As we do after every Grand Prix of the 2022 season, we at Motorsport.com bring you a compilation of the best stats from the weekend. These are the most important facts and figures of the eighth round of the championship, the Azerbaijan GP.
F1 Azerbaijan GP 2022 stats and drivers
– This has been the fifth edition of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix , but it is the sixth GP that has been held at the Baku circuit (as many as Anderstorp and Dijon), since the first event that hosted the track was a European GP, back in 2016.
– Fernando Alonso made his 342nd start in F1, placing him just eight behind the record for the most Grands Prix, held by Kimi Raikkonen (350).
– The Spaniard did break the record for the longest time between his first and last outing in F1, at 21 years, three months and eight days between the 2001 Australian GP and the 2022 Azerbaijan GP. a total of 400 F1 GPs, although he has not participated in 58 of them for various reasons. Michael Schumacher held the previous record, aged 21 years and 3 months between the 1991 Belgian GP and the 2012 Brazilian GP.
The statistics of the classification of the Azerbaijan GP 2022 of F1
– Charles Leclerc achieved the 15th pole of his career. He is the 22nd driver in F1 history to reach this figure.
– Leclerc has achieved his 15 pole positions with Ferrari, as many as Felipe Massa achieved with the Scuderia. Only Michael Schumacher (58) and Niki Lauda (23) have done better.
– This is the 236th pole position for the Ferrari team and the 237th for a Maranello engine. These are two absolute records.
– Leclerc made his 18th front row appearance, as many as Jochen Rindt.
– It was the eighth consecutive time that Leclerc started from the front row. He is the first to achieve these numbers since Lewis Hamilton (12 between Styria 2020 and Emilia Romagna 2020). The absolute record is 24 for Ayrton Senna, between Germany 1988 and Australia 1989, and 20 for an active driver for Hamilton between Belgium 2014 and Italy 2015.
– Max Verstappen was overtaken for the second consecutive time by a teammate in qualifying, something that had not happened to him since the 2018 United States and Mexican GPs, with Daniel Ricciardo.
– Sixth-placed Pierre Gasly achieved his personal best starting position and the best for his team, AlphaTauri, this season.
– After achieving seventh place, Lewis Hamilton already has five grid positions outside the top five (13th, 6th, 6th, 8th, 7th) in 2022, something that had never happened in his career.
– Sebastian Vettel again equaled Aston Martin’s best result this year, 9th (as in Monaco and Imola).
F1 Azerbaijan GP 2022 race stats
– Max Verstappen took his 25th victory in Formula 1, as many as Jim Clark and Niki Lauda .
– This means that the Grands Prix held in Baku have seen six different winners in six editions, following Nico Rosberg (2016), Daniel Ricciardo (2017), Lewis Hamilton (2018), Valtteri Bottas (2019) and Sergio Pérez (2021).
– This is Red Bull’s 81st win as a manufacturer, more than Lotus (79). It is also the sixth victory as an engine manufacturer.
– It is the third time in its history that Red Bull has achieved five consecutive victories, after Sebastian Vettel’s nine at the end of 2013 and a first series of five consecutive victories by Verstappen and Pérez between Monaco and Austria last year.
– With second place for Sergio Pérez, it was Red Bull’s 20th one-two finish in F1 history.
– Max Verstappen scored his 66th F1 podium finish and 66th with Red Bull, the Dutchman has surpassed Vettel’s total with the Austrian team. It was Sergio Pérez’s 20th appearance in the top three, as many as Giuseppe Farina and John Watson. George Russell has four, as do Gunnar Nilsson and Heikki Kovalainen.
– No driver has won after setting the fastest time in FP1 this season: Gasly retired in Bahrain, Leclerc was 2nd in Jeddah, Sainz retired in Melbourne, Leclerc was 6th in Imola and 2nd in Miami, forced to retire in Barcelona and was 4th in Monaco, and Pérez could only be 2nd in Baku.
– George Russell remains the only driver to have finished in the top five in every grand prix this season, consistently between third and fifth. He is also the only one to have scored points in every race.
– After finishing fourth, Lewis Hamilton continues a streak of seven consecutive races without a podium, the first time this has happened since the last eight Grands Prix of the 2013 season.
– Fifth, Pierre Gasly got his best result of the season and also the best of AlphaTauri in 2022.
– Sebastian Vettel has managed to finish in the top six in all the races held in Baku after taking sixth place.
– Eighth, Daniel Ricciardo was able to score points for the second time this year (after Melbourne).
– Lando Norris’ ninth-place finish was his 50th appearance in the points.
– Ferrari suffered its first double DNF since Monza in 2020. It was also the first time two Ferraris had failed to finish due to mechanical problems since the 1997 British GP.
– With his retirement, Leclerc’s conversion rate from poles to wins has dropped even further, as he is the least “efficient” of the current drivers (amongst the drivers with multiple poles): his 15 poles have only translated into four wins (26.7%) compared to eight other top-four finishes, two retirements and one race that failed to start.
– Valtteri Bottas has a record similar to the Monegasque driver (20 poles for six victories, that is, a 30% success rate). Historically, among the drivers with more than five pole positions, René Arnoux is the most successful (two wins in his 18 pole positions, half of which were followed by a retirement).
