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Shanghai stats - Rosberg writes another chapter in the record books

17 Apr 2016

A dominant performance in China saw Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg collect another 25 world championship points on Sunday - but he also surpassed a legend and joined an exclusive club of drivers…
  • With his second career victory in China, and 17th F1 win overall, Rosberg became just the fourth driver in history - after Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher and Alberto Ascari - to win six successive world championship races. Schumacher and Ascari’s winning streaks both ended on seven, whilst Vettel managed nine in a row. Where will Rosberg’s end?

  • Rosberg has now eclipsed Sir Stirling Moss as the driver to win the most Grands Prix without claiming a world title. But could that change this year? The odds look good. No driver has ever won six Grands Prix in a row or the opening three races in a season and not won the championship. 
  • Incidentally, Nico Rosberg is the first driver to start a season with a hat-trick of world championship wins since Michael Schumacher in 2004. In fact, before Rosberg the feat had only been achieved six times in history (or nine times if you discount the Indy 500 from the equation). The only drivers to have started the season with four or more successive wins are Ayrton Senna (1991), Nigel Mansell (1992) and Michael Schumacher (1994, 2004).

  • Having been on the wrong end of the smallest winning margin in Chinese Grand Prix history last year - 0.714s to Lewis Hamilton - Rosberg recorded the largest winning margin in the event’s 13-year history. His buffer over Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari at the chequered flag? An incredible 37.776 seconds.

  • Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat scored just the second podium of his career with third place, while in contrast Sebastian Vettel’s second place gave the Ferrari star his 81st rostrum - exactly the same number as team mate Kimi Raikkonen, but in 73 fewer starts. Only four drivers in F1 history have more podium finishes than the Prancing Horse duo - Lewis Hamilton (89), Fernando Alonso (97), Alain Prost (106) and Michael Schumacher (155). 
  • Nico Rosberg isn’t the only one on a streak - Daniel Ricciardo made it a hat-trick of fourth place finishes to start 2016. With 36 points under his belt already, this is the best start the Australian has ever made to a season.

  • According to Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton made 18 overtakes during the race (and was overtaken twice), but he still finished down in seventh - his lowest classified finish since he came ninth in the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix, 41 races ago.

  • Sergio Perez, driver of car number 11, has finished just outside the points in 11th in four of his last five races in China.
  • But despite Hamilton’s podium streak being halted at eight races, Mercedes did at least get both of their cars home in the points for the third race running, as did Williams - the only other team to get a double score in each Grand Prix in 2016. Toro Rosso meanwhile have scored points with both cars in two out of three races, as have Red Bull - but Ferrari achieved the feat for the first time this year in Shanghai.

  • He may have finished outside the points in a disappointing 15th, but Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg did at least record the fastest lap for just the second time in his six-season F1 career. His only other one came at Singapore in 2012.

  • For just the sixth time in F1 history, every car that started the race was a classified finisher. The last time that happened was at last year's Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, though on this occasion every car was still running at the flag.

  • Next up is Russia - a race dominated by Lewis Hamilton since its inception in 2014. Can the Briton get his championship challenge back on track with a third straight Sochi victory or will Rosberg extend both his winning streak and his now 36-point lead in the drivers’ standings?