often more than actual champions.

  7. Leclerc’s qualifying results in 2022: 1-2-1-2-1.

    Both Verstappen and Sainz have finished on the podium whenever they have reached the finish in 2022.

    Albon has exactly 200 career points.

    First time since Saudi Arabia 2021 that neither Red Bull has started on the front row.

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