As F1 races in Qatar for the first time, Hamilton can become the first driver to win at 30 different circuits and Red Bull could be the sixth team to reach 75 victories. Here are the milestones and records which could be broken at the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix!
THE MILESTONES
The 2021 Qatar Grand Prix will be 1,055th World Championship Formula 1 race.
Qatar becomes the 33rd country which Formula 1 has raced in, while Losail International Circuit becomes the 74th venue to host a round of the World Championship.
After this weekend, Qatar will be one of only two countries to have hosted a single Formula 1 race. The other country to have hosted only one race is Morocco, which hosted the only Moroccan Grand Prix in World Championship history in October 1958.
The 2021 Qatar Grand Prix will be the first F1 race to be held on November 21st.
This weekend will mark McLaren’s 900th Grand Prix start. They are only the second team to reach the milestone, after Ferrari. Ferrari made their 900th appearance at the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix.
This will be a new venue for 19 of the 20 drivers on the 2021 Formula 1 grid. Sergio Perez is the only driver to have previously raced here, doing so in the GP2 Asia series in 2009.
THE TITLE PERMUTATIONS
The Drivers’ Championship cannot be won at the Qatar Grand Prix. However, Max Verstappen could be in a position to win the title at the next race, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, if he outscores Lewis Hamilton by 14 points in Qatar. If he does not do so, the title will definitely not be decided until the final race of the season.
THE RECORDS TO BREAK
If Red Bull win this weekend, they would take their 75th Grand Prix victory. They would be the sixth team to reach that milestone.
If Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen finish on the podium together, it will be the 20th time that the trio have finished in the top three together. They would be the first trio of drivers to appear together on the podium on twenty occasions.
Only Mercedes and Red Bull drivers have finished on the podium at the last four races. Should the same two teams share the podium at the Qatar Grand Prix, it will be the first time since 2016 that two teams have locked out the podium at five consecutive races. It was also Mercedes and Red Bull last time this occurred, between the 2016 Singapore and Brazilian Grands Prix.
Lewis Hamilton could extend a number of records this weekend. He could become the first driver to have won at 30 different circuits, the first to take pole at 31 venues, the first to record podiums at 34 different tracks and the first to set the fastest lap at 26 different circuits.
If Max Verstappen wins this weekend, he would be the twelfth driver to have won at 15 different circuits in his F1 career.
Should they finish on the podium, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas could equal Michael Schumacher’s tally of different circuits at which a driver has recorded a top three result. Schumacher scored podiums at 27 different venues in his career. Alonso, Vettel and Bottas are currently on 26 apiece.
Carlos Sainz will equal the seventh longest finishing streak in F1 if he reaches the end of the Qatar Grand Prix. He’ll also become only the fifteenth driver to score at thirteen consecutive races should he finish in the top ten this weekend.
If the polesitter fails to win on Sunday, this will be the second time this year that the polesitter has failed to win three consecutive races. The polesitter also failed to win the opening three races of the season.
Should a driver starting third or lower win the Qatar Grand Prix, it will be the first time that three consecutive races have not been won from the front row of the grid since the 2014 Canadian, Austrian and British Grands Prix.
The driver who started second has finished second at all of the last four races. Such a streak has occurred only three times previously in F1. It happened between the 1989 German and Italian Grands Prix, the 1992 Mexican and San Marino Grands Prix and the 2016 United States and Abu Dhabi Grands Prix. Should the driver starting second finish second again in Qatar it would be the first time in F1 history this has happened at five consecutive races.
