2006 British GP: Facts & Stats

It's starting to look like 2002 and 2004 all over again - except this time the car at the front is a Renault and not a Ferrari, and the driver is Fernando Alonso and not Michael Schumacher.

For the fifth time this season, the Spaniard emerged the race winner, and his victory never looked in doubt right from the get-go. After the early safety car period was over, Alonso set the fastest lap eight times in nine laps, and immediately following the first pitstops he was circulating in the 1:22.5 range while no other driver could get below 1:23.

Alonso's season has now officially reached record-breaking proportions. Only twice before had a driver began the season with eight top-two finishes in a row - Alain Prost in 1988 and Michael Schumacher in 1994. Both of those drivers failed to score in round eight of their respective seasons, and coincidentally, both of those races were at Silverstone.

Alonso now has 14 consecutive podiums, and while that seems quite a way behind Michael Schumacher's all-time record of 19 (set over the 2001-2002 seasons), nobody would bet against the Spaniard matching or breaking the German's record.

Wandering into more obscure territory, Alonso flirted with the "sweep" of winning a race from pole with the fastest lap, while leading from start-to-finish. In this era of refueling stops, it is rare that a driver will achieve all four in the same race. The last time it happened in F1 was when Schumacher (who else?) did it at the 2004 Hungarian Grand Prix, and in 13+ seasons of F1 racing, no Renault driver has ever done it.

Alonso's bid was ruined when Giancarlo Fisichella led briefly during the last round of stops, but by leading 59 laps, he surpassed Mario Andretti on the all-time laps led table. He has reached Andretti's figure of 799 despite only starting 77 races, compared to the American's 128. Having led every race this year, he has a shot at echoing Sir Jackie Stewart's 1969 campaign, the last time a driver led every Grand Prix in a single season. A two-time British GP winner, Stewart turned 67 on Sunday.

This entire Renault-based trivia happened in Renault's 200th race as a constructor, at the same circuit on which they made their F1 debut in 1977, with their pioneering V6 turbo engine. Michelin simultaneously made its first Grand Prix appearance as Renault's tyre supplier, and Sunday's win moves the French tyre to 99 victories, and a chance of becoming the second tyre manufacturer to score 100 F1 wins. Goodyear has been alone in achieving that since Niki Lauda won the tyre's 100th victory at Hockenheim, 29 years ago.

Behind the dominant Alonso/Renault squad, Michael Schumacher had a relatively quiet run to second, notwithstanding his wheel-to-wheel action with Kimi Raikkonen early on. The 248 F1 chassis is clearly the best car in a straight-line, having been quickest in the traps at the last four events. In the race, Schumacher and Massa both topped 294 km/h, 2 km/h quicker than anybody else.

Raikkonen has now finished on the podium at the last four British Grands Prix, but he will be disappointed that Schumacher leapfrogged him at the final pitstops, having scored his first front row start of the season.

With Fisichella in fourth, it means the top four in the championship finished in that order in Sunday's race. Giancarlo's weekend at Silverstone was better than his career record suggested he might have. He's never qualified in the top five in ten previous visits to the track, and fourth equaled his best British GP result.

In the minor points-finish positions, Juan Pablo Montoya kept up his record of scoring in every British Grand Prix he has contested, while the BMW-Sauber team kept up their similarly impressive numbers on this track. Both Sauber cars have finished every British GP since 1999, scoring seven points-finishes along the way.

Heidfeld ran as high as second, as he did in Australia (the only other race this year in which both their cars scored), and Villeneuve managed to hang on to eighth place, fending off a determined Nico Rosberg by just 0.7 seconds.

There were only four different constructors in the points, which has only happened once (Monaco 2003) since the points system began awarding points down to eighth place at the beginning of 2003.

Jarno Trulli was the big mover on the opening lap of the race, making up nine positions from his 22nd starting place. That was as good as the day would get for him, and he only moved up another two places all afternoon - one of which was when Jenson Button retired.

Tonio Liuzzi (Scuderia Toro Rosso) in the 2006 British GP © LAT

The Honda driver was the fourth retirement of the race when his car failed on lap 9, yet there would be no further retirements all afternoon. Like last year, there was only one mechanical-based DNF in the race, despite hotter than expected conditions, and the huge cornering forces.

Tonio Liuzzi did his standing within the Red Bull community no harm by beating Christian Klien both in qualifying and the race. He was the only driver to adopt a one-stop strategy in the race.

Tiago Monteiro clocked up yet another finish in 16th place - although he's hardly setting the world on fire with his pace. Coming into this weekend, he had completed 93% of the race laps in 2006 (tied for 5th-best), but he's only been on the lead lap for 32% of them (4th worst). Only teammate Christijan Albers and the Super Aguri drivers have a worse record. Both Aguri cars finished for only the second time, and the first time since Montagny replaced Yuji Ide.

Ralf Schumacher has only scored one point at Silverstone since 2001, and Toyota's nightmare season continues. They've scored fewer top eight finishes this year (three) than they did after eight races of their debut season of 2002 (four). The innocent Mark Webber was caught in the crossfire, and now he has five retirements from his last seven starts.