Just three years ago, Ferrari produced their worst season in four decades, slumping to sixth in the championship.
So it will be cause for alarm that, three races into the new season, they’re on course to do even worse.
Ferrari left Australia point-less after a race bookended by misery. Charles Leclerc went out in a racing incident on lap one while Carlos Sainz Jnr, having overcome an unfortunately-timed pit stop, copped a five-second time penalty on the penultimate lap. This might ordinarily cost a driver one place, if that, but as the race finished behind the Safety Car the luckless Sainz dropped from fourth to 12th.
Over the first three races of 2020 and 2023, Ferrari achieved strikingly similar results: Two retirements and an average placing of 7.25 over the other results. But during those 2020 races Leclerc nabbed a second-place finish, contributing to a points total of 27, one more than they have today.
Ferrari hasn’t started a season as badly as this since 2009. They scored no points over the opening three races that year, though only the top eight places scored at the time. Even so, with two retirements and finishes of ninth, 10th, 14th and 15th they would only have taken three points under today’s scoring system.
If this season isn’t being kind to Ferrari, the last 12 months have been rough on Lewis Hamilton, who hasn’t won a race for more than a year. However he did make his 192nd trip to the podium last weekend. He has now stood on the rostrum in 17 consecutive seasons, breaking Michael Schumacher’s record.
Max Verstappen is the driver who looks most like breaking records at the moment. He took his 37th win and 22nd pole position last weekend, the latter putting him level with Fernando Alonso.
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There was no hat-trick for Verstappen, however, as his team mate Sergio Perez bagged the fastest lap and the bonus point. The 10th podium of his career puts him level with a trio of champions: Graham Hill, John Surtees and Mario Andretti.
Verstappen continues to close on a clean sweep of wins at every circuit on the calendar. The only tracks left he is yet to win at are Marina Bay in Singapore, Losail International Circuit in Qatar and of course the Las Vegas Strip Circuit which will hold its first race in December.
This would not be an unprecedented feat: Hamilton’s victory in the 2018 French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard meant he had won at least once at every track on that year’s calendar.
Fernando Alonso kept up his record of finishing third in every race this year. Yuki Tsunoda also finished 11th on the track for the third race running, however Sainz’s penalty promoted him to 10th place for his and AlphaTauri’s first point of the season.
McLaren also got off the mark in Australia where both drivers scored points. That include rookie driver Oscar Piastri, who enjoyed the rare accolade of scoring points in his first appearance in his home country and city.
With that, all 10 teams have scored points within the first three races of the season. That’s one race earlier than it happened last year.
Three races into last year, one team was yet to score: Aston Martin. Today they lie second in the championship with 65 points, 10 more than they managed through the whole of last year. How times change.
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Over to you
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Australian Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
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