Friday, May 18, 2012

Barcelona in Numbers


Fifth race of the season, and we've had 5 different winners: Button, Alonso, Rosberg, Vettel and Maldonado. Something that hadn't happened since 1983. But that's not all, because 2 of the 5 are first-time winners. Nico and Pastor saw their chance and took it. Both from pole position. Both achieving a perfect weekend of firsts.

So Pastor becomes the first Venezuelan driver to ever win a Formula One race and has made Williams a winning team again. Something that they hadn't achieved in 8 years and 132 races. Pastor delivered William's first win since Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya in Brazil 2004. Venezuela has had to wait 30 years to have a driver back in F1 again, but it was well worth the wait.

In only 5 races we've seen 2 new race winners, 3 new podium finishers, 3 new point-scorers (now everyone on the grid has scored in F1 except for Charles Pic) and 2 new pole-sitters. Amazing numbers if we compare it to last season, where in 19 races there were only 7 different podium finishers and always between 4 teams. This year we have already seen 9 between 7 different teams. Exciting times.

Fernando Alonso finished 2nd in front of his home crowd and achieved his 175th podium in F1. Kimi Raikkonen also ended up on the podium. This was his 64th time. Felipe Massa was out of the points again (he's only scored 2 points thanks to his 9th position in Bahrain), finishing 15th, and there was no Red Bull in the top 5. Michael Schumacher retired for the 3rd time this season, and after 5 races only has a total of 2 points. A poor result for someone like him driving a winning car. It's interesting, it seems as if he's following a pattern: RET - P10 - RET - P10 - RET. Looks like in Monaco he will need to finish P10...

So after 5 races, Alonso and Vettel lead the Championship with 61 points. Only 20 points separate them from Nico Rosberg in 7th. Red Bull leads the Constructors Championship with 109 points. With Pastor's win, Williams are now in 6th position and have the same points as Mercedes, 43. Ferrari haven't had the best of starts to the Championship but they are 4th with 63 points (all except for 2 thanks to Fernando). Lotus seem to be the dark horse of the season, already in 3rd position with 84 points and climbing up race after race. I don't think it will be long before we see them top of the table. Time will tell. Bring on Monaco!