The Chinese GP marked the 1000th F1 weekend which saw good amount of records being broken and set at Shanghai International Circuit.
After Mercedes’ lucky break in Bahrain, the German manufacturer were back in form in China as Valtteri Bottas took pole with Lewis Hamilton scoring a victory in another Mercedes 1-2, while Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel completed the podium.
The undercut worked well for Red Bull Racing as they helped Max Verstappen to fourth with Bahrain hero, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc only fifth from Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly. The best of rest honours went to Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo.
A lot happened over the weekend, here’s some key stats and information:
- Hamilton scored his 75th career win, 54th for Mercedes and second in 2019. It is also his sixth win in Chinese GP – the most by miles as he leads the points standing for the first time this year.
- With his sixth, China joins Canada, USA and Hungary in Hamilton’s list of six wins in a grand prix. Hamilton also crossed a milestone of leading for 4000+ laps with a total at 4,041 – only Michael Schumacher has more with 5,111.
- Hamilton won the 1000th world championship event but he also won the 900th one.
- Mercedes took their 90th win, sixth in China. It was their 47th 1-2 finish and the third consecutive 1-2 finish in 2019 – the last time it happened was in 1992 when Williams-Renault achieved the feat.
- Hamilton scored his 137th F1 podium with Bottas his 33rd. It was Vettel’s first podium of 2019 and his career’s 112th.
- The three races in 2019 so far has seen three different combination of drivers to be featured on the podium – all three has both Mercedes drivers in common.
- On Saturday, Bottas scored his seventh career pole and first since 2018 Russian GP. He is the third different pole-sitter in 2019. Interestingly, no one so far in the season has won from pole.
- Albon gained the most places in Chinese GP, starting from the pit lane he finished 10th. He also failed to set a qualifying time along with Antonio Giovinazzi which helped Williams to register their best qualifying result of 2019 in 17th and 18th.
- Gasly recorded his first Q3 finish with Red Bull and scored his career’s first F1 fastest lap – he became the third different driver to take a point.
- Daniel Ricciardo registered his first points of 2019 and for Renault in his first actual race finish in 2019. The points from Ricciardo meant Renault has 12 to their name which is same as Alfa Romeo but two seventh place finishes has helped Renault to be fourth.
- While Toro Rosso celebrated its 250th GP in China, Racing Point did its 500th on the whole as Jordan, Midland, Spyker and Force India.
- Kimi Raikkonen’s Q2 exit ended his 53 consecutive appearances in Q3.
- Daniil Kvyat was given two penalty points for his collision with the McLarens on Lap 1. He is the second driver after Romain Grosjean to get penalty points.
- Kvyat, Lando Norris were classified finishers despite them not seeing the chequred flag. The only driver marked as a official DNF was Nico Hulkenberg.
- With China, Raikkonen has now featured in four milestone races – for 700th in 2003 Brazilian GP, for 800th in 2008 Singapore GP, for 900th in 2014 Bahrain GP and for 1000th in 2019 Chinese GP. Vettel and Hamilton are second among current drivers in list featuring in three from 2008 until 2019.
https://twitter.com/F1/status/1117549087929163776
The stats were compiled by Jack Elleker and Darshan Chokhani
Check out the stats from Bahrain GP