2006 Malaysian GP: facts & Stats

The Malaysia Grand Prix produced some rare occurrences in Formula One, while creating a few unwanted records for others.

Starting at the front with Renault, the French team scored only their second ever 1-2 finish as a constructor, coming 24 years after the other one, when Rene Arnoux led home Alain Prost (against team orders) in the 1982 French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard.

The current incarnation of Renault was formerly Benetton, who themselves only ever scored two 1-2 finishes in their 15-year existence - an emotional win at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix for Nelson Piquet, who was joined by his compatriot Roberto Moreno, drafted in just days earlier after regular Alessandro Nannini suffered a career-ending helicopter crash.

This was matched five years later by Michael Schumacher and Johnny Herbert at the 1995 Spanish GP, albeit only after Damon Hill lost a certain second place with a mechanical problem on the last lap.

Those races were the most successful of Benetton's 27 F1 wins, and with perfect timing, Renault equalled that tally on Sunday. Giancarlo Fisichella ripped up the form book by taking victory - he had never previously scored a point in Malaysia, and even parked in the wrong grid position on two occasions (2001, 2003).

By taking Michelin's 95th F1 victory, he drew the French manufacturer level on victories with Bridgestone. Both tyre makers are vying to become the second tyre company to record 100 wins, although catching Goodyear's record of 368 may have to wait a while....

In third place came Jenson Button, beaten by his former employers on the circuit where he scored his maiden podium in 2004. It now gives him the distinction of scoring the most podiums of any driver without a win - 13.

Button has surpassed Stefan Johansson's record, which he established with a stunning drive to third place in the lowly Onyx at Estoril in 1989 (a race best known as the only one ever led by a Minardi).

Johansson's previous podiums were all achieved with Ferrari (1985-86) and McLaren (1987), but the Onyx podium placed him ahead of F1's most famous holder of such dubious records, New Zealand's Chris Amon.

Mika Hakkinen surpassed Johansson's mark, but then erased himself from the record book after 15 podiums, when he won the 1997 European GP.

McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen loses his tyre in the 2005 Malaysian GP © LAT

Looking from a more positive angle, Button has now finished twelve consecutive races in the points, something no British driver has managed since Jim Clark ran the same streak across the 1963-64 seasons.

Juan Pablo Montoya quietly brought his Mclaren home in fourth place, but the team are unlikely to be in a celebratory mood. Not only did their chief rivals claim an 18-point maximum, but courtesy of Kimi Raikkonen's clash with Christian Klien, this was the second time in the last four races that the team have lost a car on the opening lap (after Montoya's opening lap crash in Japan).

With the exception of winning his first Grand Prix there in 2003, Raikkonen is cursed in Malaysia. The driveshaft broke on his car just yards after the start in 2001; he suffered engine failures in 2002 and 2004; and a puncture spoilt his chances of finishing in the points in 2005.

Williams left Sepang frustrated, despite their best qualifying since last year's race at the Nurburgring.

Of all the drivers who started the race with the same engine they used in Bahrain, Nico Rosberg's had done the least mileage (665 kms), so it came as quite a surprise that it blew early in the race.

That disappointment was capped later when Mark Webber retired from the race for the third year in a row - although this time not in an incident at the final corner, as in 2004 and 2005.

Engine mileage after qualifying:

Pos  Driver                 Engine        kms
 1.  Takuma Sato            Honda         922.62
 2.  Scott Speed            Cosworth V10  917.08
 3.  Tonio Liuzzi           Cosworth V10  910.62
 4.  Jenson Button          Honda         867.19
 5.  Jarno Trulli           Toyota        863.22
 6.  Fernando Alonso        Renault       840.13
 7.  Christian Klien        Ferrari       833.67
 8.  JP Montoya             Mercedes      822.71
 9.  Tiago Monteiro         Toyota        726.48
10.  Kimi Raikkonen         Mercedes      720.15
11.  Nick Heidfeld          BMW           718.45
12.  Mark Webber            Cosworth V8   691.78
13.  Ralf Schumacher        Toyota        677.11*
14.  Nico Rosberg           Cosworth V8   665.37
15.  Yuji Ide               Honda         327.04
16.  Christijan Albers      Toyota        315.95
17.  Felipe Massa           Ferrari       299.32*
18.  Giancarlo Fisichella   Renault       282.69
19.  David Coulthard        Ferrari       227.26
20.  Jacques Villeneuve     BMW           160.75
21.  M Schumacher           Ferrari       127.49
22.  Rubens Barrichello     Honda          77.60

(* Ralf Schumacher and Felipe Massa both changed engines before the race, and therefore the above figure does not reflect on the engine they raced with.)

Engine mileage was always going to be a topic of interest in the first two races, with Bahrain and Malaysia likely to be the two hottest events of the season.

Rosberg's failure underlined that mileage is not a reliable indicator of wear on an engine, a fact that had been illustrated 24 hours earlier when Ralf Schumacher's engine, having run much less than Trulli's (677 kms compared to 863), expired moments after he went fastest in period 2 of qualifying - with a lap that would have been good enough for third on the grid in the final period.

Recent statistics suggest that starting at the back is now the fashionable thing to do if you want to beat your teammate.

Last week, Raikkonen (starting last) managed to beat his teammate Montoya (5th on the grid) to a podium finish. With a fresh engine to replace the one that blew on Saturday, Ralf Schumacher rose from 22nd to take the final point, at the expense of Trulli, who started the day 13 places ahead of the German.

Felipe Massa's day was even more sensational. Beginning in 21st place compared to Michael Schumacher's 14th, his one-stop strategy proved quicker than Schumacher's two-stop variant, and Michael found himself in the rare position of looking at a Ferrari gearbox as he crossed the line, as Massa beat him to fifth position.

It isn't all down to bad driving, but the German's qualifying form has dipped drastically since clinching his seventh world title at the 2004 Belgian Grand Prix. Prior to that, he had qualified outside the top ten just twice in 208 starts (less than 1%). Since that race, he's missed the top ten eight times in 25 races (32%).

Schumacher's starts outside the top ten:

Race                Started  Finished
1995 Belgian GP     16th     1st
2003 Japanese GP    14th     8th
2004 Chinese GP     20th     14th
2004 Brazilian GP   18th     7th
2005 Australian GP  19th     retired
2005 Malaysian GP   13th     7th
2005 San Marino GP  13th     2nd
2005 Turkish GP     19th     retired
2005 Japanese GP    14th     7th
2006 Malaysian GP   14th     6th

Nick Heidfeld would have beaten Jacques Villeneuve had it not been for BMW's second spectacular engine failure in seven days. It ruined a terrific drive for the German, who gained five positions on the first lap and made it count - at the time of his retirement on lap 49, he was just 5.7 seconds adrift of fourth-placed Montoya.

Villeneuve's 50th career points finish helped exorcise the ghosts of his recent trips to Malaysia. He had only completed 26 of the last 169 racing laps ran at Sepang, and hadn't qualified in the top ten since 2001.

Another man with reasons to be cheerful is Toro Rosso's Scott Speed. The Californian not only outqualified his highly-rated teammate Liuzzi, but also outraced him, and set a quicker race lap than the Italian for the second race running.

Tonio Liuzzi (Toro Rosso) battles with Takuma Sato (Super Aguri) © LAT

At the tail end of the field, Liuzzi was involved in a very entertaining scrap with Super Aguri's Takuma Sato, who proved that you don't need to be at the front of a race to put in an impressive drive.

In the early part of the race, the Japanese driver ran ahead of Liuzzi and the Midland duo, before Christijan Albers picked him off on lap 15. It took until lap 27 before Liuzzi made a passing move that stuck, and Tiago Monteiro jumped him at the final round of pitstops.

It was a plucky effort in the old Arrows chassis, highlighted by Sato's best lap being 2.634 seconds quicker than teammate Yuji Ide's. This came after starting 17th, higher than he managed in his last Malaysia start for BAR (20th).

So ends an extremely hectic few days on the Formula One merry-go-round, and as the music stops, Alonso still holds the championship lead.

Of the last 12 times a team has won the first two races in a season, only once did they fail to take the drivers' title at the season's end - that was in 2003, when Coulthard and Raikkonen won the openers for McLaren, only to lose out to Michael Schumacher in the championship.

However, Fisichella fans will be glad to hear that in all the other instances, it was always the winner of round 2 that went on to take the crown....