Hamilton records his 100th victory with the largest win margin in 13 years, Sainz takes his fifth podium and Verstappen finishes on the podium from 20th on the grid. Here are the facts and statistics from the 2021 Russian Grand Prix!
HAMILTON REACHES 100 WINS
At the 2021 Russian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton became the first driver to reach a century of Formula 1 victories. He won the Russian Grand Prix for a fifth time, extending his record for most Sochi Autodrom victories. Hamilton’s win also means that Mercedes maintain their 100% win record at the Russian Grand Prix.
As well as recording his 100th win, Hamilton became the first driver to have scored 4,000 points in his Formula 1 career.
Mercedes recorded their 120th Grand Prix victory. They are the third team to reach the milestone, after Ferrari at the 1999 Australian Grand Prix and McLaren at the 1999 British Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton won the Russian Grand Prix with a win margin of 53.271 seconds. That’s the largest win margin since his victory at the 2008 British Grand Prix, over thirteen years ago.
Hamilton remains the only driver to have completed every racing lap held at Sochi Autodrom since the circuit joined the calendar in 2014 – as well as one of only two drivers to score at every running of the event so far.
Hamilton led only three laps on his way to victory at the Russian Grand Prix. The 2019 Canadian Grand Prix is the only race in which he has led fewer laps and taken the win. He also led three laps on his way to victory at the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix and the 2021 British Grand Prix.
Hamilton is the first driver to win the Russian Grand Prix having started outside the top three on the grid. He is the first driver to win from fourth on the grid since Max Verstappen at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix in 2020.
ON THE PODIUM
Verstappen is only the sixth driver to finish on the podium having started 20th on the grid. The other drivers to have done so are Jacques Laffite at the 1985 Australian Grand Prix, Juan Pablo Montoya at the 2005 German Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton at the 2014 German Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel at the 2019 German Grand Prix and Carlos Sainz at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix.
With second place, Verstappen equals Red Bull’s best Russian Grand Prix result. Verstappen also finished second at Sochi in 2020.
Carlos Sainz recorded his fifth podium finish – but this was only the third time that the Spaniard has actually stood on the podium. He is the 100th F1 driver to reach five podium finishes in his career. He is the ninth different driver to finish on the podium at the Russian Grand Prix.
Sainz has now scored in all of the last eight races. His scoring streak is the longest active streak in Formula 1.
Prior to the Russian Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz had led only five laps in his Formula 1 career. He led twelve laps in the Russian Grand Prix.
THE POINTS SCORERS
With fourth place, Daniel Ricciardo recorded his best ever Russian Grand Prix result. His previous best result here was fifth place, with Renault in 2020.
Finishing in fifth place, Valtteri Bottas failed to score a top four result at the Russian Grand Prix since his retirement from the 2015 event. Bottas’ fifth place is the first time a Mercedes driver has failed to finish on the podium at the Russian Grand Prix since Lewis Hamilton’s fourth place in 2017.
Before 2021, only two grid slots had failed to score at the Russian Grand Prix: sixteenth and twentieth. That changed, as Valtteri Bottas finished fifth having started from sixteenth and Max Verstappen finished as runner-up having started twentieth.
Fernando Alonso finished the race in sixth place, scoring for the ninth time in the last ten races. He matches his best ever Russian Grand Prix result, having also finished sixth at Sochi Autodrom in both 2014 and 2016.
Lando Norris led the majority of the Russian Grand Prix and came close to winning the race until the weather conditions changed. He finished the race in seventh, which – although a disappointing result – is still his best-ever Russian Grand Prix finishing position. This was the ninth World Championship Grand Prix in which the polesitter has finished in seventh place. It last happened at the 2020 Italian Grand Prix.
After missing the last two races due to testing positive for coronavirus, Kimi Raikkonen finished the Russian Grand Prix in eighth place. It’s the third time he has scored in 2021 – and his best result since his fourth place finish at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix. This is the first time Raikkonen has scored at the Russian Grand Prix since 2018.
With ninth place, Sergio Perez maintains his record of scoring points at every Russian Grand Prix to date. Lewis Hamilton is the only other driver to have achieved this feat.
Despite scoring only once in his first 48 Grand Prix appearances, George Russell has now scored in four of the last five races. Russell becomes the 24th different driver to have scored points at the Russian Grand Prix.
Russell scored the first point for a Williams driver at the Russian Grand Prix since Felipe Massa finished ninth at the 2017 event.
THE OTHER FINISHERS
Finishing in eleventh place, Lance Stroll is still yet to score any points from his five Russian Grand Prix appearances.
With Stroll finishing eleventh and Sebastian Vettel twelfth, this was the first Russian Grand Prix in which neither of Team Silverstone’s cars have picked up any points.
Esteban Ocon finished only fourteenth in the Russian Grand Prix. It was the first time he has failed to score since his retirement at the Austrian Grand Prix. It ends his longest points-scoring streak since 2017. This was the first time that Ocon has failed to score at the Russian Grand Prix.
Charles Leclerc’s fifteenth place sees him lose his 100% points finishing record at the Russian Grand Prix. His previous worst result here was seventh place, recorded in 2018.
THE TWO RETIREES
Mick Schumacher recorded the first retirement of his Formula 1 career. He’s the first member of the Schumacher family to not retire on his F1 debut. Michael Schumacher retired on his first appearance at the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix, while Ralf Schumacher retired on debut at the 1997 Australian Grand Prix.
Mick Schumacher becomes the sixth driver to have a 100% DNF record at the Russian Grand Prix. The other drivers with the same record in Sochi are Brendon Hartley, Kamui Kobayashi, Max Chilton, Rio Haryanto and Robert Kubica.
Schumacher is the first driver to retire from the Russian Grand Prix having started fourteenth on the grid.
Nicholas Latifi failed to reach the end of the Russian Grand Prix, but was classified in nineteenth place. This was Latifi’s third retirement of the year – his first since the opening two rounds of the 2021 season.
For the first time since the Austrian Grand Prix, all twenty drivers lined up on the grid. At every race between the Red Bull Ring event and the Russian Grand Prix, at least one driver had started from the pit lane.
Pingback: 2021 Russian GP: A Statistic for Every Driver - Lights Out ●●●●●