The Formula 1 calendar keeps getting longer – and so do the drivers’ careers.
As a result, expect to see several new landmarks for longevity and success over the upcoming, 24-round 2024 F1 season.Last year Fernando Alonso experienced the kind of late-career resurgence few drivers in their forties have enjoyed. He hasn’t yet joined the ranks of those to have won a race during his fifth decade, but eight podium finishes last year demonstrated he and Aston Martin have the potential to if given the opportunity.
If he does, he will set a new record for the longest wait between consecutive grand prix wins, currently held by Riccardo Patrese at six years and 210 days. Alonso’s been waiting more than a decade to win another race, so he could smash that record.
Barring unforeseen events, Alonso is on course to extend his record as F1’s most experienced driver ever to a new benchmark. The Mexican Grand Prix is due to be the 400th F1 event he will participate in. However the Qatar Grand Prix three rounds later should mark his 400th grand prix start: He did not start the 2001 Belgian Grand Prix (the original race was abandoned and he did not participate in the restart), 2005 United States Grand Prix (he and other drivers withdrew on the formation lap due to tyre safety concerns) or the 2017 Russian Grand Prix (his car broke down with an MGU-H fault on the formation lap).
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Lewis Hamilton hasn’t been waiting as long to win a race as Alonso, but this is by far the longest win drought of his career. He has gone over two years since his last victory, a total of 45 grands prix without a win, when he had never previously started more than 10 without taking a victory. Will he end his wait during his last season before joining Alonso in the over-forties club?
Having become the outright third most-successful driver of all time in terms of total wins in last year’s season finale, Verstappen can’t climb further up that ranking this year even if he sweeps all 24 rounds. He stands at 54 wins, behind Hamilton on 103 and Michael Schumacher on 91.
Two more pole positions for Verstappen would put him fifth in that ranking and two more podium finishes would get him up to a century. However one of his rivals is poised to push the record for most podiums to a new milestone: Hamilton needs three more to before the first driver to hit a double century of podium finishes. That looks likely even if Mercedes’ slump goes on: He took nine in the W13 two season ago and six in the unloved W14 last year.
Although the record for most fastest laps is theoretically within Hamilton’s reach, don’t bank on him breaking it this year. He needs 12 more to equal Schumacher’s record of 77, but it took him three seasons to register his last 12.
If Verstappen’s streak of success does not continue, he could achieve an unusual ‘first’. He won the world championship for the third season in a row last year. Every other driver who has done that has always won a fourth title the next year: Juan Manuel Fangio in 1957, Michael Schumacher in 2003, Sebastian Vettel in 2013 and Hamilton in 2020. If Verstappen fails to win the title this year he will be the first driver to fail to extend a run of three in a row.
Hamilton and Verstappen have a good chance of breaking the record for most combined finishes in the top two places – in either finishing order. Hamilton has led Verstappen home in the leading positions 20 times, tying the record the Mercedes driver already held for finishing first ahead of his former team mate Nico Rosberg. Michael Schumacher also led Rubens Barrichello home in the same fashion 20 times.
While one more such finishing would break that record, given Verstappen’s recent run another scenario may be more likely. He has led Hamilton home in the top two places 16 times. Which is more likely to happen first: Hamilton leading Verstappen home once or the Red Bull driver doing the reverse five times?
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Verstappen’s near-monopoly on first place last year frustrated the hopes of many drivers, most of all Lando Norris, who finished second to him more often than anyone else. As a result the McLaren driver is poised to break the record for most podiums without a win if he fails to score a victory before his next rostrum appearance. He has 13 podiums but no win, putting him level with Nick Heidfeld.
Yuki Tsunoda will begin his fourth season at Red Bull’s junior team, which was known last year as AlphaTauri but entered for 2024 under the placeholder identity ‘RB’. No driver has ever begun their career with four consecutive seasons at this team under its various identities since Red Bull took over in 2006 as a means of developing young drivers for its top team. He and team mate Daniel Ricciardo have started 302 grands prix between them, making this the most experienced driver line-up ever at Red Bull’s junior squad.
Last year Zhou Guanyu set the fastest lap for the second time in his career. He is therefore tied with Nico Hulkenberg for most fastest laps set by a driver who has never stood on the podium. Hulkenberg, as is well known, holds the record for most race starts without a podium finish. Unless Haas provide him a much better car, he could well reach 227 grand prix starts without a rostrum appearance this year, 99 more than any other driver.
In his third season, Zhou should finally get to start his home race for the first time. The Chinese Grand Prix has been cancelled every year since it held the then-milestone 1,000th round of the world championship in 2019. Over 100 rounds later, F1 is expected to finally return to the Shanghai International Circuit, 20 years since it first hosted the world championship.
It will be part of a record-breaking calendar of 24 rounds. Including sprint events, F1 will hold a total of 30 races this year. Despite that growth, there will be no new tracks on the calendar this season, for the first time in five years.
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As a result of the longer calendar, more points will be available than ever before. Verstappen scored 575 points from a possible 620 last year, but there will be 672 up for grabs this season. Red Bull could beat their score of 860 from a possible 1,058 in 2023 as teams can score up to 1,146 – all assuming the points system for grands prix and sprint races is unchanged.
Milestones
- British Grand Prix: 200th grand prix weekend participation (took part in the event but not the grand prix) for Verstappen
- Dutch Grand Prix: 200th grand prix start for Verstappen, 200th participation for Carlos Sainz Jnr
- Azerbaijan Grand Prix: 200th start for Sainz
- Singapore Grand Prix: 100th participation for Alexander Albon
- United States Grand Prix: 100th start for Albon
- Mexican Grand Prix: 400th participation for Alonso
- Qatar Grand Prix: 400th start for Alonso
- Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: 50th participation for Logan Sargeant
Over to you
Spotted any notable statistics for the upcoming season? Share them in the comments.
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Formula 1
- Norris explains why he’s learned to accept McLaren’s “very weak” handling
- Eddie Jordan, 1948-2025
- Contact with team mate may have led to Bortoleto’s Australian GP crash
- FIA extends DRS zone on Shanghai’s longest straight to make passing easier
- McLaren would have been “stupid” not to use hold position order – Norris
Coventry Climax
4th January 2024, 13:40
Sure, that’s true. But winning all 24 this year will put him in a nice position to at least break that Schumacher record in the years to come. Currently, he’s 37 wins behind on that, so 24 would be a big chunk of the deficit.
Whether he’s interested in all that himself?
There’s a funny thing going on with records, I feel. I don’t remember all these statistics being discussed much in the ‘old days’. It was ‘He’s got three driver’s championships’, and people would be in awe. I guess when records become harder to break, people start looking for other statistics to talk about?
Just something I seem to notice, certainly not intended as ‘judgement’.
asz
4th January 2024, 20:06
There is a recent fetish regarding sports statistics in general, an attitude probably imported from the US.
For example, watching football [soccer] nowadays you are bombarded with ridiculously granular stats, whereas a couple of decades ago all you had were basic comments on the general run of the play (which was perfectly fine as far as I was concerned).
Nick T.
5th January 2024, 0:11
It’s funny how everything negative is blamed on the US. Even the most trivial (pun intended) of trends.
José Lopes da Silva
4th January 2024, 22:20
I’m 40 years old and I keep a Portuguese magazine from 1988. It mentions the fact that Prost had overtook Stewart for the Grand Prix wins record in 1987.
I remember a newspaper in the mid-nineties stating that Schumacher “had a lot to accelerate” before he could reach Prost’s 798,5 points.
So, in my opinion, no. Stats were always a part of it. But the journalists acknowledged that not everyone cared. They said “for statistics enthusiasts…” or something like that.
AlanD
5th January 2024, 1:46
CC:
I don’t think it is much to do with changing interests, simply that these days we have computers, and the internet, and all those records are available at the click of a button. In the olden days, you couldn’t go to Wikipedia and check the race results from 1953. You had to get out record books and, gasp, use a pencil and paper. Everyone likes to be an expert, and ask just about any question these days and someone will google it, and then quote the factoid they’ve discovered as if they knew it all along. And this also means people have to dig out more and more obscure facts and coincidences in order to retain their “expert” status.
MacLeod (@macleod)
5th January 2024, 8:02
As a person who watched since 1960s there were statistics talk but the most drivers weren’t interrested in those. Later in 1975-1985 it became more in front as history became more important.
Coventry Climax
5th January 2024, 11:40
Thank you guys, for your insights.
There’s a fair bit of merit in what you all say, with the exception probably of -sorry- the reference to soccer. That’s not an originally very american sport to begin with, so I doubt the US is to blame. But then what do I know; I always switch channels when my TV screen turns green for more than about 15%, unless maybe when it seems to be about trees. I hope they’ll never start playing on blue fields or I’m done.
Ofcourse, statistics aren’t very useful in a first year of existence, so it’s indeed logical it gains ‘weight and substance’ over the years.
And yeah, sure, computers have a substantial part in it as well, and I lack sufficient faith in people to indeed believe the thing about ‘expert status’ playing a role, even if I can’t prove it. But then there also has to be an initial interest in it in order to be found when searched: Someone has to put it up there – and keep track- in order for us mere mortals to be able to find it.
Mentioning three occurrences of the use of statistics over a period of 35 years (’88 to ’23) is not very convincing though, when claiming statistics were there all along. I must stress I referred not just to it’s presence, but to the extent and magnitude of that presence. Might be true though, that statistics have always been there, but might also just prove my initial point of an explosion of all types and sorts of statistics.
I wonder if it’s also got to do with how the F1 fandom has changed. Grown, possibly, although that depends on who you really count as ‘fan’, but then a larger fanbase does not automatically also mean a more fervent or intense fanbase. It also means there’s more people that come and go. If anything, the more people ‘enjoy’ it, the more people there are to please, which tends to turn things wider, yet also more shallow. The attitude -simplified- of cheering for a single color only and wishing all other colors dead, which we’ve seen invade motorsports over the last decade or so, is indeed a rather shallow one, with people failing to see there’s noone and nothing left to compete if they had their wish. But that’s not exactly the audience that’s interested in statistics? Or does that shallowness drive a select few to stand out and become more ‘hardcore’?
Oh well, maybe some things have no clear answer. The engineer in me would like them though ;-)
asz
5th January 2024, 12:37
Perhaps my comment was not clear enough: it is not at all about soccer being a very American sport.
What I meant was, the US is traditionally big on statistics and has been for a very long time, all their favourite sports being wrapped in tons of statistics.
On the other hand, a more “European” sport like football used to be much less interested in wall-to-wall stats. Today, however, you cannot watch a game without being told hugely important things like how many completed passes this or that player made during the first half, or who touched the ball how many times in the last five minutes.
That kind of almost compulsive statistics creation and discussion is what I meant by statistics ‘fetish’ as a phenomenon in general, and I am fairly sure the US is the inspiration for it. It has nothing to do with ‘blaming the US for everything’; it seems rather plausible that this should originate with them.
(The parallel is that F1 is also a rather “European” sport, still. And I am not saying that stats for F1 or football have not existed forever, only that as a topic they became much more dominant.)
AlanD
5th January 2024, 14:24
ASZ, good point. In US sports like American Football, it more naturally lends itself to stats in terms of time of possession, yards gained etc, whereas soccer is more subjective. Baseball is more akin to cricket in ters of stats collectability, in both of them you can track the individual performance of competitors, and in the UK we have a book called Whittaker’s Almanac, which is a yearly publication of the season’s player stats. Whittaker’s was first published in the 1860s, about a hundred years before the equivalent publication for baseball in the USA.
I think there are a couple of factors which saw the rise of the use of stats in US sports. One of them was the use of sabremetrics in baseball. I cannot remember who it was, or which team became famous for using them, but someone showed how stats could be used to gain competitive advantage. The other factor was that the US had more of a tradition of betting on sports than the UK, and so past performance stats were more important to gamblers, bookmakers, and pundits.
Coventry Climax
5th January 2024, 16:24
Ah, OK, and our opinions have quite an overlap then.
My take on it is that americans don’t have the same, long history that a lot of other countries do have. An old house in the states has a completely different meaning than an old house in, say, Amsterdam, with often easily a 100 years or more difference. It sometimes seems americans feel they should fill that void and stress that they have history too. Plus ofcourse, for them too, computers and internet have made it easy.
And I suddenly remembered that some 40 years ago, for us, icehockey was a rare occasion on TV. (Yep, where I came from, hockey is on grass, and with a ball.) But there was a dedicated commenter for it, who couldn’t stop ranting on about who they each were married to, how many children they had etc etc., which I always found immensely annoying. Early type of statistics fetishist, probably.
Jonathan Parkin
4th January 2024, 14:00
Also a reminder. Andrea DeCesaris’s record of most GP’s without a win is under threat. Nico has six race starts to go I believe
Alonso also has stood on the podium one less than he has podium finishes, a legacy of reducing his car to component form at Brazil 2003
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
4th January 2024, 14:28
Indeed! He started 208, Hulkenberg is on 203.
That’s true, though there are so many post-race penalties these days there must be a fair few such discrepancies. Sainz only stood on the rostrum at two of his first four podium finishes.
Nick T.
5th January 2024, 0:15
I’m not a Hulk fan, but in my opinion he deserves better than that. He has had the misfortune of being in F1 when it’s been stacked with amazing drivers and never a car to challenge for a win without unusual circumstances.
BTW, not implying you were putting it down to him.
Nick T.
5th January 2024, 0:17
Speaking of stacked grids. Anyone have an opinion on a season with the least talented field, collectively, of the post-1980s era? The 1990s had a few lean seasons and the early ‘00s before FA and KR showed their class.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
5th January 2024, 8:06
Surely the second half of 1999 when Schumacher was out with a broken leg? Hakkinen was left as the only truly world-class driver, to the point that his championship challengers were the unimpressive Eddie Irvine and the perennially underachieving Heinz-Harald Frentzen. A few great drivers from earlier years (e.g. Hill, Alesi) were well past their best, and others who would become decent performers in future years (e.g. Barrichello, Ralf) hadn’t quite hit the mark yet.
In terms of whole seasons, perhaps 1995? It was the last time F1 had an almost-full grid and some of the backmarkers were truly laughable.
Coventry Climax
5th January 2024, 12:01
That would require all drivers of that period to be given a grade, of e.g. 1-10, and then summing the grades of the driver fields over the seasons.
I’ve done that some time ago, because people kept saying we had such an incredibly strong field last year. Nice as an opinion, but I wanted it verified.
Ofcourse, it’s hard for a single person to come up with a reliable grading, but I tried and it turned out that on average, it didn’t really make that much of a difference: Some champs retire same year notorious backmarkers are sacked.
What I might have also done, but don’t remember, is count the amount of drivers with a grading of over – say- 7, per season, to see if a driver field in a season is made up more of cracks and dorks or of just average drivers only.
Threw away the spreadsheet, I’m afraid.
MichaelN
4th January 2024, 17:23
A couple of win-related records, thanks to StatsF1:
Hamilton can take the record for interval between first and last win. He’s currently ranked 2nd at 14 years and 5 months (and 281 races) but if he adds another win he’ll jump Räikkönen who has the record at 15 years and 6 months (and 294 races).
Hamilton can be the first to win races in 16 different seasons. He currently shares the record with Schumacher, both at 15.
Hamilton can become the first to win the same Grand Prix 9 times; he currently shares the record with Schumacher at 8. He won the English and Hungarian GP 8 times, Schumacher the French GP.
Verstappen can equal Hamilton’s record of 31 different GP wins; he’s at 29 but hasn’t won in Singapore and China. Since he has won all other GP on the 2024 calendar, he cannot improve on the record. (This is a bit of a questionable number as it counts the Mexico and Mexico City GP as two different GP, which – while technically true – is perhaps not that relevant. This also means he cannot reach Hamilton’s record of wins at 31 different circuits; he’s at 25 and can only improve to 27.)
Verstappen has won races from 9 different grid positions, the same as Alonso with whom he shares the record. He can improve on this record if he wins a race from either 5th, 8th, 11th, 12th, 13th, or 15th and further down.
Nico Hülkenberg can take the record of most Grand Prix before his first win; at 203 races he’s the only active F1 driver without a win with enough races to beat Pérez’ record of 190 races.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th January 2024, 15:09
I guess verstappen, if the car is still significantly stronger than the 2nd best, could purposefully have bad qualifying laps all seasons to try and beat that record!
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th January 2024, 15:10
season*
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
5th January 2024, 9:59
400 grand prixes is mad. I remember reading records in the late 90s when Patrese held the record at 257 I think and already thinking that was mad.
Records are to be broken but I wonder if we’ll ever see a driver spending more than 2 decades racing in F1 before F1 itself disappears.
MichaelN
5th January 2024, 11:58
Alonso, Räikkönen, and Schumacher went more than 20 years between their first and last/latest race, but they’ve each had a break of several years.
Barrichello got close with almost 19 years between the first and last race of his uninterrupted career. Hamilton can reach an uninterrupted 20 years in early 2027.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th January 2024, 15:13
Alonso started f1 in 2001, he skipped 2002 and then after his mclaren stint left for I think a couple of years, not sure if it were 2 but no more than that, so he can most likely hit 20 seasons in f1 earlier than hamilton.