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Firsts for Red Bull
In it's 74th race, Red Bull Racing became the 34th Formula 1 team to qualify on pole position. With Sebastian Vettel starting first and Mark Webber third, the team also recorded its best combined results, with an average starting position of 2.0 - the previous best being 5.0, achieved by Christian Klien and David Coulthard in the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix.
Vettel claimed his second pole position, following his first at Monza last year - where Webber also qualified third. Webber has qualified second four times and third eight times, but has never been on pole. He is ranked seventh on the list of race starts without a pole position with 124. Johnny Herbert tops that table with 160.
Red Bull then became the 30th F1 team to win a race, posting a 1-2 with Vettel and Webber. It was the seventh time that a constructor registered its first victory with a 1-2, the previous six being Alfa Romeo (1950), Mercedes (1954), Matra (1968), Jordan (1998), BMW-Sauber (2008) and Brawn (2009)
The second place was Webber's best result, improving on the two third places he scored in the Monaco 2005 and Europe 2007 GPs.
Two new winners
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Alan Jones (Shadow DN8 Ford) takes the sole victory for the Shadow team in the 1977 Austrian Grand Prix at the Osterreichring © LAT |
This year is just the fourth to feature two new winning entrants, the previous three being 1968 (McLaren and Matra) and 2008 (BMW-Sauber and Toro Rosso). The record for most new winning teams in a season was set in 1977, by Ligier, Wolf and Shadow.
Renault sweeps the front
Renault engines powered the first three cars on the grid at Shanghai - the first time it has happened since the French manufacturer's heyday as an engine supplier in the 1990s. The previous occasion was the 1996 Portuguese Grand Prix, where Damon Hill (Williams) qualified first, Jacques Villeneuve (Williams) second and Jean Alesi (Benetton) third.
Renault engines have locked out the first four places on the grid twice - the 1993 French GP and the 1995 Brazilian GP.
Red Bull's win was the first Renault-powered 1-2 since the 2006 Malaysian GP.
Four Mercedes engines in the top six
Renault wasn't the only engine manufacturer to celebrate a rare landmark in China, as Mercedes had four of its power plants in the top six, thanks to Brawn and McLaren.
The last time an engine manufacturer had four cars in the top six was exactly two years earlier when Ferrari had Kimi Raikkonen first, Felipe Massa third, Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso) fourth and Vitantonio Liuzzi (Toro Rosso) sixth in the 2007 Chinese GP.
The record was set by Ford, which has had six cars in the top six several times, most recently at Long Beach in 1982 when all 10 classified finishes had the Ford Cosworth DFV.
Ferrari's run continues
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Gilles Villeneuve (Ferrari 126C) 1981 United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach © LAT |
Ferrari is enduring its worst start to a season since 1981, when its cars failed to score points in the first three races.
Other disastrous starts for the prancing horse were:
1969, 1970, 1980 and 1981: No points in the first three races
1982: Didier Pironi's sixth place in Brazil was the only score in three races
1986: Three points in San Marino was the only score in the first four races
1989: Nigel Mansell won the Brazilian GP, then the team went five races without another point
1993: Gerhard Berger scored a point in South Africa despite suffering an engine failure, then the team went three straight races without points
Ferrari has never failed to score a point in the first four races of any season since the constructors' championship began, back in 1958.
Qualifying notes
• Felipe Massa failed to qualify inside the top 10 in consecutive races for the first time since the 2006 Malaysian and Australian GPs
• Heikki Kovalainen has failed to qualify in the top 10 for three successive races for the first time since his debut F1 season with Renault in 2007.
• Fernando Alonso qualified on the front row for the first time since the 2008 Spanish Grand Prix, but still extended his pole drought to 25 races (since Monza 2007).
• Nick Heidfeld finished Q2 in 11th place, the first-placed driver to miss Q1, for the third race in a row.
• Both BMW-Saubers failed to make the final top 10 shootout. The last time both BMW's qualified outside the top 10 was the 2006 German Grand Prix, where Jacques Villeneuve wsa 13th and Heidfeld 15th.
Race notes
• Rubens Barrichello set the fastest lap for the 16th time in his career, his first since the 2004 Japanese Grand Prix, before he left Ferrari.
• Felipe Massa failed to score for the third straight race, his longest pointless streak since 2005, when he went six races without scoring, between Hungary and Japan, while at Sauber.
