Verstappen takes his 11th win, British drivers reach 700 podiums and Alonso scores his first point since his comeback to F1. Here are the facts and statistics from the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix!
VERSTAPPEN WINS
Max Verstappen won the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, taking the eleventh win of his Formula 1 career.
Verstappen became the sixteenth different driver to win a World Championship F1 race at Imola. He’s 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.
Before 2021, Ayrton Senna was the last driver to win at Imola in a Honda-powered car, doing so at the 1991 San Marino Grand Prix. Red Bull become the ninth different team to take victory at Imola.
Verstappen becomes the 30th driver to have won eleven World Championship Grands Prix during their Formula 1 career.
With victory at Imola, Red Bull record their 65th Grand Prix win. They are only the sixth team to reach that milestone – the first to do so since Mercedes at the 2017 Chinese 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, as well as the first driver to do since F1 started timing to thousandths of a second.
ON THE PODIUM
Joining Verstappen on the podium were Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris. The pair made this the first race since the 2012 Chinese Grand Prix to feature two British drivers on the podium. Norris’ third place marked the 700th podium finish for a British driver in Formula 1. Britain is the first nation to reach the milestone.
Hamilton and Norris also ensured that Britain equalled Germany as the nation with the most podium finishes at Imola. Both nations have now recorded fifteen top three finishes at the circuit.
This was the first time that Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren have shared a podium since the 2010 British Grand Prix.
While Hamilton became the 22nd driver to record multiple podium finishes at Imola, Verstappen and Norris became the 37th and 38th different drivers to have finished in the top three at the track.
Norris is the 146th driver to record multiple podium finishes in Formula 1’s history.
Norris’ podium was the 20th for a McLaren driver at the Imola circuit.
As a result of setting the Fastest Lap, Hamilton maintains the lead of the Drivers’ Championship. This is the 121st time that Hamilton has led the championship after a race, equalling Michael Schumacher’s record for the most occasions on which a driver has led the title race.
The driver of car number 44 leads the Drivers’ Championship with 44 points after the Imola race. Hamilton leads the way by a single point. It’s the third time in his career that he has led the championship by one point. He also did so after the 2008 Italian and Brazilian Grands Prix.
After the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Mercedes lead the Constructors’ Championship by only seven points. It’s the smallest margin by which they’ve led since taking the championship lead from Ferrari after the 2018 German Grand Prix. No other team has led the title race since.
At the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, the driver starting third won, the polesitter finished second and the driver starting seventh finished third. The only other time that this has happened in Formula 1 was at the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix – another race which was affected by rain.
Norris makes this the third time in the last four F1 races at Imola that the driver who started seventh has finished on the podium.
Finishing in second place, Hamilton made this the 25th consecutive race at Imola in which the polesitter has either won the race, finished second or retired.
This was the seventh consecutive race in which Norris has scored. It is now the longest points-scoring streak of the British driver’s career.
THE TOP TEN
Both Ferarri drivers scored at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, with Charles Leclerc fourth and Carlos Sainz fifth. This is only the second time since the start of last season that both Ferrari drivers finished in the top five. The other time it happened was at last year’s Turkish Grand Prix.
Fernando Alonso finished in tenth place in the final result, picking up his first point in Formula 1 since the 2018 Singapore Grand Prix.
After the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, there are four drivers from four different teams in the top four positions in the Drivers’ Championship. It’s the first time this has happened since the 2013 United States Grand Prix.
THE OTHER FINISHERS
Despite starting second – this being the first race since the 1971 Dutch Grand Prix to feature a Mexican driver on the front row of the grid – Sergio Perez failed to score at Imola, finishing in twelfth place. It was the first time Perez 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.
With his ninth place finish, Kimi Raikkonen would have become only the second driver, after Michael Schumacher, to have a gap of more than 20 years between their first and last points-scoring appearances in Formula 1. However, Raikkonen was given a 30-second time penalty after the race which saw him drop out of the points.
Mick Schumacher finished in sixteenth place for a second consecutive race. He is the first driver in Formula 1 to be classified in sixteenth at both of the first two races of their career.
THE RETIREES
Sebastian Vettel started from the pit lane for the first time 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’s the first time Vettel has not finished but has been classified since the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Nicholas Latifi was the first driver to retire from the race. This was his fourth retirement in the last six Grands Prix. He retired on the first lap of the race, making this the 22nd time that a driver has retired on the first lap of a race at Imola.
Valtteri Bottas and George Russell collided in the race, bringing out the red flag. This was Bottas’ first retirement since the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix, and Russell’s first non-finish since his retirement at Imola last year.
The red flag after Russell and Bottas’ crash marked the first time an F1 race at Imola has been stopped since Ayrton Senna’s fatal accident at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. It was only the third time a race at the circuit has been red-flagged, the other occurrence being at the 1989 San Marino Grand Prix.
With both Russell and Latifi out of the race, Williams recorded their first double retirement since the 2019 Russian Grand Prix. It was their first double DNF at Imola since the 2000 San Marino Grand Prix.
This was the fifth F1 race at Imola to be affected by rain. The last rain-affected race here was the 1995 San Marino Grand Prix.
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