Formula One : F1 2010 Season numbers 5 different drivers have led Championship
With almost half the season of current Formula One Championship already over, we take a look at some of the important numbers from the 2010 season.
Championship Leaders
So far there have been 5 leaders in the drivers’ championship including Alonso, Massa, Button, Webber and Hamilton. Alonso, Button and Webber each have started 2 races as championship leaders while Massa has only led going into a single race. British GP will be Hamilton’s second race as the leader, if he stays at the top on the table after Silverstone, it will be the longest stint by any driver as 2010 championship leader. The Constructors’ table has been topped by Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren with the current leaders McLarens enjoying the longest duration at the top.
Pole Positions
Red Bull Team has so far claimed 8 out of 9 pole positions with the remaining one going to Lewis Hamilton. Both Vettel and Webber have started the race in P1 four times each. Webber has achieved the second position on the grid for the start of the race three times followed by Vettel twice and Hamilton, Massa, Kubica and Rosberg each claiming the second position only once in the season. Third position fell four times to Alonso, three times to Vettel and twice to Hamilton. Only 6 out of the total 24 drivers have started a race from the front row of the grid while only 3 of these started from the top spot.
Half way into the season, Vettel has emerged as the best qualifier. On average his qualifying position is P2. He is followed by Webber who qualifies at number 3 on average while Hamilton on average qualifies at P6. The three worst qualifiers are Chandhok, Lucas di Grassi and Bruno Senna as all of them qualify on P23 on average.
Race Finishes
So far only 5 drivers have won a race in the championship. These include Hamilton, Button, Vettel and Webber with two race victories each and Alonso with a single victory. This means that both McLaren and Red Bull Racing have won 4 races apiece while Ferrari has won only once this season. Lewis Hamilton is the best finisher so far finishing every race in 4th position on average. This is also reflected by the top position he currently maintains at the drivers’ table. Next best finishers are Alonso and Kubica, finishing 5th and 6th on average. The worst finishers so far have been Glock, Senna and Trulli finishing 23rd, 22nd and 20th on average.
Up and Down the Pack
The biggest move up the pack so far has been made by both Hamilton and Massa. In Malaysian GP, Hamilton started at 20th on the grid and finished the race at P6, while Massa, in the same race finished his race at P7 from 21st on the grid. Both drivers moved up 14 positions. The next big improvement between starting and finishing positions was made by Kobayashi who started the European GP at 18th on the grid and gained 11 positions to finish on 7th. As far as winning a race is concerned, Jenson Button won the Chinese GP after starting on P5 from the gird, a record yet to be improved this season.
Apart from the retirements, finishing the race at 6th position is the most a driver fell from pole position and this incident too took place in China with Vettel. The most a driver fell from grid position was nine places and this was when Massa started 6th and finished 15th in Canada. Next is Webber’s Australian GP where he started 2nd and finished 9th.
As far as positions gained on the track is concerned Chandhok, Alguersuari and Alonso have emerged as the winners as they gain 6, 5 and 3 positions respectively every race on average. Vettel loses 6 positions every race on average while Hulkenberg and Pedro de la Rosa both lose 5 positions every race.
Retirements
So far there have been 56 retirements in the season which comes to a little over 6 every race. The race that saw the maximum number of retirements was Australia where as many as 10 cars failed to finish the race. European GP witnessed the maximum number of drivers finishing the race with only three retirements.
Red Bull racing have so far been phenomenal in qualifying but they are only converting half of their pole positions into race victories. They have put forth some horrible results most of which have stemmed from driver errors rather than technical failures. McLaren drivers are mostly up there with Red Bull in qualifying and more often than not seem to snatch the victories and podium finishes from unlikely positions. Ferrari have hardly any numbers in their favour at this stage and the next two to three races could be make or break for them. We wait and see which teams and drivers improve these stats.
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