Hamilton records the 250th win from second on the grid, Schumacher is the only driver yet to lose a position in a Grand Prix and Raikkonen brings out the first ever Safety Car in Portugal. Here’s a statistic from each driver’s 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix weekend!
Lewis Hamilton recorded his 97th Formula 1 victory at the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix, extending his championship lead to eight points. As a result of extending his championship lead, Hamilton overtakes Michael Schumacher as the driver to have led the Drivers’ Championship on the most occasions. Hamilton is only the fourth driver to have taken multiple wins at the Portuguese Grand Prix. The other drivers to have done so are Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Stirling Moss. Hamilton is also the third driver to take back-to-back wins in Portugal. The other drivers to do so are Moss (in 1958 & 1959) and Prost (in 1987 & 1988). Hamilton’s win came from second on the grid. It’s the 250th time that the driver who started second has won a World Championship Formula 1 race.
With his seventeenth pole position, Valtteri Bottas equalled Jackie Stewart’s total of poles. Rene Arnoux is now the only non World Champion with more poles than the Finn, Bottas having now overtaken both Stirling Moss and Felipe Massa’s tallies. Bottas went on to finish in third place, recording his 58th podium finish. It puts him just two top three finishes away from entering the top ten of most podium finishes in Formula 1 history. Bottas led nineteen laps of the race, making the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix the 200th F1 race in which a Finnish driver has led.
With second place, Max Verstappen recorded his 45th top three finish in Formula 1. It puts him eighteenth in the all time list of most F1 podiums, level with Carlos Reutemann. Rubens Barrichello, David Coulthard, Valtteri Bottas and Gerhard Berger are now the only non-champions with more podium finishes than Verstappen.
Sergio Perez finished where he started for the first time since the 2020 Russian Grand Prix. On his way to finishing in fourth place, Perez led thirteen laps of the Portuguese Grand Prix. This was the third F1 race which Perez has led, after the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix and the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix.
Daniel Ricciardo was the surprise elimination in Q1 at the Portuguese Grand Prix, recording McLaren’s first Q1 exit since the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix. It was Ricciardo’s first Q1 exit since the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix. He went on to finishing in ninth place, becoming the first driver to score having started sixteenth on the grid since Romain Grosjean at the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix. Grosjean also finished ninth in that race.
Qualifying in seventh for the third time in the first three races of 2021, Lando Norris out-qualified team-mate Daniel Ricciardo for the first time. Norris went on to finish the race in fifth place, recording a fourth consecutive top five finish. It’s the first time in his F1 career that Norris has finished in the top five at four consecutive events.
Sebastian Vettel reached Q3 for the first time since the 2020 British Grand Prix. It was the first time he has qualified in the top ten with Aston Martin. Vettel qualified in tenth: the same position as he qualified the last time he was in Q3.
Lance Stroll qualified in seventeenth place, recording his first Q1 exit since the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix. The Canadian also qualified seventeenth the last time he was out in Q1. This was Aston Martin’s second Q1 elimination of the season. The team recorded only two Q1 exits in total in 2020. This was the first time Stroll failed to reach Q3 since the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix.
Finishing in eighth place, Fernando Alonso recorded his best result since his seventh place finish with McLaren at the 2018 Singapore Grand Prix. Alonso was out-qualified by Esteban Ocon on Saturday; the first time he’s been out-qualified by a team-mate at two successive races since the 2016 German and Belgian Grands Prix.
Esteban Ocon qualified in sixth place at the Portuguese Grand Prix, recording his best qualifying result since the 2020 Belgian Grand Prix. This was the first time Ocon has out-qualified his team-mate at two successive races since the 2018 United States and Mexican Grands Prix. Ocon went on to finish the race in seventh place – his best result since his podium finish at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix.
Charles Leclerc finished in the top six for a third consecutive race. Leclerc is one of four drivers to have finished in the top six at every race so far in 2021. The other drivers to do so are Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.
At the Portuguese Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz out-qualified Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc for the first time. Sainz qualified in fifth, recording his fifth top five qualifying result in Formula 1. It was the first time Sainz has qualified in the top five since the 2020 Styrian Grand Prix. In the race, for the first time since his retirement at the 2020 Russian Grand Prix, Sainz finished outside of the points. The Ferrari driver finished the race in eleventh place.
Pierre Gasly qualified in ninth place at the Portuguese Grand Prix. He is one of only two drivers to record the same qualifying result in Portugal in 2021 as he did in 2020. Max Verstappen, who qualified third, is the other driver who recorded a repeat Saturday result.
After starting from fourteenth on the grid, Yuki Tsunoda finished fifteenth in the Portuguese Grand Prix. It’s the first time in his Formula 1 career that Tsunoda has finished a race in a worse position than where he started.
After colliding with his team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen recorded his first retirement since last year’s season-opening Austrian Grand Prix. Raikkonen’s retirement resulted in the Safety Car being deployed. It was the first time a Safety Car had been deployed in a Portuguese Grand Prix.
Antonio Giovinazzi out-qualified Kimi Raikkonen for the fifth time in the last six races. With twelfth place, the Italian recorded his best qualifying result since reaching Q3 at the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix. He also finished in twelfth place for the second time in the first three races of 2021.
With Yuki Tsunoda finishing in a worse position than where he started, Mick Schumacher is now the only driver on the current grid to have never lost a position in any Grand Prix he has started. Schumacher started the Portuguese Grand Prix from nineteenth and finished in seventeenth.
Nikita Mazpein earned himself the first time penalty of his Formula 1 career. The Haas driver was found guilty of ignoring blue flags, having almost collided with then race leader Sergio Perez.
George Russell qualified in eleventh place at the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix, recording his best ever qualifying result in a Williams car. The Brit missed out on a place in the final part of qualifying by just 0.057 seconds. Russell’s eleventh place in qualifying was Williams’ best Saturday result since the 2018 Italian Grand Prix, when Lance Stroll qualified in tenth.
Along with his fellow Canadian Lance Stroll, Nicholas Latifi is one of only two drivers who were out-qualified by their team-mate at both the 2020 and 2021 Portuguese Grands Prix.
Read more statistics from the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix in our Post Race Statistics article!