Leclerc achieves a feat no driver has managed since 1973, Bottas joins an elite club and Albon is the first driver to score a point from 20th on the grid at Albert Park. Here’s a statistic from each driver’s 2022 Australian Grand Prix weekend.
🇳🇱 Max Verstappen
After recording his first front row qualifying result at Albert Park, Max Verstappen retired from the Australian Grand Prix. This was Verstappen’s first retirement at Albert Park since his F1 debut at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix and the first retirement from second on the grid at the Australian Grand Prix since Robert Kubica in 2008.
🇲🇽 Sergio Perez
Sergio Perez qualified in third place, recording his first top eight qualifying result at the Australian Grand Prix. In the race, Perez recorded his best-ever Albert Park result with second place. His previous best result at the event was seventh, recorded in 2017. It was also Red Bull’s best result at the track since Sebastian Vettel’s second place in 2012.
🇬🇧 Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton finished in fourth place, making this the first time since his 2014 retirement that he has not finished on the podium at the Australian Grand Prix.
🇬🇧 George Russell
George Russell recorded his first podium finish with Mercedes, becoming the tenth driver to finish on the podium with the team. Russell became the first driver starting sixth at the Australian Grand Prix to finish the race since Felipe Massa in 2016. He recorded the first podium result for the grid slot at the circuit since 2012.
🇲🇨 Charles Leclerc
Charles Leclerc took Ferrari’s first pole at the Australian Grand Prix since 2007 and became the first driver other than Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel to take pole at Albert Park since Jenson Button in 2009. Leclerc went on to win the race, becoming the first Albert Park polesitter to win the race since Hamilton in 2015.
Having taken pole, won the race, set the fastest lap and led every lap, Leclerc became the 26th driver to record a Grand Slam in Formula 1. Leclerc is the first Ferrari driver to record a Grand Slam since Fernando Alonso at the 2010 Singapore Grand Prix.
After the Australian Grand Prix, Leclerc leads the championship by 34 points. Nico Rosberg is the only driver to have had a larger points lead after the first three races of the season. He led by 36 points after the 2016 Chinese Grand Prix. Leclerc’s lead is larger than the lead that any driver had after any Grand Prix in the 2021 season.
🇪🇸 Carlos Sainz
Just like last time out in Australia in 2019, Carlos Sainz was the first retirement of the race. Sainz’s retirement brought an end to his 31-race finishing streak. He had not retired from a race since the 2020 Russian Grand Prix. It was the fifth longest finishing streak in F1 history.
🇦🇺 Daniel Ricciardo
Daniel Ricciardo finished sixth at the Australian Grand Prix, scoring his first points since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
🇬🇧 Lando Norris
Scoring points at the Australian Grand Prix for the first time, Lando Norris finished in the top five for the first time since finishing as runner-up at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.
🇪🇸 Fernando Alonso
After reaching Q3 at the Australian Grand Prix for the first time since 2014, Fernando Alonso finished last of the classified runners in 17th place. It was the first time the Spaniard finished the Australian Grand Prix but in a position outside of the points since his Formula 1 debut in 2001, when he finished 12th. Completing all but one lap of the race, Alonso became the first driver to race 900 laps at Albert Park.
🇫🇷 Esteban Ocon
Esteban Ocon finished in seventh place, recording points for the seventh race in a row. This was the third consecutive Australian Grand Prix in which one of the Enstone-based team’s drivers has finished in seventh place.
🇫🇷 Pierre Gasly
Pierre Gasly scored points at Albert Park for the first time at the 2022 Australian Grand Prix, finishing the race in ninth place.
🇯🇵 Yuki Tsunoda
With neither Yuki Tsunoda or team-mate Pierre Gasly in Q3, neither AlphaTauri driver qualified in the top ten for the first time since the 2021 Russian Grand Prix, nine races ago. It was the team’s longest-ever Q3 streak.
🇩🇪 Sebastian Vettel
For the first time since 2014, Sebastian Vettel failed to reach Q3 at the Australian Grand Prix. Vettel became the second driver to retire from the race after a scrape with the barriers. This was Vettel’s first retirement at the Australian Grand Prix since 2010.
🇨🇦 Lance Stroll
Driving from 19th on the grid to 12th at the finish, Lance Stroll made up seven positions in the Australian Grand Prix. The Canadian also made up seven places in the last race here in 2019.
🇹🇭 Alex Albon
After completing almost the entire race on a single set of hard tyres, Alex Albon picked up a point at the Australian Grand Prix, finishing tenth. This was the first time Albon scored since his fourth place finish at the 2020 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Albon became the first driver to score at Albert Park having started 20th on the grid. It’s the first time a driver has scored from 20th on the grid since Max Verstappen finished as runner-up at the 2021 Russian Grand Prix. While Albon is the first driver to score from 20th on the grid here, Pedro de la Rosa recorded a better result in 2002. He finished eighth, before the position awarded any points.
🇨🇦 Nicholas Latifi
Nicholas Latifi is yet to finish in a position other than 16th so far this year. He finished 16th in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix and retired from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. His 16th place at Albert Park is the third time he’s finished 16th from the last four times he’s crossed the finish line.
🇫🇮 Valtteri Bottas
Valtteri Bottas qualified in 12th place for the Australian Grand Prix, failing to reach Q3 for the first time since driving for Williams at the 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. It ended a record-breaking run of 103 consecutive Q3 appearances. His top ten qualifying streak was the third longest in F1 history, behind only Ayrton Senna (137) and Alain Prost (109). Bottas finished eighth in the race, becoming only the fifth driver to record 1,750 points in his career.
🇨🇳 Zhou Guanyu
Finishing in 11th place, Zhou Guanyu is yet to finish below 11th in his Formula 1 career.
🇩🇪 Mick Schumacher
Mick Schumacher out-qualified and out-raced Kevin Magnussen for the first time in 2022.
🇩🇰 Kevin Magnussen
Kevin Magnussen finished fourteenth in the 2022 Australian Grand Prix, reaching the chequered flag at the Australian Grand Prix for the fourth time in his seven appearances.
