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F1 2018 — Copyright: Red Bull Content Pool

Key statistics and information from 2018 F1 season

02/01/2019

The 2018 F1 season was a solid year in terms of statistics with many records broken and set by the drivers and the teams.

The year started off with Ferrari and Vettel showing their might against Mercedes Hamilton but by the end for various reasons, it was the latter pair who managed to take it away and further extend their winning reign over its arch rivals.

Plenty of records were broken and set with a rise and fall of drivers and teams as well when compared to 2017. Here’s a list of all what happened in 2018 – a statistical highlight of an interesting season:

Hamilton won his fifth F1 title and is now tied second with Juan Manuel Fangio as he overtook Vettel in the process. It was also Mercedes’ fifth constructors’ win as the team overtook Red Bull Racing in the process.
Hamilton scored the most wins in 2018 with 11, followed by Vettel with five, Daniel Ricciardo & Max Verstappen scoring two and Kimi Raikkonen claiming one.
Hamilton had the most podiums at 17, followed by Raikkonen & Vettel with 12, Verstappen with 11, Bottas with eight, Ricciardo with two and Sergio Perez with one.
Hamilton also registered the most poles at 11, followed by Vettel with five, Bottas & Ricciardo with two and Raikkonen with one.
Bottas had the most fastest laps with seven, followed by Ricciardo & Hamilton with three, Verstappen with two and Raikkonen & Kevin Magnussen with one each.
Hamilton completed 1255 racing laps, followed by Vettel (1248), Bottas (1202), Vandoorne (1200), Perez (1196), Carlos Sainz (1195), Kevin Magnussen (1172), Lance Stroll (1156), Verstappen (1127), Sergey Sirotkin (1118), Raikkonen (1116), Marcus Ericsson (1091), Romain Grosjean (1074), Charles Leclerc (1058), Esteban Ocon (1052), Ricciardo (1034), Pierre Gasly (1032), Brendon Hartley (999), Fernando Alonso (985), Nico Hulkenberg (936).
Hamilton raced the furthest distance with 6353 km in total, followed by Vettel (6318 km), Bottas (6119 km), Vandoorne (6093 km) and Sainz (6061 km). Hulkenberg raced the least distance with 4674 km in all.
Vandoorne failed to out-qualify Alonso at all in 2018.
For the first time in F1 history there was no driver changes (excluding 2008 where Super Aguri only did the first four races) in all of the season.
It was also the first time in F1 history that all drivers scored at least one point. Hamilton & Vettel scored points in all but one race with Bottas scoring in 19.
Hamilton’s 408 points meant it is the first time that a driver has scored over 400 points in one season. The previous best was 397 set by Vettel in 2013.
Ricciardo had the most retirements over the season with eight. Alonso had eight retirements too but officially he was classified in two races which meant his DNF count was taken as six. Hamilton, Vettel and Bottas each had just a single retirement.
Vettel, Raikkonen and Bottas reached Q3 in every qualifying session with Vandoorne and Sirotkin only drivers to not reach Q3 at all.
Grosjean had 16 Q3s which was the same as Ricciardo and joint 6th to be most in a season but still Grosjean was 14th in the drivers’ standings.
Alonso only had two Q3 finishes but ended up 11th in the standings.
In terms of teams, Sauber improved the most from 2017 to 2018 as it scored 48 this year to five last year while Williams dropped back with only seven points this year when compared to 83 last year.
Haas nearly scored double the points it did last year. In 2017, they scored 47 and improved to 93 this year. McLaren scored the double with 62 points in 2018 to 30 in 2017.
In terms of drivers, Magnussen improved the most in terms of points scored from 2017 to 2018 going from 19 points to 56 with Alonso just behind from 17 to 50 while Ericsson scored nothing in 2017 but got 19 in 2018. The biggest drop in points was Stroll as he went from 40 in 2017 to just six in 2018 with Ocon dropping to 49 from 87 and Perez from 100 to 62.
In 2018, Alonso went past Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher to have entered and started in 314 and 312 races respectively to be second in the all-time list. At the same time, Hamilton continues to extend his lead in the most consecutive starts list with 229 races now.
Vettel went past Alain Prost to have 52 career wins while Hamilton equaled his record of 11 wins in a season.
Hamilton also extended his pole record to have 83 now, sitting comfortably on top in the all-time list.
Raikkonen went past Alonso with 103 podiums to be fifth in the all-time list as Hamilton set a personal as well as matched the record of 17 podiums in a year – equaling Schumacher and Vettel’s record with the latter having done it twice already.
Not only Hamilton’s but also the record of most consecutive races in points ended in France with 33 races in all.
Leclerc matched Sainz to be the youngest driver at 20 years and 195 days to score points in F1 when he did in Azerbaijan.
Grosjean, Verstappen and Stroll each got seven penalty points in 2018 which was the maximum for a driver while Hamilton and Leclerc were the only two drivers to keep a clean sheet.
In all, there were 10 grand prixs which saw a new lap record being set in 2018 – thanks to the faster cars. They were: Spanish GP (Ricciardo), Monaco GP (Verstappen), French GP (Bottas), Austrian GP (Raikkonen), Belgian GP (Bottas), Singapore GP (Magnussen), Russian GP (Bottas), US GP (Hamilton), Mexican GP (Bottas) and Brazilian GP (Bottas).