No one could touch Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen as they took the first two places in Qatar on Sunday, but behind them there was plenty of action – and plenty of interesting numbers being generated, including another record for F1 veteran Fernando Alonso. Here’s our round-up…
• Hamilton P1 and Verstappen P2 today was the 19th time we’ve seen this result, just 1 short of the most recurring 1-2 finishes in F1 history (Hamilton-Nico Rosberg, and Michael Schumacher-Rubens Barrichello).
• Hamilton today won on the 30th different circuit in his F1 career.
• He also led the 175th race of his F1 career tonight.
• Hamilton’s 102nd career win tonight means that as an individual he’s won more races than every nation on earth except Germany (179) and Great Britain (306).
• Verstappen finished in the top 2 for the 6th consecutive race tonight.
• Verstappen secured his 16th podium finish of 2021 here. He has never finished 3rd this year.
• He took the fastest lap bonus point for the 4th time this season.
• Fernando Alonso scored his first podium for Alpine and his first in F1 since Hungary 2014, 105 races ago – a record interval between consecutive podiums.
• Prior to tonight Alonso had never finished on the podium whilst Verstappen – who made his F1 debut at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix – has been on the grid.
• In the last 35 years, apart from Alonso only 2 other drivers over the age of 40 have finished on the podium (Michael Schumacher, Europe 2012, and Nigel Mansell, Australia 1994).
DRIVER OF THE DAY: Alonso’s podium return gets your vote in Qatar
• With Alonso’s podium and team mate Esteban Ocon’s P5, Alpine scored 25 points today, whilst arch-rivals AlphaTauri took zero. Prior to Qatar the two teams were tied on points in the battle for 5th in the constructors’ championship.
• After his win in Hungary, this was Ocon’s 2nd top-5 finish of the year.
• Sergio Perez was P4 for Red Bull. He has now finished 1st, 2nd and 4th in his 3 career starts in Qatar in F1 and GP2 Asia.
• He has now finished in the top 4 on 10 occasions this year, including in the last 5 races.
• P6 for Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was his first top-6 finish of the season, ending a 3-race pointless streak for the Canadian.
• Carlos Sainz finished P7 for Ferrari, extending his active scoring streak to 13 races in a row, and his active finishing streak to 27 races in a row.
• Team mate Charles Leclerc in P8 finished outside of the top 5 for the first time in 5 races.
• The Ferrari drivers have finished one immediately behind the other at the last 3 races in a row.
• Lando Norris in 9th scored McLaren’s only points in the team’s 900th world championship start.
RACE HIGHLIGHTS: Missed the Qatar Grand Prix? Catch all the action right here
• Team mate Daniel Ricciardo ended up pointless for a 3rd straight race.
• McLaren have only scored 4 points in the last 3 races.
• Sebastian Vettel was P10 for Aston Martin – the 6th time he’s finished 10th since the start of 2020, having never finished there in his career prior to that.
• Pierre Gasly finished outside the points in P11 for AlphaTauri, despite starting from 2nd on the grid.
