Max Verstappen became the ninth most successful Formula 1 driver in terms of outright wins last weekend, claiming his 26th career victory in the Canadian Grand Prix.
This was the sixth consecutive win for Red Bull, which is their second-longest streak of all time. They need three more to match their personal best and five more to equal the 34-year-old record held by McLaren.Verstappen also took pole position – the 15th of his career but, remarkably, only his second of this season. The only other driver with 15 poles is his championship rival Charles Leclerc.
The Red Bull driver was denied a hat-trick of win, pole and fastest lap by Carlos Sainz Jnr, who claimed the bonus point. This is only the second time Sainz has set the fastest lap in a race – he previously did so at the 2020 Styrian Grand Prix.
Sainz finished second for the fifth time in his career. The only driver to have taken more second-place finishes without winning a race is Nick Heidfeld, who did so eight times.
It was also the fifth podium finish for Sainz this year, giving him one more than team mate Leclerc. Sainz also had the most podiums of the pair last season.
Lewis Hamilton returned to the podium for the first time since the season-opener in Bahrain. However it has been an unusually uncompetitive run for him lately in Mercedes’ W13.
He has now gone 10 consecutive races without scoring a win, which equals the longest such run of his career. He’s had 10 straight win-less races on three previous occasions.
After making his debut at the beginning of 2007 it took Hamilton just six races to achieve his first win, which came at that year’s Canadian Grand Prix. But his first championship victory in 2008 was followed by a lengthy win-less spell.
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In circumstances similar to those he finds himself in today, Hamilton’s McLaren team failed to master a new set of regulations at their first attempt, and he languished off the pace in the opening races of 2009. Hamilton eventually took the upgraded MP4-24 to victory in Hungary after 10 starts without a win.
A further two long win-less spells followed his move to Mercedes at the end of 2012. He won once in his first season at the team, again in Hungary, either side of which he went for 10 races in a row without another victory.
Hamilton’s current win-less streak began after his victory in last year’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, followed by his controversial defeat a week later in Abu Dhabi. He is yet to lead a lap this year, though George Russell headed the field for four laps in the other Mercedes at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Russell followed his team mate home in fourth place, sustaining his streak of finishing every race in the top five. Reprising two themes from last week’s stats and facts, Russell is now only 15 points behind Leclerc, who has lost 95 points to Verstappen in six races.
However Leclerc managed an impressive recovery effort from 19th on the grid, climbing 14 places to finish fifth.
For the second time this year Fernando Alonso was penalised after the chequered flag. His demotion to ninth place promoted Zhou Guanyu, who had already achieved the best result of his career so far, to eighth.
Alonso’s Saturday was better: He claimed his first front row place since he took pole position for the 2012 German Grand Prix for Ferrari. At 40 years and 325 days, this made him the oldest driver to start a race from the front row since Michael Schumacher at that year’s Chinese Grand Prix (43 years and 103 days).
He wasn’t the only person who had a better Saturday than Sunday. Haas matched their best ever two-car qualifying performances of fifth and sixth, which they previously managed with Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen at the 2018 Australian and German grands prix. Mick Schumacher’s sixth place was his highest starting position of his career.
Unfortunately neither he nor Magnussen were able to deliver points on Sunday. The team which left the season-opener third in the standings now languishes in ninth place, having failed to score in any of the last five rounds.
Schumacher has now started 30 races without scoring a point. Only five drivers have had longer point-less careers: Toranosuke Takagi, Brett Lunger, Max Chilton, Charles Pic and record-holder Luca Badoer, who failed to score in all of his 51 starts.
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Have you spotted any other notable stats and facts from the Canadian Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd June 2022, 7:27
Max simultaneously surpassed Clark & Lauda on the all-time winning list.
The first time since 2007 that pole position went for someone other outside the Hamilton-Rosberg-Vettel trio.
Also, for the first time since the season-opening Bahrain GP weekend, Max topped a practice session & Zhou finished in the top ten.
K-Mag’s PB-equalling highest starting position (he also qualified 5th for the 2019 Austrian GP). Additionally, Mick’s first Q3 appearance.
Sainz became the fifth driver to obtain FLAP bonus point this season after his teammate, RBRs, & Norris.
First DNF for Tsunoda since last season’s Mexico City GP, although he got DNS in this season’s SA GP.
Cynic (@callmeacynic)
22nd June 2022, 7:46
KMag also started 4th for Mclaren in his first F1 race in 2014, unless you’re reference his Haas career?
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd June 2022, 11:20
@callmeacynic Referring to his entire F1 career was my intention rather than solely Haas seasons.
I had merely forgotten his 2014 Australian GP starting position.
Croatic
23rd June 2022, 7:21
Mick’s first Q3 appearance was in Spain.
F1 frog (@f1frog)
22nd June 2022, 7:38
Alonso’s first front row start since Germany 2012 breaks the record for longest time between consecutive front rows, previously held by Mario Andretti between Watkins Glen 1968 and Anderstorp 1976.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
22nd June 2022, 14:12
That’s an insane stat. I dunno why, but expected Mario to have more from row starts.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
22nd June 2022, 23:03
Yeah, that’s surprising – and some of those front rows would have been three wide!
Fab
22nd June 2022, 8:19
Alonso, Vettel and Raikonnen
« we’re with you, bro ! »
jff
22nd June 2022, 8:20
I believe that only Chilton (35 races) and Pic (39) never finished in the top 10 either.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
22nd June 2022, 8:31
Just a big oof at this list right here. Not a list of drivers you want to be compared to, for sure.
I don’t think Schumacher is as poor as the drivers he’s being listed with here though, ultimately last years Haas wasn’t his fault, but this season shouldn’t have been pointless until now. It’s hard to gauge exactly where Schumacher ranks in the current field, let alone all time, I want to believe he’s up there with the Stroll’s and other such lower midfielders of the world, but eesh, he needs to start showing something more.
F1 frog (@f1frog)
22nd June 2022, 10:16
Adjusted for the current points system, Luca Badoer scored 26 points, Brett Lunger 21 points and Tora Takagi 14. But this stat isn’t entirely representative as reliability was far worse during their time so it was easier to make the top ten, hence why the points finishes were extended. Charles Pic and Max Chilton also drove particularly poor cars during their time racing, with Pic’s teammates never scoring either, including podium-finisher Timo Glock, and Chilton’s teammates scoring a total of two points, for Bianchi’s ninth in Monaco.
Miguel Bento (@miguelbento)
22nd June 2022, 12:27
There is also Bernd Schneider, whose best finishing position was 12th.
However, the list of drivers “with more pointless starts than Mick Scumacher” is not complete. Here it is:
Luca Badoer (58 starts, best was 7th place)
Yanick Dalmas (50, 5th) *
Brett Lunger (42, 7th)
Jan Lammers (41, 9th)
Charles Pic (39, 12th)
Brian Henton (37, 7th)
Rupert Keegan (37, 7th)
Max Chilton (35, 13th)
Toranosuke Takagi (32, 7th)
Bernd Schneider (32, 12th)
Mick Schumacher (31, 11th)
[…]
* Dalmas 5th place in the 1987 Australian GP was pointless because he was driving Larrousse-Lola’s second car and the team had officially entered only one car for the entire championship.
jff
22nd June 2022, 18:56
Always good to see that there are still ‘fanatics’ on this site ;)
Jelle van der Meer (@)
22nd June 2022, 9:14
Should have been posted after Saudi Arabia race but Max is the 9th driver in history to score at least 1 win in 7 consecutive seasons. There are currently only 5 drivers with 8 or more consecutive winning seasons.
The other drivers are Lewis (28yrs), Schumacher (29yrs), Senna (30yrs), Moss (31yrs), Clark (31yrs), Coulthard (31yrs), Prost (32yrs) and Piquet (33yrs).
At 24yrs of age Max is by far the youngest to do so, quite crazy that this is already Max’s 8th season in F1 and Canada was his 150th race start ranking him 41st of race start list.
With his win in Canada Max scored his 67th podium equaling Bottas moving him joined 9th on the all time podium list. With his 67th podium in 150 races (=44.7%) he overtook Jim Clark (44.4%) on ratio podium vs race starts.
If not for Alonso’s post race penalty, Alonso would have been the 3rd driver to reach 2,000 career points, he still needs 2 more.
Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
22nd June 2022, 9:43
Winning a race in every season is Lewis’ most impressive stat, and I’d still back him to keep it going this year.
That car is improving and the stars will align at some point.
André
22nd June 2022, 12:37
Who knows, maybe Hungary again. It was would be cool to maintain that record.
Todfod (@todfod)
22nd June 2022, 14:01
The fact that his longest winless streak is only 10 races is even more impressive to me.
ajpennypacker (@ajpennypacker)
22nd June 2022, 16:47
Why wouldn’t he win every season when he’s had a top 2 or top 3 car every year he’s competed? I mean coupled with his talent of course, but it’s also not as though he stole some Victory in a car that didn’t belog at the front ala Vettel in a Toro Rosso, or Ocon in 2021
André
22nd June 2022, 21:20
You can’t blame him for being such a top driver that all what he had available were front running cars.
amian
23rd June 2022, 17:46
That’s not a Lewis stat but his cars’ stat. Alonso hasn’t won in over 7 seasons’ worth of races, guess where the difference lies.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
23rd June 2022, 21:48
Absolutely, it’s the car, none of us is saying everyone with hamilton’s car would’ve held such a win stat, but alonso, schumacher, etc., top drivers would’ve done it.
iCarbs (@icarby)
22nd June 2022, 10:24
Am at a work event today and as luck would have it, Mercedes F1 team (or at least some of them) were in attendance with the show car.
They answered all questions about what they are having to do to sort the car out and what each driver is doing, basically Hamilton is experimenting and Russell is the ‘control’ … we’ll see how it pans out.
But not confident he’ll keep his winning race stat in every season.
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd June 2022, 11:22
@icarby You were lucky & somewhat privileged to get such a chance to meet their F1 team people.
Perhaps, I’ll get a similar chance someday.
More relevantly, on the stat, I’m still confident he can keep his ‘at least a single win per season’ record alive, but we’ll see.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
22nd June 2022, 12:27
With Ferrari strategy, and reliability woes across both Ferrari and Red Bull, the default next-in-line race winner would be a Mercedes driver, so yeah, plenty of chances still for Lewis to get a race win this season, even if their car remains in the state it’s in currently.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
22nd June 2022, 15:38
Ha! Don’t want to downplay HAM’s qualities as a racer but still, ”moments” like this underline the quality of car he raced pretty his entire carreer. The 2022 Mercedes is not a very good car, what Mercedes/HAM were used to, but actually it’s a good, decent car, more reliable than front runners, and which might take a more or less deserved/lucky PP or win in a season. Yet, it’s the worst car HAM raced!
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
23rd June 2022, 21:50
Agree in regards to the quality of the cars, however I think the mclaren 2009 was even worse than this until mid season.
paulgilb (@paulgilb)
23rd June 2022, 22:30
3rd pole for Red Bull engines – equals Red Bull’s former supplier Tag Heuer.
First time this season that Sainz has started higher than Leclerc this season – every driver has now started higher than their team-mate at least once in 2022.
First time this season that Leclerc has not started on the front row.
3 of Stroll’s 4 home GPs have seen him start 17th and finish in the top 10 (on the other occasion he started 16th and crashed).
Thanks to statsf1 and the official F1 site for some of these.