Post-GP Statistical Analysis: Turkey

After five races it's time to draw a balance of the various in-team battles in qualifying.

There are three drivers that this year always qualified in front of their teammates, and they are Toyota's Jarno Trulli, Renault's Fernando Alonso, and BMW's Robert Kubica. Force India's Giancarlo Fisichella could have been the fourth one, but a penalty in Turkey demoted him three places down the order, ending up behind teammate Adrian Sutil.

One driver that looks like having a difficult time in qualifying is world champion Kimi Raikkonen, who was beaten four times out of five by teammate Felipe Massa this year.

If we look at Raikkonen's career, he ended only two seasons trailing his teammates in head-to-head comparisons in qualifying: his debut year, 2001, when he was beaten 10 times out of 17 by Nick Heidfeld; and last year, when he ended the year narrowly losing 8-9 to Massa. The consolation for Kimi is that last year after five races he had the same score he has now: one to four.

The best year for Raikkonen, as far as qualifying is concerned, was 2006, when he beat then-McLaren teammate Juan Pablo Montoya and the Colombian's substitute Pedro de la Rosa 15 times out of 18.

Jarno's zone

Jarno Trulli qualified for the second straight time in the eighth spot of the grid, a familiar place for the Italian, who started from that place in 22 races of his F1 career. That is not only the place he occupied the most on the grid, but he is the driver that in Formula One history recorded the highest number of eighth places on grid, since behind him there is Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who qualified eighth 17 times.

Jarno seems to be familiar with grid positions fifth to the ninth, since he started from there 91 races out of 186.

A physical presence

There was much celebrating in Turkey around Rubens Barrichello who, according to some sources, reached his 257th race start.

This is a point of debate, as some count the races not started and some argue about which races should be considered as started or not. We don't pretend to sort this out, but let's try to put some things in order.

Rubens Barrichello reached in Turkey his 258th race weekend presence and started his 254th race. Rubens was a non-starter in San Marino 1994, Belgium 1998, and Spain and France 2002. While the 258th presence is a record per se - as former record holder Riccardo Patrese counts 257 race weekends - the 254th race start still isn't a record, because Riccardo hangs on to his 256 race started.

Historically the parameter of race starts has always been the one taken into consideration, since a driver can participate in the race weekend and not start the race. Consider Robert Kubica for example: he counts 39 presences but only 27 race starts, as he was a Friday test driver for most of the 2006 season.

Fisichella too claimed his 200th Grand Prix in Turkey, but here again we fall into controversy: 201 presences and 199 race starts (not qualified in France 2002 and not started in USA 2005), so either way we miss the "round" number...

Rubens like Schumi

Barrichello in Turkey equalled his former teammate Michael Schumacher for career longevity. Schumacher's career spanned from Belgium 1991 to Brazil 2006, accounting for a period of 15 years, 1 month and 27 days (the time between the first and last race starts). After Turkey, Barrichello counts exactly the same interval between South Africa 1993 and Turkey 2008.

That is the fourth longest career of all times, behind Graham Hill (16 years, 8 months and 8 days), Riccardo Patrese (16 years, 5 months and 16 days) and Jack Brabham (15 years, 3 months and 9 days).

Kimi in the points

Kimi Raikkonen ended his 12th straight race in the points and thus entered the top-10 sequences of all-times. Here is the chart:

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The last three races developed a small trend: the driver fastest on the first free practice session was also leading at the end of the first lap and eventually won the race. In the last two races the same driver that claimed these marks was also the pole-sitter.

By contrast, the fastest driver on Friday was the race winner in 2007 only 6 times out of 17 races (Monaco, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and China).

Qualifying notes

• 11th pole position for Massa. Since Felipe obtained all his poles with Ferrari, now he joins Jacky Ickx and Rubens Barrichello as the fourth pole scorer for the Italian team. At the top of this "team" chart sits Michael Schumacher, who scored 58 poles with the prancing horse.

• Best career qualifying performance and first front row for Heikki Kovalainen. Curiously, his countryman Mika Hakkinen obtained his first front row in a McLaren at Monaco on the 14th of May 1994.

• For the first time this season two Red Bull cars made it into the top-10 in qualifying.

Race notes

• Felipe Massa confirmed he is the king of Turkey as he won his third straight race there out of four contested. Felipe now counts seven career wins, ranking 31st on the all-time together with Rene Arnoux and Juan Pablo Montoya.

• 15th podium finish for Lewis Hamilton, who reached his countryman Jenson Button on the all-time charts. Jenson scored his last podium in the 2006 Brazilian Grand Prix.

• Mark Webber goes in the points for the fourth straight race, equalling his personal best, previously set in 2005 from Bahrain to Monaco.

• Jenson Button was classified for the 100th time in his career out of 140 races started.

• For the first time this season Sebastian Vettel was able to make it to the chequered flag.

• Giancarlo Fisichella, for the third straight year, was involved in an accident at the first turn in Istanbul.