Sundaram Ramaswami
Seldom do we receive nail-biting finishes that carry on until the final few corners of a race, but whenever we do, the entire F1 fraternity ends up celebrating it. The podium at Monza saw some fresh faces in Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz Jr. and Lance Stroll, and it also broke quite a few records.
So here are all the numbers from the 2020 Italian Grand Prix –
● Pierre Gasly became the 109th driver to register an F1 race win. The most recent one was Charles Leclerc at Belgium in 2019.
● At the age of 24, Gasly is the youngest Frenchman to win a Grand Prix, surpassing Alain Prost who won his first race in 1981 at the age of 26.
● It’s been 24 years since a French driver last won a Grand Prix, Olivier Panis being the last one at the 1996 Monaco GP.
● After a gap of 146 races, AlphaTauri became the first team apart from the ‘Big 3’ to win a race since Australia 2013.
● This is the first time since the 2012 Hungarian GP, that neither of Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull made it to the podium.
● It took Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri 12 years (4375 days) to secure another race victory, since the 2008 Italian GP. Ligier are the only team who took longer between race victories (14 years) while still being in the sport.
● Both AlphaTauris finished within the points on Sunday. The last time they did that, Pierre Gasly was once again on the podium (Brazil 2019).
● Coincidentally all the drivers on the podium secured their second podium finish in the sport. Gasly and Sainz’s first podium was at the 2019 Brazilian GP while Stroll’s first one was in 2017 at Baku.
● In terms of average age, this is the third-youngest podium in F1 history. The 2019 Brazilian GP (Verstappen, Gasly, Sainz) and the 2008 Italian GP (Vettel, Kovalainen, Kubica) take first and second.
● This was Honda’s 50th race with the Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri outfit. Over two and a half years, the partnership has yielded 3 podiums and one victory.
● Honda is the only team to win a race in the hybrid era with two different teams, i.e Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri.
● This is the first time in 7 years that a Red Bull backed/owned car stood on the podium at Monza, after Red Bull Racing’s triumph at the 2013 Italian GP.
● Alex Albon finished 15th during the Italian GP. The last RBR driver to finish 15th or lower was Daniil Kvyat in the 2016 Russian GP, after which he was unceremoniously dropped by the Red Bull Racing squad in favour of Max Verstappen.
● This was Racing Point’s first podium under the Lawrence Stroll led management.
● Mercedes finished 5th and 7th, accumulating just 17 points in the process. This is their worst race finish (in terms of points or position) since the 2015 Hungarian GP when both cars have finished outside the podium places.
● Lewis Hamilton is currently on a 41-race streak for race classifications and is tied with Nick Heidfeld. Hamilton’s last retirement was at the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix and he’s finished in the points in each race since then, a record in its own.
● For the first time since 1995, Ferrari have failed to finish the Italian GP.
● Ferrari now have two double retirements this year (Styrian GP & Italian GP). The last time that happened was in 1997 when both Ferrari drivers (Schumacher & Irvine) failed to finish the British and Luxembourg Grands Prix.
● In terms of retirements this year, Haas and Ferrari top the charts with 5 DNFs apiece. For drivers, Kevin Magnussen (4) leads ahead of Charles Leclerc (3).
