Alonso’s wait for a grand prix win has now lasted a decade

2023 Miami Grand Prix stats and facts

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Having finished third in last weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, when Fernando Alonso lines up for the next Formula 1 race he will have gone a decade without winning a grand prix.

Alonso was racing for Ferrari when he scored the 32nd win of his career in the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix. Nine of the 20 drivers on this year’s grid, including Alonso’s team mate Lance Stroll and championship leader Max Verstappen, were still in go-karts then.

If Alonso does win another race, he will break the record for the longest wait between consecutive grand prix wins. That is held by Riccardo Patrese, who had to wait six years and 210 days between his victories in the 1983 South African Grand Prix for Brabham and the 1990 San Marino Grand Prix for Williams. That spanned 99 races – in contrast Alonso has started 162 during that time, and missed 38 over 2019 and 2020.

The intervening period has featured few missed opportunities for Alonso to win again. He did not qualify in the top four for an F1 race until the final round of the season, and had to wait until last year’s Canadian Grand Prix to line up on the front row again. Only once during that time has a team mate of his taken a victory – Esteban Ocon’s breakthrough triumph at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Alonso arrived at his current team via McLaren – including an interminable three years in the slow and unreliable Honda-powered cars – and Alpine, plus two years out of F1 racing in the World Endurance Championship, IndyCar and Dakar rally. However his move to Aston Martin this year has proved an inspired choice – in five races he’s finished on the podium four times, taking his total top-three finishes since his last victory to a total of 13.

Teams: Ferrari (red), McLaren (orange), Alpine (blue), Aston Martin (green)

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Alonso returned to the front row in Jeddah earlier this year and in Miami he started from second place once again. That was the 40th time in his career he has qualified in the top two, and on Sunday he finished third for the 33rd time since debuting in F1. That puts him level with the retired Sebastian Vettel, and now only Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton have appeared on the podium’s bottom spot more times than Alonso.

That also helped Aston Martin reach the 100-point mark for the first time in a season, after just five races, with their trophy cabinet now consisting of five items. On the same number of F1 trophies is Porsche and Stewart – the latter team being that which eventually turned into reigning champions Red Bull.

The last win from ninth on the grid was 39 years ago
Since adopting Red Bull’s colours, the Milton Keynes-based team has won 97 grands prix, 26 of which were one-twos. Verstappen picked up the 38th win of his career, and has tied Sebastian Vettel’s record for most wins scored at Red Bull.

Verstappen finished in the points for the 24th race in a row, meaning he has now matched the longest points-scoring run that Michael Schumacher achieved in his illustrious career. Only Hamilton and Raikkonen have had longer scoring streaks that this.

In the 61st F1 race Verstappen has led, his overtake for the lead on team mate Sergio Perez proved almost perfectly timed, as he finished the race with a career tally of 1,999 laps led. Having risen from ninth on the grid, this was 21st time Verstappen has won without starting from pole position.

Only five races in F1 history have been won from ninth on the grid. Until last Sunday the most recent was Niki Lauda’s victory for McLaren in the 1984 French Grand Prix at Dijon. The others were the 1977 Canadian Grand Prix (Jody Scheckter), 1967 Italian Grand Prix (John Surtees) and 1955 Monaco Grand Prix (Maurice Trintignant).

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En route to victory Verstappen also set the fastest lap, This was the 23rd of his career, giving him as many as fellow world champions Juan Manuel Fangio, Nelson Piquet and Alonso.

Magnussen matched his best grand prix qualifying result
Despite taking the third pole position of his career, Perez seemed powerless to stop Verstappen beating him to victory. But he did pick up his 30th podium by finishing second. It was also the 12th time has been runner-up in a grand prix.

Joining Perez as one of the stars of Saturday in Miami was Kevin Magnussen, who qualified fourth for Haas. Although he was fastest in qualifying for the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix, the sprint race format used that weekend meant he did not start from pole for Sunday’s race, and so last weekend actually marked the first time one of Haas’s cars has started on the front two rows of a grand prix. Magnussen equalled his highest starting position in a grand prix, which he previously achieved on his debut for McLaren in the 2014 Australian Grand Prix, and again later that year in Germany.

In stark contract to Haas’s qualifying heroics in Miami was McLaren, who failed to get either of their cars through Q1. The last time that happened was the 2018 Brazilian Grand Prix.

However the team does remain fifth in the constructors’ standings, albeit having only scored 14 points across the first five rounds. The last time the team occupying that position this far into the season had as few points was in 2009, when a different points system was used that awarded 10 points for victory instead of 25. In that year, Renault occupied fifth in the standings on nine points after five races, while McLaren were fourth on 13.

The Miami Grand Prix is the first of three F1 races this year in the United States, and the 74th time in history the world championship has visited in the country. It’s the third time F1 has raced in the state of Florida following last year’s Miami GP and the USA’s first world championship race at Sebring in 1959.

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America has held three F1 races in a single year before – the series visited Long Beach, Detroit and the original Las Vegas circuit in 1982. Italy has also held a trio of races in the Covid-disrupted season of 2020, when Monza, Imola and Mugello all hosted rounds.

Other statistical landmarks reached last weekend include Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc surpassing 900 points in his F1 career and Bottas making his 167th consecutive race start. That puts the Alfa Romeo driver joint ninth in the all-time table with Rubens Barrichello, while Verstappen’s 168th consecutive grand prix appearance moves him up to eighth.

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

2023 Miami Grand Prix

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Author information

Ida Wood
Often found in junior single-seater paddocks around Europe doing journalism and television commentary, or dabbling in teaching photography back in the UK. Currently based...

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25 comments on “Alonso’s wait for a grand prix win has now lasted a decade”

  1. That’s OK. In fact, any additional amount of time will be OK, too.

    As long as Fernando is still listed as the winner of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

    1. And Felipe is not listed as the 2008 WDC, same token
      While we are at it, Nico Rosberg as the 2014 and 2015 WDC, Seb Vettel as the 2017 and 2018 WDC, and Max as the 2019 and 2020 WDC
      For the one who really profited from the Crashgate I reserve the well-deserved title of Master and Champion of the Shanghai gravel trap, 2007.

  2. Mclaren’s 400th GP with Mercedes power.

    In addition to an equalled team record, Max’s success has come over a longer as Seb’s wins came in the season before & throughout the team’s double-championship streak.

    Alonso’s first front-row start on US soil since the last US GP at Indianapolis Speedway.
    He eventually achieved his first top-three finish in the US since the inaugural COTA race.

    The first time De Vries out-qualified Tsunoda.

    The second race this season, with Alpine drivers finishing 8th & 9th, albeit the other around to that race.

    Each sector’s fastest & slowest time went to a different driver (fastest: S1: VER, S2: HAM, S3: STR, & slowest: S1: SAR, S2: NOR, S3: PIA)

    The second SC-free race this season after the Bahrain GP & the first entirely neutralization-free (without not only red-flagging, SC, & VSC, but even yellows) race, not only this season but also for a little while since SC & VSC-free races usually feature at least a single yellow caution.
    The last Abu Dhabi GP was SC & VSC-free but might’ve featured a yellow caution at one point.

    The first race with all drivers reaching the chequered flag since the 2021 Turkish GP & first with all drivers classified since the most recent Hungarian GP.

    Another P11 for Tsunoda. He’s become Mr. P10 & 11, as these are his only race-finishing positions over the first five races.

    Coincidently, this season’s three rookies were the last three finishers in the race, which hasn’t happened for a while, iirc.

    1. RandomMallard
      10th May 2023, 12:45

      @jerejj

      Another P11 for Tsunoda. He’s become Mr. P10 & 11.

      As a computer science geek, it would be wrong of me if I didn’t mention that “Mr Binary” is an equally possible name, considering the use of just 1s and 0s in computers! However, it would be quite a surprise if he could complete the full hat-trick with a 01 (let alone a 00!).

      1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
        10th May 2023, 13:02

        lol ;-)

      2. Jockey Ewing
        10th May 2023, 14:28

        Let’s define “00” as “obtaining the whole sport, and after that, winning like Admiral General Aladeen”.
        Maybe it will be the next logical step to someone, as it gone from buying seats, to (partially or even effectively) buying teams to beloved ones.

    2. Jockey Ewing
      10th May 2023, 14:40

      I think P11 is not bad with this Alpha Tauri. Problem is, Nyck de Vries might not function as a benchmark this season. So either Tsunoda keeps this up, and does less errors than formerly, or I still can not be sure of him staying in F1. The RB academy ranks is very strong around the F2 level by now, by quality and by numbers as well. Apart from Verstappen, it is not relaxing at all to any RB-family related driver in F1.

    3. “The last Abu Dhabi GP was SC & VSC-free but might’ve featured a yellow caution at one point.”

      It would be really interesting to see the last race without as much as a Yellow flag. I feel like that must be exceedingly rare.

      1. @chrischrill Getting through an entire race distance without a single yellow caution is extremely rare, yes.
        Most races usually feature at least one driver error that warrants at the very least brief yellow caution, while avoiding the full-course neutralizations is quite a lot easier.

      2. Tommy Scragend
        10th May 2023, 18:35

        It would be really interesting to see the last race without as much as a Yellow flag. I feel like that must be exceedingly rare.

        Monaco 2021.

  3. Red Bull achieved its 20th victory within a calendar year period – equally the record held by Mercedes (achieved 7 times after a race).
    They won 20 of the 23 races from last year Miami race (8th of May 2022) till this year Miami race (7th of May 2023) – they didn’t win at Silverstone, Red Bull Ring and Interlagos in 2022.
    Red Bull can only make it 21 victories if they win all of the next 6 races (Imola, Monaco, Spain, Canada, Austria and UK).

    Red Bull also improved their internal record with 34 wins in last 50 races however is still behind Ferrari with 38 wins in 50 races and record holder Mercedes with 43 wins in 50 races (achieved 11 times).
    If you are comparing domination, even if Red Bull wins all races in 2023 they still will be only at 42 wins in last 50 races and still behind record holder Mercedes in period 2014-2017.

    Red Bull is currently on their 3rd longest consecutive winning streak with 6 race wins (15th longest in history of F1), their own longest was twice 9 wins (end of 2013 and in 2022).
    The longest consecutive winning streak record is 11 wins however it is not held by Mercedes (they did have 3 streaks of 10 race wins and would have won 21 consecutive races if not for lap 1 crash in Spain 2016) it is also not held by Ferrari (they had 1 streak of 10 race wins) but it is held by Mclaren from Brazil 1988 till Belgium 1988 with Senna & Prost.

    Max has scored the most points ever after 5 races with 119 points, breaking Vettel’s record of 2011 when Vettel had 118 after 5 races. However Max scored 8 points (2x FLAP and 6 in sprint) that where not available in 2011.
    Lewis in 2019 had 112 points (3 wins,2 2nd places and 1 FLAP, but no sprint points available).

    Red Bull also has the most points ever scored after 5 races with 224 points breaking Mercedes 2019 record of 217 points however Mercedes were more dominate in 2019 with 5x 1-2 results and 2x FLAP there were just no sprints in 2019, Red Bull without sprint would be at 210 points (7 less than Mercedes).

    1. While this is only about statistics, so ofc mercedes’ result doesn’t change cause of this, I wouldn’t use the term “more dominant” lightly, because arguably, this year all 5 races so far should’ve been red bull’s 1-2: perez had a recovery race from the back, think australia, where he didn’t make it to 2nd, while on other hand, mercedes wasn’t even the fastest car in bahrain 2019, ferrari was on course for at least a win, merc needed 2 lucky events to get a 1-2: leclerc’s mechanical problem and vettel spinning.

      Performance wise to me, this red bull is more dominant than the 2019 mercedes, which was challenged on pace on several races, probably up to 10, between ferrari and red bull, but ferrari was known for throwing away chances, even more so that season.

  4. If he keeps up his newly found nice character replacing the vicious political one he might even find himself winning again. Quite a turnaround in likeability this man! Saw the same with Vettel, from the annoying finger brad to a liked by many environmental tiger. There is hope for Lewis as well I guess, although I don’t see him turn around, something is unfortunately too much eating him for some reason.

    1. The thing is though, alonso is still performing despite being more likeable, for a driver that is necessary imo, and vettel didn’t.

      1. @esploratore1 Vettel was only really off in the 2020 season, and that a rather questionable environment. Even before the season started it was known his contract wouldn’t be extended as Binotto was building ‘his’ team. Which, well… let’s just say he’s no longer there either.

        Aston Martin wanted Vettel to continue, but he chose not to. Let’s not forget the Aston Martin was quite bad until this season. Stroll only managed a 16th average qualifying position last year (only Latifi did worse), and didn’t do a whole lot better in 2021. Vettel took two second places in those Astons, which is pretty impressive.

      2. We might have misjudged Vettel after his 4 WDC. After these we found out he was not that special in traffic and probably had always been just fast over a single lap. No wins other than from the front row, etc.

  5. RandomMallard
    10th May 2023, 12:46

    he finished the race with a career tally of 2,000 laps led

    I have to admit, whilst I was somewhat annoyed by how quickly Verstappen got past Checo, some of that is vindicated by how nice of a stat that is!

  6. He is still such a talented driver.
    Amazing he didn’t get a win for so long.
    I would have loved to see him next to Verstappen. Or Hamilton even.
    Just to see what he can do with the same car.
    Annihilating Stroll is a given for any talented driver.

  7. Jockey Ewing
    10th May 2023, 16:40

    I think the graph in the article is really nice and useful.
    I do not know if I have seen a similar graph about other driver’s career, but it seems to be a very functional idea.
    For example looking at this, it provides a nice opportunitiy to compare Alonso’s latest stint at McLaren and Alpine. It shows, that there were more low finishes at McLaren.If we do not forget, that reliability was horrible for Alonso at last season (but there were problems with it at McLaren as well), we already have a nice comparison.

  8. No one retired from this race, all 20 cars finished, which is very rare, it’s only the 13th time in history and even that is with a caveat: the 2005 us gp with only 6 cars and the non-race at spa in 2021 are counted towards this, and there’s been only a single other case where all cars finished before 2005: the dutch gp 1961, so it’s been 44 years without that happening, obviously reliability is better nowadays, but still not something that happens often even now.

  9. A meaningless stat besides showing just how car dependent the sport is, especially in the age of ultra reliability (except, ironically, for Alonso’s and Button’s time at McLaren Honda). Alonso is doing everything right and extracting the max as usual, but he had far more spectacular performances last year, but they got very little recognition because of where the car naturally was (having his car die while in the points 7 times didn’t help, a mechanical failure preventing him from even starting the Austrian sprint race/putting him at the back for the GP, two mechanical issues during quali runs). His come back into the point in Austria after another pit failure from Alpine forced him to pit twice during a safety car and put him down into 14th with less than 10 laps to go, was one of the more remarkable performances and it went totally unnoticed.

  10. Max Verstappen and Nick Cassidy both won races from 9th on the grid in the same weekend. It is worth noting that Cassidy achieved his feat at Monaco (which is notably tight), in a much shorter race, without anything like the car advantage that Verstappen had, and without the benefit of DRS, and through having to pass more than one car that actually made an attempt to keep him behind.

    First time since 2017 (where it did not happen until races 12-14) that we have gone 5 races into the season without a back-to-back winner (excluding sprint races).

    Alonso keeps up his run of scoring 15 points in every race weekend (including sprints) in 2023.

  11. Couple of streaks that could put Verstappen closer to the top of some all time rankings:

    This was the 24th race in a row that Verstappen scored points. He needs 28 to break into the top three of all time, beating Räikkönen. The top two spots are held by Hamilton (two runs of 48 and 33). Verstappen is now equal to Schumacher’s best.

    Unsurprisingly, this is also the 24th race in a row that Verstapen finished, a personal best (his second best ended at 21). He needs two more to get into the top 10 of all time, beating Chilton’s 25. Hamilton has the record at 48.

    Verstappen now has 21 wins without pole, one short of Vettel’s 22 who ranks 4th overall. The record is held by Schumacher, with 51 race wins from further down the grid.

    After winning in Australia, Verstappen has now won on 23 different tracks, the same number as Schumacher. Hamilton has the all time record at 31. Verstappen can’t claim 2nd in the ranking until the race in Singapore in September, and he’ll get two more chances in Qatar and Las Vegas.

    1. Jimmy Cliff
      11th May 2023, 9:17

      Interesting that Max has more wins when not on pole then when he is on pole despite Max having by far the highest pole to win conversion rate with 77% (17 from 22) of any driver scoring more than 1 pole.

      Alonso is at 64%, Lewis at 59% and Vettel (reputation for pole to win races in Red Bull) at 54%. Poor Leclerc is at the near bottom with just 21%. Looking back to a time with far more reliability problems the mighty Clark & Senna are both at 45%.

      Guess we should be lucky Max isn’t known to be a qualifying beast and isn’t getting pole too often (9 from last 27 races, only Austria 2022 pole was not converted to a win, 10 of the 18 he didn’t start on pole he won).

  12. “Having risen from ninth on the grid, this was 21st time Verstappen has won without starting from pole position.”

    Not sure if it has to do with reliability, different era or driver skill but the top 3 drivers winning while starting from 4th or lower are all raced in the 70’/80’/90′:
    1) Prost 16 times although only once (13th) starting lower than 6th
    2) Piquet 15 times although never when starting outside top 10
    3) Lauda 9 times although never when starting outside top 10
    Tied on 4th place with 8 wins starting 4th or lower (in brackets times 7th of lower) are Lewis (2x), Max (4x), Stewart (1x), Alonso (3x) and Raikkonen (5x)

    On the opposite end are Vettel (22 wins from 2nd/3rd) but also Fangio (9 wins from 2nd/3rd) who never won starting 4th or lower. Although in Fangio case he only started 5 times from 4th or lower:
    3x starting 4th finished 2nd
    1x starting 4th and retiring due to engine
    1x starting 8th and finished 4th

    Alonso (11th & 15th) and John Watson (recordholder winning from 22nd and 17th) are the only drivers to win more than once while starting outside the top 10.

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