2006 Turkish GP: Facts & Stats

Coming just a matter of weeks after Jenson Button broke his duck in Hungary, Felipe Massa's win in the Turkish Grand Prix has helped replenish the amount of race winning experience in the current F1 field.

In quick succession, previous race winners Juan-Pablo Montoya and Jacques Villeneuve departed the F1 scene. Massa's victory on Sunday, coupled with Button's win, means we are once again back up to 10 active drivers with previous victories.

It's only the second time in the last 24 years that we've had back-to-back maiden wins - and the other time was highly contentious. After Kimi Raikkonen's Malaysian Grand Prix win of 2003, an error in timing and scoring meant he was originally declared the winner of the following Brazilian GP. Only when the error was corrected, several days later, was Giancarlo Fisichella credited with a slightly hollow first win.

Should the likes of Pedro de la Rosa, Mark Webber or Nico Rosberg need any inspiration for Monza, a win there would give us the first hat-trick of first time winners since 1982, when Patrick Tambay, Elio de Angelis and Keke Rosberg won the German, Austrian and Swiss GPs.

Returning to Massa, he becomes the 35th driver to win for Ferrari, and perhaps surprisingly he's only the sixth Brazilian to win in F1, following Emerson Fittipaldi, Jose Carlos Pace, Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna and Rubens Barrichello.

Piquet and Senna were the most successful of the bunch, and were the only ones to take their first pole and first win at the same event - until Massa did it on Sunday. In fact, it's rare that any driver does that double, regardless of nationality. Since Senna did it at the 1985 Portuguese Grand Prix, the only man to do it before this weekend was Jarno Trulli, at Monaco in 2004.

Fernando Alonso was able to split the Ferraris, giving Michael Schumacher a very rare view. He has never stood on the bottom step of the podium in any race in which his teammate has stood on the top one. It was only the 20th third-place finish in his career, compared to his 89 wins and 43 second places.

It probably went unnoticed by the entire Renault team, but Turkey was the 400th Grand Prix start for the team in all its current successive forms, as Toleman (1981-85), Benetton (1986-2001) and as Renault (2002-present). If that all counted as one team, it would put them sixth on the all-time starts list. In that time they've won 43 Grands Prix, beaten only by Ferrari (189), McLaren (148), Williams (113) and Lotus (79).

De la Rosa was fifth on the occasion of McLaren's 200th Grand Prix appearance (199th start) with Mercedes engines. Their first two seasons together in 1995 and 1996 were win-less, and there are only four races left to avoid adding 2006 to that list. Kimi Raikkonen suffered a second retirement in a row, something that hasn't happened to him since the 2004 German and Hungarian Grands Prix.

After nearly incurring the wrath of his entire team at the first corner, Giancarlo Fisichella opted to spin instead of hitting Alonso, and eventually recovered to finish sixth for the third time in the last four races, and the fifth time overall.

Another man in trouble early on was Ralf Schumacher, who was forced to pit after the mayhem of the first lap. The Toyota driver has had difficulty with his starts lately, losing positions in eight of the last 10 opening laps in Grands Prix, including six races where he's lost three positions or more.

Mark Webber, Williams-Cosworth FW28 © LAT

Sunday was Mark Webber's 30th birthday, and his present came in the form of a finish, his first in five races. Unfortunately, he remains point-less since the San Marino Grand Prix, which also remains the last time he finished on the lead lap. The Williams unreliability still managed to strike teammate Nico Rosberg, who was running fifth when a water leak ended his afternoon.

Marking his 50th presence at a Grand Prix as a race and/or third driver, Christian Klien started in the top ten for the first time since way back in Malaysia. After running in the points early on, he was eventually a lapped eleventh. He beat Robert Kubica, who became the first man since Jacques Villeneuve (the man he replaced) to qualify in the top 10 in his first two Grands Prix.

It was a race of unfulfilled promise for BMW-Sauber, as Nick Heidfeld's fifth place in qualifying was their best since the Munich manufacturer took charge at the beginning of the season. Sadly, Heidfeld was caught up in the first corner confusion, and Kubica wasn't able to hold on to the sixth place that he was holding until the first safety car period.

However, the team carved their place in the history books on Friday, when Sebastian Vettel took to the track as the team's third driver. Aged 19 years and 53 days, he became the youngest man ever to take part in a Grand Prix weekend, eclipsing Mike Thackwell's 19 years and 152 days from when the Kiwi first appeared in practice for the 1980 Dutch Grand Prix.

Not only did Vettel become the youngest man to appear at a Grand Prix weekend, but he was also the youngest man to top an F1 practice session when he led the field on Friday's afternoon session.

Just to emphasise how young the German is, of the 26 drivers currently competing in the GP2 series, only Javier Villa is younger. Moreover, Vettel will beat Thackwell's record for youngest man to start an F1 race if he races in any of the remaining Grands Prix this season.

Toro Rosso's Scott Speed outqualified teammate Tonio Liuzzi for only the fourth time all season, but he lost the advantage when he damaged his car in a collision with Raikkonen at the first corner.

Christijan Albers also had a good qualifying performance ruined, but he's getting used to it. Turkey was the third race in a row where Albers suffered an engine change penalty, but this time it came after making it through to Q2 for only the third time all season.