Mercedes record their 100th win, Hamilton records his 100th podium at Mercedes and Perez scores for the 100th time. Here are all the facts and statistics from the 2019 Mexico Grand Prix weekend!
THE 100 CLUB
Lewis Hamilton recorded the 83rd victory of his Formula 1 career, putting him just eight wins away from Michael Schumacher’s record tally. It was his second victory in Mexico, equalling the record number of wins shared by himself, Jim Clark, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Max Verstappen.
Lewis Hamilton finished on the podium for the 100th time with Mercedes. He’s only the second driver to have taken 100 podiums for a single team. Michael Schumacher took 116 podium finishes with Ferrari.
Mercedes recorded their 100th Formula 1 win. It comes 23,857 days after their first victory at the 1954 French Grand Prix. They are the fourth team to reach a century of wins; the first to do so since Williams recorded their 100th victory at the 1997 British Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton’s win saw car number 44 equal car number 3 for the fifth most wins in F1 history. Both numbers have now won 62 times.
Valtteri Bottas recorded the 44th podium finish of his career, surpassing Jackie Stewart for eighteenth in the all-time list of most podium finishes. His third place finish marked the first time that a Mercedes driver has finished in third place at this circuit.
Lewis Hamilton became the first driver to win the Mexico Grand Prix having not started on the front row since Alain Prost in 1990. It was the first time the driver starting third has won in Mexico since Jacky Ickx in 1970. Hamilton’s win margin was the second smallest ever at the track.
VERSTAPPEN’S SATURDAY PENALTY
Max Verstappen would have become the 70th different driver to have taken multiple pole positions in Formula 1 and the 14th different polesitter at the Mexico Grand Prix. The latter honour instead went to Charles Leclerc who equalled Jacques Laffite with the seventh pole position of his career, following Verstappen’s three place grid penalty.
There have been nine different polesitters at the Mexico Grand Prix in all of the last nine races at the track.
Before his penalty, Max Verstappen took pole by 0.244 seconds – which is the largest pole margin seen at the track since its return to the calendar in 2015.
Verstappen’s penalty saw Ferrari take their sixth consecutive pole position. It’s the first time they’ve taken six successive pole positions since the 2007 Spanish Grand Prix. If they take pole position for the United States Grand Prix, it’ll be only the third time in their history that they have taken seven consecutive poles. The last time they reached that many successive poles was at the 2001 Brazilian Grand Prix.
With the fastest lap in qualifying, Max Verstappen beat the Track Record by one thousandth of a second.
For the first time in Mexico, Ferrari locked out the front row, beating their previous best 1-3 qualifying result at the circuit from 1970. It was their 80th front row lock out in total.
SATURDAY STATS
With Kevin Magnussen qualifying 17th and Romain Grosjean 18th, Haas are still yet to progress past Q1 at the Mexico Grand Prix in all of their four appearances.
Lance Stroll’s 16th place qualification marks the first time a Racing Point (Force India) car has been eliminated in Q1 at the Mexico Grand Prix.
McLaren reached Q3 in Mexico for the first time, with both of their cars qualifying in the top ten.
Before this weekend, Toro Rosso had appeared in Q3 in Mexico on two previous occasions, most recently in 2016. 2019 saw both Toro Rosso cars qualify in the top ten for the first time at the circuit.
HOME RACE SUCCESS
Sergio Perez equalled his best home race result with a seventh place finish. With that result, he became the fifteenth driver to score points in 100 Grands Prix.
SUNDAY STATS
Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas all join Nigel Mansell in having had a record five points-scoring races at the Mexican Grand Prix. Meanwhile, Romain Grosjean equalled Thierry Boutsen’s record tally of point-less finishes at the circuit. Boutsen had four point-less finishes here during his career, and Grosjean equalled that figure with his seventeenth place finish.
There were two non-finishers in the 2019 Mexico Grand Prix – Lando Norris and Kimi Raikkonen. For Raikkonen, it was his second retirement in Mexico and his second DNF of the 2019 season.
A GOOD 2022 FOR VETTEL?
Sebastian Vettel recorded the 120th podium finish of his career. With Vettel finishing second for Ferrari, Ferrari have now had more podiums at the Mexico Grand Prix than any other team, beating Brabham’s previous record of ten set in 1987.
Before the 2019 Mexico Grand Prix, two previous races had been held on 27th October. In both, the driver who finished as runner-up went on to win the title three years later. Jack Brabham finished second in the 1963 Mexican Grand Prix before taking the title in 1966, while Nico Rosberg finished second in the 2013 Indian Grand Prix before winning the title in 2016. Vettel finished as runner-up this time around…