Red Bull win a third consecutive race, neither Ferrari driver scores and all 20 drivers finish the race. Here are the facts and statistics from the 2021 French Grand Prix.
VERSTAPPEN WINS IN FRANCE
Max Verstappen won the 2021 French Grand Prix, extending his lead in the Drivers’ Championship. Winning for the thirteenth time, he equalled David Coulthard as the driver to have the second-most wins without winning the title. Only Stirling Moss is ahead of Coulthard and Verstappen in that particular list, on sixteen wins.
Verstappen is the twelfth different driver to win at Circuit Paul Ricard, while Red Bull are the ninth different team to take victory here. Meanwhile, with their fifth win at Circuit Paul Ricard, Honda equal Ford Cosworth as the most successful engine manufacturer at the track.
This was the first victory for a Honda-powered car at Circuit Paul Ricard since Alain Prost was victorious with McLaren at the 1989 French Grand Prix.
The 2021 French Grand Prix marked Red Bull’s third consecutive victory. It’s the first time that Red Bull have won three races in a row during the V6 hybrid era; the first time they have done so since Sebastian Vettel’s nine-race winning streak at the end of the 2013 season. This is also the first time Mercedes have failed to win three consecutive races since the 2019 Belgian, Italian and Singapore Grands Prix.
This was the sixth time in the last seven F1 races at Circuit Paul Ricard that the polesitter has gone on to win the race.
Max Verstappen now has thirteen wins and fastest laps, 23rd and 29th in the respective all-time lists. His 48th podium finish sees him equal Gerhard Berger for seventeenth in the list of most top three finishes.
Red Bull’s 37 point lead in the Constructors’ Championship is the largest held by a team other than Mercedes since the start of the V6 hybrid era.
ON THE PODIUM
Finishing as runner-up, Lewis Hamilton failed to win the French Grand Prix for the first time since the event’s return to the calendar. He became the first driver to reach 170 podium finishes. Only six teams have recorded that many top three results in Formula 1’s 71-year history.
Hamilton has finished where he started in all of the last three French Grands Prix.
Lewis Hamilton is the fifth driver, after Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, James Hunt and Nigel Mansell, to record as many as three podium finishes at Circuit Paul Ricard.
Sergio Perez made the 2021 French Grand Prix the first race this season in which both Red Bull drivers have finished on the podium. Recording his twelfth podium finish, Perez equalled the career totals of Stefan Johansson, Robert Kubica and Charles Leclerc.
Perez becomes the 30th different driver to finish on the podium at Circuit Paul Ricard; and the first Mexican driver to do so.
This was the first time that Perez has scored at the French Grand Prix in his Formula 1 career.
The 2021 French Grand Prix was the 30th F1 race in which the driver starting on pole won, the driver starting second finished second and the driver starting fourth finished third. It’s the order in which the top three finishers started in the very first World Championship race.
This was the third time that Red Bull have secured a 1-3 result, with a Mercedes driver finishing in second. It also happened at the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix and the 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix.
THE POINTS SCORERS
Lando Norris finished in fifth place, marking his seventh top five finish in the last eight races.
Finishing in sixth place, Daniel Ricciardo equalled his best McLaren result so far. The Australian became the first driver to score from tenth on the grid at Circuit Paul Ricard since Keke Rosberg at the 1982 French Grand Prix.
Pierre Gasly scored for a sixth consecutive race, equalling the longest points-scoring streak of his career to date. This was the first time that the Red Bull junior team has scored at Circuit Paul Ricard.
Fernando Alonso finished in eighth place, making this the fourth consecutive French Grand Prix in which one of Team Enstone’s cars has finished in eighth place.
Before 2021, the Silverstone-based team had never scored at Circuit Paul Ricard. Both drivers finished in the points in the 2021 French Grand Prix. That makes this the second race, after the Monaco Grand Prix, in which two Aston Martin drivers have scored points.
Sebastian Vettel finished in the points for a third consecutive race. It was the first time he’s scored points at three successive races since the 2019 German, Hungarian and Belgian Grands Prix.
Lance Stroll, who finished tenth, became the first driver to score from nineteenth on the grid at Circuit Paul Ricard since Jacques Laffite in 1983. It was only the third time that a driver starting further back than seventeenth has scored at the circuit.
NO POINTS FOR FERRARI
Neither Ferrari driver scored at the 2021 French Grand Prix, with Carlos Sainz finishing eleventh and Charles Leclerc only sixteenth. It marked the first race of the season in which Ferrari have failed to score. It was also the first time since 1987 – when both drivers retired – that the Scuderia failed to score at Circuit Paul Ricard.
The 2021 French Grand Prix is the second race of the 2021 season at which Carlos Sainz has failed to score. Both times he has failed to score, he has finished in eleventh place.
With Charles Leclerc finishing sixteenth, this is the first race in 2021 in which the driver starting seventh has failed to score. Fourth and sixth are now the only grid slots to score at every race this season.
OUTSIDE THE TOP 10
George Russell finished in twelfth position – his best result since scoring with Mercedes at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix.
Yuki Tsunoda, who went on to finish thirteenth, became the first driver to start a Formula 1 race at Circuit Paul Ricard from the pit lane.
Kimi Raikkonen finished seventeenth for the third time in his career. It’s the furthest back position in which he has finished a Grand Prix without retiring. He also finished seventeenth at the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix and the 2020 British Grand Prix.
All 20 drivers finished the 2021 French Grand Prix. It was the first time since the 2019 Austrian Grand Prix that a Formula 1 race has had a 100% finish rate; the tenth time it has happened in F1’s history.
Nikita Mazepin finished in twentieth place, becoming the 34th driver to finish twentieth in a Formula 1 race.