Facts and Stats From The Australian GP

Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne threw up some great racing and exciting statistics. 

Here are some of them:

• Leclerc leads the drivers’ championship by a more significant margin than anyone in the 2021 season – 34 points.

• Leclerc takes first Ferrari grand slam since 2010

•  No Ferrari driver has led the championship by more than the points available for a single race victory (25 points) since Fernando Alonso in 2012 (though Alonso didn’t win the title).

• Leclerc took a grand slam today (win/pole/fastest lap/led every lap), making him only the second Ferrari driver in the last 18 years to achieve this. Alonso was the last to do it in Singapore in 2010.

• All four of Leclerc’s career F1 wins to date have come from pole position.

• Ferrari has won three of the last four races in Australia – Sebastian Vettel did it for them in 2017-18.

• Thanks to his P2 for Red Bull, Sergio Perez now heads world champion and teammate Max Verstappen in the drivers’ table by five points.

• Perez had never previously finished in the top six on this track in his nine previous visits.

• George Russell took P3 – his first podium for Mercedes – and leads teammate Lewis Hamilton by nine points after three races.

• Thanks to Russell, Mercedes maintain their record of being on the podium in every Australian Grand Prix in the hybrid era.

• With Hamilton following Russell home in P4, Mercedes were the top scorers in this race with 27 points.

• McLaren got both cars in the points, with Lando Norris P59 and Daniel Ricciardo P6. The team had not finished higher than 7th in the opening two races.

• Ricciardo scored his first points of 2022 at his home race.

• Esteban Ocon was P7 for Alpine. The Frenchman has finished in the top seven in all three races this year.

• Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas came home in P8 – that’s the third time he’s finished eighth in Australia in the last five races here.

• With P9, AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly secured his first-ever points in Australia.

• Alex Albon took P10 – Williams’ first point of the year and their first in Australia since 2017.

• Williams’ result means Aston Martin is the only team still to score in 2022.

 

• Max Verstappen has only reached the finish once this season – his win in Saudi Arabia.

 

• With his Lap 2 retirement, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz ended a 17-race points streak and a 31-race finishing streak (both were the longest active streaks).