Stat Attack: Japan (post-race)

Qualifying notes

• Sebastian Vettel scored his 13th pole, going level with Graham Hill, Jack Brabham, Jacky Ickx, Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Pablo Montoya at 23rd in the all-time rankings

• Thirteenth season pole for Red Bull, the second-highest all-time tally behind the 15 poles recorded in 1988, 1989 (McLaren), 1992 and 1993 (Williams)

• For the seventh time this season Red Bull locked out the front row, for the sixth time with Vettel in front of Mark Webber, but out of these six races, this is the first time they achieved the double at the end of the race

• For the first time since last season, Rubens Barrichello was able to start from the top 10 in four consecutive races

• Lewis Hamilton started from the fourth row for the first time in his Formula 1 career

• Nick Heidfeld kept his perfect score at Suzuka: he has never been beaten in qualifying by a team-mate in eight appearances at this track

• Discarding the wet Malaysian qualifying (21st) and the mechanical failure in Singapore (24th), the 12th spot was this year's worst grid result for Felipe Massa

• For the eighth straight time Adrian Sutil beat Tonio Liuzzi

• For the first time in his career, Jaime Alguersuari was able to beat his team-mate Sebastien Buemi in qualifying in back-to-back races

• Buemi was eliminated at the first qualifying cut-off for the first time since last year's Monza race

• Lucas di Grassi equalled his best career qualifying result, 21st, for a fifth time

Race notes

• This was, statistically speaking, exactly a repeat of last year's race, not only because Vettel won from pole, but also because he was denied a pole/win/fastest lap hat-trick by Webber, who set the fastest lap on the very last lap. Last year Webber pipped Vettel for the fastest lap three laps from the end

• 111th win for a German driver, 101 less than Great Britain, which leads the chart at 212

• A Red Bull car led again after three races in which the only leaders were Ferrari and McLaren

• Fernando Alonso's sequence of wins ended at two, and also his sequence of pole/win/fastest lap hat-tricks. A third consecutive hat-trick would have been of historical proportions as the only driver in history to record more than two straight was Alberto Ascari in 1952-1953 (Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Argentina). Alonso, however, was able to extend his podium streak to three for the first time this year

• First double points finish for McLaren since the German Grand Prix, in the last four races at least one McLaren retired

Michael Schumacher © LAT

• 200th race in the points for Michael Schumacher, who scored his best result since the Turkish Grand Prix

• Webber enjoys his largest lead in the championship table this season, going from 11 points to 14, followed by Alonso, joined after Suzuka by Vettel. Webber has streched the classification: after Singapore the first five drivers were within one win's length of him, now there are only two within that gap behind him, the aforementioned Alonso and Vettel

• Second mechanical failure of the season for Nico Rosberg after the Hungarian Grand Prix, and for the second time he was stopped by a wheel falling off his car

• Massa recorded his first retirement of the season, up to now he has always seen the chequered flag, 12 times in the points and three (from Canada to Great Britain) without scoring. He seems to be particularly attracted to Liuzzi's Force India, as he collected it at the first corner for the second time this year after the Canadian Grand Prix

• For the first time this year, Barrichello recorded a string of three races in the points

• Buemi (and Toro Rosso) was back in the points for the first time since his ninth place in Valencia. Jaime Alguersuari's last points finish is a 10th place at Barcelona

• Heikki Kovalainen recorded the best result for a new team this year: a 12th place. He had previously set the mark with a 13th in Australia

• Despite an hydraulic problem in the race, Jarno Trulli was able to score his best season result in 13th

• Best season result for Timo Glock, 14th

• Best career result for Bruno Senna, 15th

• First double retirement for Renault since last year's Belgian Grand Prix

• First double retirement for Force India in two years, the last being a double mechanical failure in the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix