Raikkonen adds more victor variety

Kimi Raikkonen is back

Kimi Raikkonen won his 19th grand prix in Abu Dhabi, his first since Belgium 2009, setting the following milestones:

He is the eighth different winner from the sixth different team this year. The last time this number of drivers won a race was in 2003, and you have to go back to 1983 to find six victorious teams.

Raikkonen has now won races with three different squads: McLaren, Ferrari and Lotus. Jenson Button (Honda, Brawn, McLaren) and Fernando Alonso (Renault, McLaren, Ferrari) have done the same, but they are all short of Stirling Moss, who won with Mercedes, Maserati, Vanwall, Cooper and Lotus.

This was the 80th win for Lotus, the first since Ayrton Senna's victory in the 1987 Detroit Grand Prix, and the first for the Enstone outfit, when it was known as Renault, since the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix, which was won by Alonso.

From the pitlane to the podium

Trulli was the last man to turn a pitlane start into a podium in Melbourne in 2009 © LAT

Sebastian Vettel is the first driver to finish on the podium after starting from the pitlane since Jarno Trulli in the 2009 Australian Grand Prix.

Others who have recorded a similar feat are Rubens Barrichello (Canada 2005, third), Kimi Raikkonen (Australia 2003, third), Nigel Mansell (France 1989, second) and Alain Prost (South Africa 1984, second).

Vettel was up to second before his last pitstop, for a total of 21 positions recovered. This year in Malaysia, Sergio Perez was able to go as high as the lead after dropping to 23rd in the opening laps.

The highest number of positions recovered during a race was recorded by Peter Revson in the 1972 US Grand Prix. He fell to 31st after contact with Clay Regazzoni at the start, then climbed back to sixth before retiring.

In the 1993 Portuguese Grand Prix Damon Hill was able to finish third after starting from the back of the grid in 26th place. He was second for some laps, thus recovering 24 places.

Front row wiped out

Australia 2000: The McLarens lead away after blitzing qualifying. By lap 18, both would be on the sidelines © LAT

Both front-row starters, Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber, failed to make it to the finish. It's the second time this year that the front-row duo failed to make the end of the race, the other being Singapore, when Lewis Hamilton and Pastor Maldonado were sidelined.

Back in 2000, the front two were wiped out before the finish in three races: Australia (both McLarens), Brazil (both McLarens) and Monaco (Schumacher and Trulli).

Abu Dhabi shows signs of being a cursed track for the poleman: three times out of four the driver who started at the front of the grid retired with a mechanical failure while leading.

Race

• Abu Dhabi marked the 45th podium for Sebastian Vettel, the same as Carlos Reutemann (15th in the all-time list).

• It was also the 56th straight race in the points for McLaren, which is now the new benchmark.

• Williams enjoyed its second double-points finish of the year after China, and Pastor Maldonado recorded the second-best result of his career after his win in Barcelona. Previously at this track, Williams cars had only scored points in 2009.

• Raikkonen has now led the same number of races as Nelson Piquet (58); they share sixth place in the all-time list.

• This was the first time that Raikkonen, Alonso and Vettel have appeared on the podium in this order. Kimi and Fernando have shared 30 podiums, with Vettel and Alonso on 19.

Ferrari keeps narrowly missing out on fastest race laps © LAT

• Ferrari's drought of fastest laps continues, having missed out in the last 28 races. In the last three grands prix, Alonso and Massa recorded the second (Abu Dhabi, Korea) or third fastest lap (India) of the race.

In all three instances a Ferrari driver was holding the fastest race lap before being robbed on the penultimate lap in Abu Dhabi by Vettel, on the last lap in India by Button, and on the penultimate lap in Korea by Webber.

• Both Webber and Alonso matched Michele Alboreto for race starts (194), and are now 13th in the all-time tally.

• It's now five straight races without a podium for Hamilton, his longest run since Hungary-Japan last year. Lewis has retired with a mechanical failure six times in his career, clocking up three this year.

• Hamilton's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was not without its achievements: he led for the first 19 laps, taking McLaren's tally of kilometres run in the lead to 50,051. McLaren is only the second team to pass the 50,000km milestone after Ferrari, which is on 70,549km.

• The bad spell for Mercedes continues: it's the fourth straight race without points, extending its worst streak since it rejoined the sport in 2010. Nico Rosberg recorded his third retirement as a result of an accident in the last four races.

Qualifying

• This was the 25th career pole for Hamilton, one shy of Mika Hakkinen in the all-time rankings. Lewis is the only driver to have started all Abu Dhabi Grands Prix from the front row.

• Webber was able to nail four consecutive front-row starts for the first time since Australia-Turkey 2010, when his total ran to six, among them four poles. He matches Raikkonen and Gerhard Berger at 20th in the all-time list.

Raikkonen has now got the races sorted, but still needs to rediscover his qualifying edge. Monaco 2009 was the last time he started a grand prix with a clear view ahead © LAT

• Raikkonen had not started on the front row since his F1 comeback. The last time he managed this was at the 2009 Monaco Grand Prix, which was the only front-row start for Ferrari that year.

• This was the first time that Hamilton was ahead of Webber on the front row. On three previous occasions it was the other way around, with Mark on pole and Lewis alongside him, and in all three instances the winner was the McLaren driver (Turkey 2010, Belgium 2010, Germany 2011).

• This was the worst starting position for Vettel, who previously had lined up 20th in the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix. It's only the fourth time that he's missed a top-10 grid spot since he joined Red Bull in 2009 (72 races).