Post-GP Statistical Analysis: China

Hamilton back to usual form

By scoring a hat-trick, Lewis Hamilton is back on to his winning ways after his longest drought in Formua One: six races.

Before this streak, the longest he stayed away from the top step of the podium was at the beginning of his F1 career: he was on the podium in the first five races and won the sixth one, the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix.

Lewis scored in Shangai his ninth win, matching at the 29th all-time spot Rubens Barrichello, who recorded his last win in this same track in 2004.

Hamilton also put an end to his streak of races without a fastest lap, which he endured since the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix. A McLaren car didn't post the fastest lap since Bahrain.

Grand slam

McLaren recorded their 33rd Grand slam by scoring pole, win, fastest lap and racing always in the lead with one driver or the other. It's the first time since Melbourne the two McLarens were able score a grand slam.

The all-time chart is led by Ferrari, at 39. The Italian team this year scored only one grand slam, in France.

All the chances

Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa head to the final race in Brazil seven points apart. These are the scenarios that give the title to Lewis:

Hamilton            Massa
in front of Massa   Any Result
Fifth or better     Winner
Seventh or better   Second
Any result          Third or worse

4000

With the second place by Massa and the third by Raikkonen, Ferrari are the first team in history to reach the mark of 4000 constructor points scored, stopping at 4007.5. McLaren follow at 3304.5 and Williams are third with 2565.5.

200

Both Lewis Hamilton and Nick Heidfeld reached the mark of 200 career points in China. Hamilton is ranked 36th in the all-time chart, led by Michael Schumacher at 1369 points, and needed 34 races to reach the milestone. Nick counts exactly 200 points in 149 races.

Reliability

It's the first time this season McLaren recorded a back-to-back retirement, since Kovalainen left the Japanese Grand Prix with an engine failure and the Chinese race with a pneumatic problem.

That didn't happen since the same two races in 2007, when Fernando Alonso slammed into the wall at Fuji and Hamilton beached his McLaren on the pit entry in Shangai.

To find another couple of races where a McLaren retired twice for mechanical troubles, we have to go back to the 2006 season, when Pedro de la Rosa was forced out of the Italian Grand Prix for an engine failure and Kimi Raikkonen was left in neutral for a throttle problem.

Only in 2004 McLaren were able to take both cars to the chequered flag in the Chinese Grand Prix, with Raikkonen in third and David Coulthard in ninth.

What a difference a year makes

This is the first time since the Turkish GP that Ferrari and McLaren filled the podium. It's only the third time this season the three top spots are filled by the Maranello and Woking teams, the other time being the Spanish Grand Prix.

By contrast, last year they filled the podium 13 times out of 17.

Qualifying notes

• 13th pole position for Lewis Hamilton, now at the 21st all-time spot. With the pole in Shangai, Lewis claimed the honours of being the fastest driver in qualifying of the season, having scored seven poles to Massa's five. Hamilton is at his 21st front row start in 34 presences.

• 31st front row start for Kimi Raikkonen, who reached the 17th all-time spot to match Niki Lauda.

• For the first time this season, Felipe Massa recorded two back-to-back races without a front row start.

• Robert Kubica equalled his worst all-time low, a 12th place he scored in the 2006 Japanese Grand Prix. The Pole was always beaten by Heidfeld in the three qualifying sessions held in Shangai from 2006 onwards.

• For the first time since the Canadian Grand Prix, Rubens Barrichello was able to reach the second qualifying session.

• For the second time in the last ten races David Coulthard wasn't able to reach Q2, the other being Valencia.

• For nine thousandths of a second Giancarlo Fisichella was beaten by Adrian Sutil, making his score against his teammates in qualifying in China 0-5. Fisichella lost to Massa in 2004, to Alonso in 2005 and 2006, and to Kovalainen last year.

• the two Force Indias occupied the last two spots in the first qualifying session for the 9th time this season, the third straight.

Race notes

• It's the first time since the French Grand Prix back in june that two Ferraris are together on the podium.

• Felipe Massa scored his 26th podium, matching at the 30th all-time spot Ronnie Peterson and Eddie Irvine.

• For the first time after five races Sebastian Vettel is outside the points, putting an end to his longest points streak.

• 11th place is Barrichello's best result in the last eight races, while the 16th for Button is his worst in the last seven.

• Worst result of the year for Mark Webber, 14th. Only twice in his career he fared worse: at the 2002 European Grand Prix (15th) and at the 2002 Hungarian Grand Prix (16th).

• 11th retirement of the season for Adrian Sutil. The German is the active driver with the highest percentage of retirements: 18 in 34 starts (52.9%), while Hamilton is the one with the best record. Only two retirements in his career, which accounts for the same number of races of Sutil, for a percentage of 5.8%.

• Honda are living the longest point-less streak since their return to Formula One in 2006: eight races since their last score in Great Britain with Barrichello. The previous negative record was set at the beginning of the 2007 season, with seven races without points from the first race to the French Grand Prix when Button finished eight to claim a single point.