Leclerc takes his second win of the season, three British drivers finish in the top five and Sainz’s points streak comes to an end. Here are the facts and statistics from the 2022 Australian Grand Prix!
LECLERC TAKES VICTORY
Charles Leclerc won the 2022 Australian Grand Prix, taking his second victory of the season. He became the first Albert Park polesitter to win the race since Lewis Hamilton in 2015.
This was Leclerc’s fourth win, equalling the career totals of Dan Gurney, Bruce McLaren and Eddie Irvine. Leclerc is yet to win a race which he has not started from pole position.
Leclerc is the 14th different driver to win at Albert Park. It’s the third time that Ferrari have won in the last four Melbourne races. Leclerc’s win sees Ferrari equal McLaren as the team with the most Australian Grand Prix podiums. Both teams have finished in the top three on 26 occasions since the event joined the calendar in 1985. This was Ferrari’s 20th podium finish at Albert Park.
Having taken pole, won the race, set the fastest lap and led every lap, Leclerc becomes 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.
Recording the fastest lap for the third race in a row, Leclerc becomes the first driver to set the fastest lap at three consecutive races since Lewis Hamilton did so at the 2014 Italian, Singapore and Japanese Grands Prix. Emerson Fittipaldi, in 1973, is the only other driver to have taken the fastest lap at the three opening races of the year.
Following his team-mate Carlos Sainz’s retirement, Leclerc now has the longest active scoring and finishing streaks. Leclerc has finished all of the last 14 races and has scored at all of the last ten.
With Leclerc scoring 26 points, Ferrari become the first team to score 400 points at the Australian Grand Prix.
Charles Leclerc now 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.
ON THE PODIUM
Sergio Perez and George Russell joined Charles Leclerc on the 2022 Australian Grand Prix podium. All three drivers recorded their first Albert Park podium. It’s the first time since 1997 that all three podium finishers recorded their first Melbourne podium in the same race.
This was only the second F1 race which a Ferrari driver has won, with a Red Bull driver second and a Mercedes driver third. The only other time it has happened was at the 2018 United States Grand Prix.
2022 is the first time since 2013 that three different teams have finished on the Australian Grand Prix podium.
Both Leclerc and Perez recorded their 16th podium finishes at the 2022 Australian Grand Prix. They equal Phil Hill for 59th in the all-time list.
Perez recorded his best-ever Australian Grand Prix result with second place. His previous best result at the event is seventh, recorded in 2017. It was also Red Bull’s best result at the track since Sebastian Vettel’s second place in 2012.
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.
THE POINTS SCORERS
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.
With George Russell on the podium, Lewis Hamilton fourth and Lando Norris fifth, the 2022 Australian Grand Prix is the first race at which three British drivers have finished in the top five since the 1999 British Grand Prix.
For the first time since Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button finished on the podium in 2014, both McLaren drivers finished the Australian Grand Prix in the top six.
With sixth place, Daniel Ricciardo scored points for the first time since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Meanwhile, Lando Norris finished in the top five for the first time since finishing as runner-up at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.
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.
Finishing eighth, Valtteri Bottas became only the fifth driver to record 1,750 points during his Formula 1 career.
Pierre Gasly scored points at Albert Park for the first time, finishing the race in ninth place.
After completing almost the entire race on a single set of hard tyres, Alex Albon picked up a point in tenth place. This was the first time Albon has scored since his fourth place finish at the 2020 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. It was the first time Williams have scored in Australia since Felipe Massa’s sixth place finish in 2017.
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.
Albon’s point means that Aston Martin are now the only team yet to score in 2022.
THE OTHER FINISHERS
For the first time this year, Haas failed to pick up any points. Mick Schumacher finished ahead of Kevin Magnussen for the first time. With the cars coming home 13th and 14th, this was the first time Haas have recorded a result other than sixth or a retirement at Albert Park.
Fernando Alonso finished last of the classified runners, in 17th place. It’s the first time the Spaniard has 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 is the first driver to race 900 laps at Albert Park.
THE RETIREES
Just like last time out in Australia, 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.
Sebastian Vettel was 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.
Max Verstappen came to a halt at the side of the track, becoming the race’s third retirement. This was Verstappen’s first retirement at Albert Park since his F1 debut at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix. Red Bull have now recorded five DNFs in the last five races.
Verstappen was the first driver to retire from second on the grid at the Australian Grand Prix since Robert Kubica in 2008.