Verstappen is the 30th driver to reach eleven wins, Hamilton leads the championship for the 121st time and Schumacher does something no driver has done before. Here’s a statistic from each driver’s 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix weekend!
Lewis Hamilton secured pole position for the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. This was Hamilton’s 99th pole position and, with this being his first pole at Imola, he is the first driver to start from pole at 30 different circuits during his F1 career. Hamilton also became the first driver to have taken pole position in fifteen different F1 seasons. Hamilton finished second and secured the Fastest Lap in the race, which ensured he would lead the Drivers’ Championship for a record-equalling 121st time. Hamilton leads the title race by a single point – the first time he has done so since the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Valtteri Bottas qualified in eighth place at the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, making it only the fourth race in Bottas’ tenure at Mercedes in which the Finn qualified outside of the top six. In the race, following a collision with George Russell, Bottas recorded his first retirement since the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen won the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, taking the eleventh win of his Formula 1 career. He is the 30th driver to have won eleven or more races in F1. Verstappen became the sixteenth different driver to win a World Championship race at Imola and the first driver to win at the circuit having started from third on the grid since Ralf Schumacher at the 2001 San Marino Grand Prix. Verstappen won the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix by exactly 22 seconds. He’s the first driver to win with a winning margin that is a whole number since Jochen Rindt took victory by exactly 30 seconds at the 1970 Dutch Grand Prix. Verstappen is the first driver to do it since F1 started timing to thousandths of a second.
Sergio Perez recorded a front row start for the first time in his career at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Perez qualified on the front row once before, at the 2016 European Grand Prix, but carried a grid penalty into the race. This was the first F1 race with a Mexican driver starting on the front row since the 1971 Dutch Grand Prix, almost 50 years ago. Perez failed to score in the race, marking the first time he has finished a race without scoring since the 2019 Hungarian Grand Prix. Perez became the first driver to fail to score having started second on the grid at Imola since Mika Hakkinen, who retired having started second at the 1998 San Marino Grand Prix.
Recording the same qualifying result as at the first race of the season, Daniel Ricciardo’s sixth place for McLaren was the team’s best qualifying result at Imola since Kimi Raikkonen’s pole position at the 2005 San Marino Grand Prix.
Lando Norris became the 146th driver to record multiple podium finishes in Formula 1, with his third place at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix also marking the 700th podium result for a British driver. With both Norris and Hamilton on the podium, this was the first time since the 2012 Chinese Grand Prix that two British drivers have shared a podium result.
Brake issues forced Sebastian Vettel to start the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix from the pit lane. It was his first pit lane start since the 2014 United States Grand Prix. Vettel failed to finish the race, but was classified, having completed more than 90% of the total distance. It was the first time Vettel has not finished but has been classified since the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Lance Stroll became the first driver for Team Silverstone to qualify in the top 10 at Imola since the 2001 San Marino Grand Prix, when both Jarno Trulli and Heinz-Harald Frentzen qualified in the top for Jordan. He finished the race in eighth place, after a post race penalty was applied, and became only the second driver to score for the Silverstone-based team at the track since 2001.
Fernando Alonso finished eleventh on the road at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, but a post-race penalty saw the Spaniard pick up his first point since the 2018 Singapore Grand Prix. In qualifying, Alonso was out-qualified by team-mate Esteban Ocon. It was the first time he was out-qualified by a team-mate since the 2017 Malaysia Grand Prix.
With ninth place in qualifying, Esteban Ocon reached Q3 for the first time since the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix. The Frenchman finished where he started – making this the third time in the last six races that he has finished in ninth place.
After qualifying in fourth place for the fifth time in the last nine races, Leclerc finished the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in the same position as he started. It was his best result since the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix.
Carlos Sainz’s fifth place ensured that the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix would be only the second race since the start of the 2020 season in which both Ferrari drivers have finished in the top five. This was the thirteenth top five finish of Sainz’s career; his ninth fifth place finish.
With fifth place in qualifying, Pierre Gasly made the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix the fifth consecutive race in which at least one AlphaTauri driver reached Q3. It’s the Red Bull junior team’s longest streak of Q3 appearances since the end of the 2008 season.
After crashing out in Q1 and starting from the back of the grid, Yuki Tsunoda finished the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in twelfth place. It was the first time a Japanese driver has finished a Formula 1 race in twelfth place since Kamui Kobayashi finished twelfth at the 2011 Belgian Grand Prix.
Kimi Raikkonen out-qualified his Alfa Romeo team-mate for the first time since the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix. The Finn finished the race in ninth place. It would have made him the second driver to have a gap of over 20 years between their first and last points-scoring appearances in F1 – but a post race penalty dropped him outside of the top ten.
Antonio Giovinazzi finished fourteenth in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. It was the second time in the last three Imola races that an Italian driver has finished in fourteenth place on home soil. Vitantonio Liuzzi also finished fourteenth for Toro Rosso at the 2006 San Marino Grand Prix.
Mick Schumacher finished in sixteenth place at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. He became the first driver to finish sixteenth in both of his first F1 appearances.
Nikita Mazepin finished an F1 race for the first time at the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. He became the 648th driver to reach the chequered flag at a round of the World Championship.
Crashing out of the race with Valtteri Bottas, George Russell was the only driver to record the same result at Imola this year as he did in 2020. Russell’s crash brought out the red flags for the first time at Imola since fellow Williams driver Ayrton Senna’s fatal accident in the same area of the track at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.
Nicholas Latifi crashed out on the opening lap of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. It was the first time the Canadian has retired on the first lap during his Formula 1 career. His previous earliest retirement came on Lap 7 of the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix. This was Latifi’s fourth retirement in the last six races, with him recording consecutive DNFs for the first time.
Read more statistics from the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in our Post Race Statistics article!