Sundaram Ramaswami
The inaugural Tuscan Grand Prix had just about everything: clashes, retirements, red flags, race restarts and the customary safety car appearance. More importantly, there were quite a few driver battles and impressive overtakes that spiced up the overall thrill of the race. The race provided far more excitement than what was expected from it and F1 would certainly be itching to make a return to the track next year.
Here are all the numbers from the 2020 Tuscan GP –
GENERAL –
- Mugello became the 73rd circuit and first since Baku to host an F1 race.
- The last three inaugural Grands Prix at a circuit have all been won by the pole-sitter: Mugello 2020 (Hamilton), Baku 2016 (Rosberg), Sochi 2014 (Hamilton).
- All of the podium finishers from the last race (Gasly, Sainz, Stroll) retired from the Tuscan GP.
- This is the first time since 2011 (Monaco & Canada) where two consecutive races have been red-flagged.
- Sunday’s race saw 8 retirements. The last time 8 drivers failed to finish a race was in the 2017 Singapore Grand Prix. Remember Max Verstappen, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel getting wiped out at the first corner?
- Only Mercedes and Ferrari had both their drivers finish the race.
- Sixteen of the drivers from the 2020 season now have an F1 trophy in their name, barring Esteban Ocon, Antonio Giovinazzi, George Russell and Nicholas Latifi.
MERCEDES
- This was Mercedes’ 100th race win in the turbo-hybrid era.
- Mercedes set a new record by leading a lap in 32 consecutive Grands Prix, starting from the 2018 Brazilian Grand Prix. They went past Williams who led a lap in 31 races between France 1995 and San Marino 1997.
- Mercedes achieved the maximum race score of 44 points (1-2 finish and fastest lap) for the first time this season. Their last ‘perfect’ race was the 2019 Russian GP.
- This was Lewis Hamilton’s 90th race victory in F1, and he’s just one short of Michael Schumacher’s overall record.
- Hamilton has now won a race at 27 different circuits. Schumacher comes second on this list (23) while Prost is third (22). Hamilton has already won at Nurburgring and Istanbul, however, he is yet to triumph at Portimao, Imola, Hanoi and Zandvoort. That could very well take his tally to 31 different circuits.
- Hamilton set a new record by registering his 222nd Grand Prix points finish in F1, going past Schumacher in the process.
- Hamilton’s last retirement was at the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix due to a fuel pressure issue and he has been classified in each of the 42 races since then, setting a new record for consecutive race classifications. The record belonged to Nick Heidfeld until Sunday for his 41-race streak between France 2007 and Italy 2009.
- Valtteri Bottas has now gone 8 races without a race win.
- Hamilton is currently leading the championship with 190 points, while Bottas sits in second with 135 points. The earliest Hamilton can win his record-equalling 7th world title would be at the Portuguese GP, the 12th race of the season. The minimum number of races Hamilton has taken to ever win a championship is 16, during the 2015 season.
RED BULL RACING
- After 6 successive podiums, Max Verstappen’s title challenge has hit a major roadblock with back-to-back race retirements, his first since 2017 (Azerbaijan and Austria).
- Alex Albon became the first Thai driver to make an F1 podium appearance. The only other F1 driver from Thailand was Prince Bira who entered 19 championship races between 1950 to 1954 with a best race result of 4th.
RACING POINT
- Sergio Perez has the special distinction of scoring points in every race he’s participated in this season. The only other driver to do so is Lewis Hamilton.
- Perez is currently on a streak of 13 consecutive races in the points. The stretch began at Sochi in 2019, the next destination on the F1 calendar.
RENAULT
- Daniel Ricciardo 4th place finish at the Tuscan GP meant this was the fourth time he’s finished P4 since joining Renault in 2019. He’s yet to take his first podium with the French team.
Media credits – Formula1.com
McLAREN
- Lando Norris finished his 12th race in a row and has collected points in 11 of them (except 2020 Hungary).
ALPHA TAURI
- Last week’s winner Pierre Gasly had his race ended early after an opening lap crash. The resemblance of his results with Olivier Panis’ (France’s last Grand Prix winner before Gasly) is quite eerie. After taking their maiden F1 victories, both drivers retired from their next race due to a collision.
- Daniil Kvyat finished P7 in the Tuscan GP, his best race since Belgium 2019 where he finished 7th as well.
FERRARI
- Both Ferraris finished in the points at their 1000th Grand Prix. Ferrari have won only one of their milestone GPs (century wise) when John Surtees took victory in Germany 1963 at Ferrari’s 100th GP.
- This was their first double-points finish in 5 races (since the 2020 British GP).
- Before this season, Sebastian Vettel had never finished a race in 10th position. He’s already done it 3 times this year.
ALFA ROMEO
- Kimi Raikkonen scored his first point of the year, in the 9th race of the 2020 season. This is the longest its ever taken him to register his first point in an F1 season.
- Before the Tuscan GP, the Finn had gone 9 races without scoring a point, an unlucky string of results which has never occurred before in his 18 F1 seasons.
- Raikkonen has always been a consistent points-scorer and before his Alfa Romeo stint, his longest streak without points was 6 races (between Malaysia 2002 and Monaco 2002) in his early McLaren days.
HAAS
- Kevin Magnussen now has 5 retirements in 9 races this season, while his teammate Romain Grosjean has 1.
- Grosjean who, unfortunately, has the highest rate of retirements amongst the 2020 drivers, has gone 8 races without a race retirement. The only time he’s bettered this streak was the 9 races between Belgium and Abu Dhabi in the 2017 season.
- Grosjean, however, has failed to score a point after 9 races this season, a first for the Frenchman in his 10 years as an F1 driver. Grosjean last scored a point 19 races ago, in the 2019 German Grand Prix.
