Stat Attack: Europe (post-race)

After Sebastian Vettel's hat-trick of pole position, victory and fastest lap in Valencia, it's worth taking a look at the tables with regards to where he stands in terms of strong starts to a season.

The German has scored six wins from eight races in 2011 and his advantage in the points means that he could sit out the next three races and still lead the championship. Below is a list of previous occurrences where a driver has achieved at least six wins in the first eight races:

Vettel would almost certainly be delighted to discover that the table above shows only world champions in the year they achieved that six-win haul.

The Red Bull ace also took his seventh pole out of eight races last weekend and is the third driver to achieve a similar sequence at the beginning of the season:

Other cases to remember:

Red Bull is also scoring at a high rate - with eight poles this year. There are three sequences to beat in this area: two from McLaren, which recorded nine straight poles in 1989 and 1998 and one from Williams, which posted 15 in a row in 1993.

OTHER NOTES

• For the first time 24 cars were classified as finishers at the end of a race. It's the third time in history that all the starters finished. The other occasions were the 1961 Dutch Grand Prix (15 cars), the 2005 Italian Grand Prix (20) and the 2005 US Grand Prix (6).

Vettel was on top form again © LAT

• Sebastian Vettel recorded his 10th consecutive podium finish. Only two men have notched up longer streaks: Michael Schumacher from the 2001 US Grand Prix (19 races) and Fernando Alonso from the 2005 Turkish GP to the 2006 Canadian GP (15).

• Valencia was the scene of Vettel's first fastest lap since last year's Hungarian Grand Prix. With pole and victory, the German also scored his second career F1 hat-trick, the first coming at the 2009 British Grand Prix.

• Vettel has led more than 80 per cent of the total distance run so far this season. Vettel's nearest rival, Button, is next at just above 5 per cent. At this rate the German will beat the all-time record of Jim Clark, who led 72 per cent of the total distance of the 1963 championship. Michael Schumacher in his dominant 2004 year managed to lead only 61 per cent of the miles.

• Mark Webber recorded his 20th front row start and 24th podium. The Australian has now matched the total number of podiums recorded by his compatriot Alan Jones, John Surtees and Stirling Moss.

• Jaime Alguersuari repeated his best result in F1 last weekend, finishing eighth. He also managed this two weeks ago in Canada. In both cases he dropped out of qualifying after Q1.

• Michael Schumacher recorded the lowest classified finish of his career - 17th. His previous worst finish was 15th... at Valencia last year.

• It was the 50th consecutive race in the points for a Renault engine (since the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix).

• Adrian Sutil reached Q3 for the first time this season.

• This was the first race of the season where the victor's margin was more than 10s since the opening round in Australia.

• Vettel set a new track record in Valencia for the third time. He first managed it in 2008 with 1m37.842s in Q2. He improved on that last year with a 1m37.587s (Q3) and this year he lowered the bar to 1m36.975s. He is the only driver with a lap below 1m37s in Valencia.