F1
The 2019 Chinese Grand Prix will be Formula One's 1,000th race. To celebrate this landmark occasion, we've number-crunched Formula One's best facts to reach 1,000.
On May 13, 1950, 26 drivers and five manufacturers gathered at the then 4.6km Silverstone circuit to race 70 laps of the inaugural World Championship of Drivers event. Italy's Giuseppe 'Nino' Farina controlled the race from start to finish as he began his journey to become the first-ever Formula One world champion.
Many years later – 69 years, or 25,173 days to be precise – Formula One looks a hell of a lot different. The rules have changed. So have almost all of the manufacturers' names. And even the circuits have been altered. But Formula One is still with us and will celebrate its 1,000th Grand Prix birthday at the upcoming Chinese Grand Prix on April 14.
To celebrate this major milestone, we've calculated F1's best number-related facts, adding them up to, you guessed it, 1,000. Get yourself educated.
28 (Record number of fastest laps by a driver)
Considered by many to be not just the best driver of his generation, but possibly the greatest F1 driver of all time, Jim Clark was the fastest man of the 1960s.
The Scottish driver won two world championships, and the 1965 Indy 500, at the wheel of a Lotus. And he was on course to win even more when he died during a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim in April, 1968.
En route to etching his name into F1 folklore, Clark notched up 28 fastest laps in his 72 Grand Prix starts. In terms of fastest laps to race starts, Clark is second in the list only to the Argentinian great Juan Manuel Fangio, who bagged 23 fastest laps in 51 starts.
+ 374 miles (The longest Grand Prix in Europe)
In terms of race distance, the 1951 French Grand Prix remains unbeaten, weighing in at a whopping 374 miles (601km) over 77 laps of the Reims-Gueux Circuit in northern France.
It wasn't just long. The circuit was also one of the fastest in Formula One, thanks to its two long straights measuring about 2.2km in length. The final F1 race was held there in 1969, and, sadly, bulldozers tore up a big portion of the track in 2002.
Technically, however, the Indianapolis 500 is the longest ever Grand Prix. Its 500 mile distance was part of the F1 calendar between 1951 and 1960, but annually featured an almost exclusively American-based field of drivers.
+ 33 miles (The shortest ever Grand Prix)
The 1991 Australian Grand Prix, on the streets of Adelaide, was supposed to be 81 laps of racing to end the season and crown Ayrton Senna as the Drivers' champion, but torrential rain turned the circuit into a water slide and the race had to be red-flagged after 16 laps.
The start was surprisingly incident free, but after a dozen laps a field of spinning and crashing cars brought out a cavalcade of yellow flags, and the decision was made to stop the madness and with it the shortest race in F1 history.
Senna won, but later said. "I don't think that was a race, it was just a matter of staying on the circuit. It was impossible."
+ 34 (Highest number of starters in a Grand Prix)
It's been a while since Formula One drivers had to pre-qualify for a Grand Prix, and even longer since the organisers let almost anyone who turned up start a race.
Back in 1953, things were different. A massive 34 out of 35 qualifying cars started the German Grand Prix – race number seven in the 1953 World Championship of Drivers – at the incredibly dangerous Nürburgring circuit. To put this bustling field of drivers in perspective, only 20 drivers lined up at the start of the 2019 Australian Grand Prix.
Nino Farina won in a Ferrari at the age of 46 to become the oldest ever Grand Prix winner. It was his final victory in Formula One.
+ 6 (Manufacturers' record for consecutive wins at a Grand Prix)
Ayrton Senna and McLaren remains an iconic combination. Senna won all of his three F1 titles at the wheel of a red-and-white McLaren, and between 1988 and 1993 he was joined at the team by legends like Alain Prost and Gerhard Berger.
During this period, McLaren dominated the hallowed Monaco Grand Prix. Senna won five races there, and Prost one – a performance from a manufacturer (on a true leveller of a circuit) that's unlikely to be beaten anytime soon.
+ 2 (The number of US world champions)
Two Americans have won the Formula One Drivers' title. Phil Hill won it with Ferrari and Mario Andretti took the spoils with Lotus. Hill was born in the US, while Andretti was actually born on Italian soil, which, after the Second World War, became Yugoslav soil, and then Croatian soil.
Still, despite all the great US drivers who have starred in F1 and IndyCar down the years, only Hill and Andretti have stood on top of the F1 world.
Hill won in 1961 driving for Ferrari in a season that was clouded by the death of team-mate and championship rival, Wolfgang Von Trips. In a tragic symmetry, Andretti's 1978 title triumph was overshadowed by the death of a team-mate following Ronnie Peterson's crash at the Italian Grand Prix.
+ 382 (Most races entered by a manufacturer without a win)
The Arrows Racing Team competed in F1 between 1978 and 2002. That's two dozen years of premier class racing – plenty of time in which to win a Grand Prix, right? Maybe not.
In 24 years of trying, the team never tasted Grand Prix success. They did however clock up nine podium finishes and, at one time or another, featured F1 greats like Thierry Boutsen, Eddie Cheever, Alan Jones, Riccardo Patrese and Damon Hill at the wheel.
It was with Hill that the most painful experience befell Arrows. The 1996 world champion came within half a lap of winning the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix, and what would have been Arrows' maiden victory, but hydraulic failure scuppered the win, forcing Hill back into second place.
+ 91 (Record for career race wins by one driver)
Between his debut race for the Jordan team in 1991 and his first retirement from the sport in 2006, Michael Schumacher won two F1 world titles with Benetton, followed by a magisterial run of five consecutive titles with Ferrari.
En route to all those title wins, Schumacher notched up 91 victories, 155 podiums, 68 pole positions, and 1,566 points. Next best in the all-time winners list is current F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton, who has 73 victories under his belt.
The good money is on the UK driver to, one day, overhaul Schumacher's incredible achievement. After all, Hamilton has already trashed Schumacher's record for most pole positions, with the Mercedes man now at 84 and counting.
+ 15 (Most podiums by a manufacturer without a win)
If you thought the record for 382 races without a win set by Arrows was impressive, spare a thought for the British American Racing team. Eek.
BAR entered the sport to much fanfare in 1999, with mega bucks backing from a tobacco company and 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve as lead driver. But the team managed to score zero points in its maiden season. And it didn't get a whole lot better.
It wasn't until 2004, with Jenson Button and Takuma Sato at the wheel, that BAR got their act together. Against all odds, they managed to finish second in that year's Constructors' standings, but still couldn't win a single race.
+ 22 (Furthest back on the grid a Grand Prix winner has started)
John Watson is one of the UK's forgotten F1 heroes. Between 1973 and 1985, the Belfast-born driver won five races for Penske and McLaren, and nearly won the 1982 World Championship. But it was Watson's performance at Long Beach in the 1983 US Grand Prix West that set an F1 record.
Watson started the race down in 22nd after a miserable qualifying session, but on race day he hauled his McLaren through the field and, with a mix of canny driving and some fortunate retirements around him, beat team-mate Niki Lauda by over 30 seconds to win the race.
+ 13 (Record for the most wins in a single season)
With F1 entering a period of expanded calendars, with more races than ever packed into a season, the joint record for the most wins in one season – currently held by the German duo of Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel – could be beaten one day. Until then, 13 wins in a single season remains the target to beat.
Schumacher's 13 wins in 2004 with Ferrari included a seven-win streak as he roared to his seventh and final world title. Nine years later, in 2013, Vettel won his baker's dozen driving for Red Bull Racing, notching up nine consecutive victories. Only a retirement and a fourth place finish in China blemished his near perfect record.
