Sergio Perez led more laps than anyone besides his team mate last year. But after 10 rounds of the 2024 championship Perez has yet to hit the front of the field.
The trend continued in the Spanish Grand Prix last weekend where he rose no higher than seventh. Since round five, Perez hasn’t completed a single lap in the top four places.Meanwhile Max Verstappen remains the runaway lap leader of the season so far. He’s headed the field for 381 laps so far, more than all his rivals combined. Strikingly, while Lando Norris moved up to second in the championship behind him last weekend, he has only the fourth-highest tally of laps spent in the lead, behind the two Ferrari drivers.
George Russell led at the end of lap one for the second race in a row, having made a superb start from second on the grid. This was the first time a driver who qualified outside the top three places has led the opening lap of a race since Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton collided on the first lap of the 2021 British Grand Prix, and Charles Leclerc hit the front. In the last 10 years, the lap one leader has only started outside the top three on two other occasions.
Norris joins seven other drivers who have took pole positions for two grands prix. The others are Stuart Lewis-Evans, Jo Siffert, John Watson, Gilles Villeneuve, Michele Alboreto, Jean Alesi and Heinz-Harald Frentzen. (Formula 1 also considers Russell to have two pole positions, as they do not count his 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix pole.) He also gave McLaren their first pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix since Kimi Raikkonen in 2005.
Verstappen claimed his 61st grand prix victory and seventh of the season so far. Surprisingly, he hasn’t won three grands prix in a row so far this year, though he could change that this weekend.
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Hamilton came in third, scoring his first podium finish of the year. He therefore repeated his 2009 nadir of not scoring a top-three finish until round 10, though he was briefly promoted to third place after the season-opening race that year before he was disqualified.
Eighth place for Perez means he has contributed just eight points to Red Bull’s tally in the last four races. It would have been less if he hadn’t pulled off a last-lap pass on Pierre Gasly. The Alpine driver finished ninth, one place ahead of his team mate, repeating their result from the previous round.
All 20 drivers took the chequered flag, as they also did in last year’s Spanish Grand Prix. This is the second time this year the full field has finished, as they also did at the season-opener in Bahrain.
Over to you
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Spanish Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
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2024 Spanish Grand Prix
- Russell ensures Norris has still never kept his lead from pole position
- Williams repeatedly switch floors in search for Sargeant’s missing downforce
- “Why’s he not defending?”: How Russell sank to fourth after stunning start
- What radio calls reveal about Verstappen’s controlled pace and Perez’s struggles
- 2024 Spanish Grand Prix weekend F1 driver ratings
Louis (@louis)
26th June 2024, 12:42
Teo Fabi had 3 pole positions in his F1 career but never led a lap.
IceMan22
26th June 2024, 13:19
“In the last 10 years, the lap one leader has only started outside the top three on two other occasions.”
Does anyone know what the other occasions are? So far I can think of Singapore 2017 but am stumped trying to think of the other.
Kai (@kai0143)
26th June 2024, 14:27
Japan 2013?
First line were Webber & Vettel, first lap leader was Grosjean.
F1statsfan (@f1statsfan)
26th June 2024, 15:59
Markus Winkelhock in his first and only race ever went from starting in the pitlane to leading the race by 19 seconds at the end of lap 2 in a Spijker during the 2007 European Grand Prix.
Markus would have lead at end of lap 1 but Kimi missed the pitlane – trying to pit but slides out of the pitlane having to go around again in extreme rain on dry tires.
Nick T.
27th June 2024, 6:20
That’s beyond the last 10 years.
Jojo
26th June 2024, 15:53
Silverstone 2021, Leclerc started P4 but was leading in lap 1.
Frank
26th June 2024, 14:02
I never realised G.Villeneuve had only 2 poles.
For a supposedly fast driver in mostly competitive cars that is a bit disappointing.
Philippe (@philippe)
26th June 2024, 14:59
Well, he only raced in 4 full seasons before he died, early in his fifth season. In an era that had about 15 races a year. Plus, he had a competitive car for one season (1979).
At least, he had more wins than pole. I find drivers with more poles than wins are least impressive. It shows that they need the best car to win.
Frank
26th June 2024, 15:43
Even if you only count the 1979 Ferrari as a competitive car – which arguably was an outright dominant car – , that is still only 2 poles from 15 competitive outings.
Not saying there are no valid reasons bit it is just a very low number.
Btw. No.fan of Senna?
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
26th June 2024, 18:32
In 79 the Ferrari was the best over the season as a whole but nowhere near dominant. Ligier won 3 of the first 5 races, Williams 5 of the last 7. Laffite on pole 4 times for Ligier, Williams 3 times and Ferrari with one for each driver. Renault were ahead on the Turbo development in these days which was good over a lap but tended to go bang – 6 poles and one win evidence that.
As for Villeneuve, his teammate quali record was 43-27 in his favour. Most of that is due to the GV 5 – 13 Reutemann in his first full season and a couple of rounds in 77. In 79, Gilles out qualified Champion Jody 8-7. In 80, it was 13-1 GV and he was 14-5 up on Pironi, the cars of 80 and 81 were borderline unforgivably poor though. In 82, the Renault quali story was the same 10 poles in 16 races, 4 in the 5 races GV was present.
So I think the overriding context is that Renault had a huge quali advantage and with only 4 full seasons – 2 with really poor cars – to compare from, it’s difficult to assess how Gilles could have performed in a Lotus or a Renault. What matters is that those in the know at the time thought he was super quick, and that’s enough for me.
Philippe (@philippe)
26th June 2024, 18:50
Indeed, not a fan of Senna. After writing the pole\win thing, I thought someone might ask about Senna. ;-)
He’s up there with the greats, but he’s also been seriously overglorified since he passed away.
anon
26th June 2024, 20:26
Frank, the Ferrari 312T4 was not considered to be a dominant car in it’s period – in fact, as noted by RBAlonso, the Ligier JS11 was considered superior in the early stages of the season, whilst in the latter stages of the season the Williams FW07 became the leading car of that period.
Forghieri himself, in his memoirs, talks about how, once people realised what Lotus were doing with the floor of the 79, that the 312T series of car was going to become obsolete fairly quickly. The car never had the peak downforce performance of cars like the JS11 or FW07 because the design of the chassis, engine and transmission system heavily compromised the design of the tunnels for the floor – Ferrari won more through superior tyre technology, courtesy of Michelin, and superior reliability, rather than outright pace.
Similarly, as also noted by RBAlonso, when it came to qualifying, Renault tended to be relatively dominant in that field after they introduced the RS10, which was their first car where the chassis was designed with integrated venturi tunnels and thus far superior to the RS01 (the RS01 was used to collect data on how turbocharged engines worked in single seater cars of that period, and Renault never expected it to be competitive as a result).
Furthermore, in the latter part of the season, Renault upgraded the EF1 so it could operate at higher boost pressures in qualifying. The EF1 was producing around 600bhp in qualifying trim, whereas Ferrari were only producing about 500bhp – giving the RS01 about 20% more power in qualifying trim. That’s a significant power deficit to try to overcome, and thus it’s perhaps not surprising that Renault were so dominant in qualifying in the latter stages of that year.
F1statsfan (@f1statsfan)
26th June 2024, 15:47
The 17 drivers with the most wins (20 wins or more) together have won 673 races and started 641 times from pole.
If you look at drivers with 20 of more wins (17 drivers) the drivers with the best ratio (poles / win) are:
1st Jackie Stewart with 27 wins from 17 poles = 0.63 pole per win
2nd Max Verstappen with 61 wins from 39 poles = 0.64 pole per win
3rd Alain Prost with 51 wins from 33 poles = 0.65 pole per win
Bottom of that list are:
15th Nico Rosberg with 23 wins from 30 poles = 1.30 pole per win
16th Jim Clark with 25 wins from 33 poles = 1.32 pole per win
17th Ayrton Senna with 41 wins from 65 poles = 1.59 pole per win
So I am not entirely sure that I agree with “I find drivers with more poles than wins are least impressive” given that there are 2 drivers I have in my top 5 of all time drivers that have considerable more poles than wins.
Also I think it is hard to argue that neither Jim Clark nor Senna needed the best car to win races.
Obviously reliability plays a big factor if you look pre 1990 or pre this century if I look at the 7 drivers with 20 or more wins in this century the order of lowest pole to win ratio is:
Max, Alonso, Schumacher, Raikonnen, Hamilton, Vettel and Rosberg.
PS: Charles has only 6 wins so is excluded from above but has the worst pole to win ratio of any driver ever (with more than 2 wins) by a quite a distance with 24 poles and 6 wins = 4.00, Rene Arnoux is 2nd with 18 poles and 7 wins = 2.57 and Bottas is 3rd with 20 poles with 10 wins = 2.00
Asd
26th June 2024, 17:34
I’ve also made that stat, many times :) But there’s better way to express it as your numbers are confusing and hard to understand:
Most efficient pole position converters:
1st Jackie Stewart with 27 wins from 17 poles = 159% pole utilization
2nd Max Verstappen with 61 wins from 39 poles = 156% pole utilization
3rd Alain Prost with 51 wins from 33 poles = 155% pole utilization
Bottom of that list are:
15th Nico Rosberg with 23 wins from 30 poles = 77% pole utilization
16th Jim Clark with 25 wins from 33 poles = 76% pole utilization
17th Ayrton Senna with 41 wins from 65 poles = 63% pole utilization
||| Obviously, if somebody had 10 pole positions and 10 wins, it doesn’t neccesarily mean he has converted all the pole positions to wins. Some wins may have come from different starting positions, and some poles may not have been turned into a race win. |||
Nick T.
27th June 2024, 6:15
Shouldn’t pole conversion just consider races they won starting from pole. Stats like 27 wins from 17 poles seem to mean nothing, except Stewart had more wins than poles.
anon
27th June 2024, 8:00
Nick T., it’s probably because it is easier to simply look up the number of pole positions and the number of wins that a driver has, whereas what you are suggesting is more difficult to calculate (and, to be fair, Asd does point out that the raw numbers may not paint an accurate picture).
Even what you are suggesting also has it’s limitations, since you could argue that it doesn’t account for unreliability (which becomes more significant in the past when mechanical failures were more common).
Picking Stewart, since he was the top of the list that Asd quoted, out of those 17 races where he started on pole, it looks like he only went on to win 8 of those races, which would be much worse in terms of converting pole positions to wins. However, out of the remaining 9 races where he failed to win from pole, 5 of those were because of mechanical failure (and, in most of those cases, Stewart retired from the lead of the race).
You could therefore say that he only actually won 8 out of 17 races from pole (47%), or you could say that he won 8 out of 12 races (67%) from pole if you exclude the races where he retired due to mechanical issues and therefore only count the races that he could finish.
At the other end of the scale, out of the 33 races where he started on pole, Clark went on to win 15 of those races: out of the remaining 18 races that he did not win from pole, 11 of those races saw him retire before the end of the race due to mechanical issues.
Again, you could either classify it as 15 wins from 33 poles (45%) if you include everything, or 15 out of 22 races (68%) for races where Clark did not have a mechanical failure during the race. It ends up changing the picture quite noticeably, since we’ve gone from a situation where Clark and Stewart were at the extreme ends of the scale to now being much closer in terms of performance.
Nick T.
27th June 2024, 11:53
Anon, can you please make it so there’s a reply button under you.
I think we can’t really use drivers from eras before the 90s because the finishing rate alone was probably well under 70%. So you begin from pole with around a 1 in 3 chance of dropping out through no fault of your own.
F1statsfan (@f1statsfan)
26th June 2024, 15:08
Driver #1 wins in 1111th F1 race – driver #11 started 11th and has 111 points after the 1111th F1 race.
Max scored his 106th podium now joined 4th in all time list together with Fernando Alonso and Alain Prost.
Max is 5th in % podiums (at least 10 races) ahead of Alain Prost but behind José Froilán González (15 podiums in 26 races incl 2 wins) in the early fifties.
Red Bull and Mercedes for already the 4th race in a row are tied in # of races with at least 1 lap in the lead.
At the end of 2021 Mercedes was ahead with 168 to 132
At the end of 2022 that lead reduced to 176 versus 151
At the end of 2023 it started to get close with 179 versus 172
In 2024 after Imola (7th race) Mercedes and Red Bull were tied at 179, in Monaco neither team lead a lap so still 179 and in Canada & Spain Russell was in the lead for a few laps but Max in both races won leading the last lap so they are still tied at 181.
Of the 54 races in 2022-2024 period Mercedes was in the lead in 13 races and Red Bull in 49. The 5 were Red Bull didn’t lead a single lap were Bahrain 2022, Australia 2022, Brazil 2022, Singapore 2023 and Monaco 2024.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th June 2024, 2:21
Wow, the 1111 one is an incredible stat!
James Bond (@jamesbond)
27th June 2024, 8:07
1111 Special stats! Thanks for pointing out.
Wonder why there is no mention on the mainstream F1 websites.
Electroball76
26th June 2024, 18:01
Are we seeing the birth of Perez 6.0?
(that’s his score out of ten, not his version number).
Good to see George finding his stride again. I think he really struggled in the bouncy car.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
27th June 2024, 3:39
6.0? That’s a passing grade. Under no legit criteria you can argue his performances at the moment are even close to be worthy of such. Checo is a clear F at the moment.
Jere (@jerejj)
26th June 2024, 18:24
Esteban Ocon’s first Q3 appearance since the most recent US GP & Guanyu Zhou progressed from Q1 for the first time this season.
Just like in Bahrain, with everyone finishing, Logan Sargeant, coincidently, not only finished last but also was the only driver to get lapped twice by the eventual winner, while Nico Hulkenberg was the last to finish on the lead lap for the second time this season following the Australian GP.
Another coincidence is that Sargeant also finished last in last year’s Spanish GP & the same-season Miami GP, i.e., all entirely DNF-free races in his F1 career to date, & of course, Max Verstappen won on each occasion as yet another coincidence with these full-field finishing races.
Lewis Hamilton maintains his 100% record of finishing at least once in the top 3 in each season he’s competed in F1.
paulgilb (@paulgilb)
26th June 2024, 22:38
I believe this is the first time since Malaysia – Spain 2012 that 4 different constructors have taken pole in consecutive races.
2 of the last 4 races have seen Perez start 11th and finish 8th, and the other 2 have seen him start 16th and crash out.
Both the last 2 pole-sitters have been English drivers with 2 pole positions to their name, neither of them coming at the scene of their only victory to date.
5th time Hulkenberg has finished 11th in the last 7 races.
Thanks to the official F1 site for some of these.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th June 2024, 2:43
Very interesting stat about the 4 constructors on pole in 4 consecutive races, I noticed also that some team manager, probably vasseur, pointed it out, indeed qualifying tends to be more competitive than races this year.