Bahrain Grand Prix: Race facts and stats

Charles Leclerc looked set to become F1’s third-youngest winner until power unit troubles hit. But he did still etch his name in the history books. Here’s a round-up of the most interesting stats and facts from Sakhir…

• Sunday’s race was the eighth in F1 history to finish behind the Safety Car. The last was China 2015
• Lewis Hamilton was the driver across the line, recording his third career win in Bahrain. The Briton has never finished off the podium since the current turbo-hyrbid era began in 2014
• Bottas finished second as Mercedes scored consecutive one-two finishes. Their last one-two in Bahrain came back in 2014 – the famous Duel In The Desert race between Hamilton and Nico Rosberg
• Bottas, who surpassed 1,000 career points with second place, has a 100% finishing record in Bahrain in seven visits
• Charles Leclerc became the 50th driver to lead a race for Ferrari. He also became the sixth youngest driver in F1 history to stand on an F1 podium
• Max Verstappen finished a race in Bahrain for only the second time in his career, but his career-best run of consecutive podium finishes was halted at six

• Sebastian Vettel had a difficult evening under the lights, but is now just one race short of leading 100 Grands Prix in his career. Hamilton and Michael Schumacher are the only drivers to have reached three figures so far.
• McLaren’s Lando Norris finished sixth in just his second F1 race – the same as fellow Brit Jenson Button achieved in 2000. The result represents McLaren’s best finish since Alonso came fifth in Australia 2018
• Norris was just 16-months old when Kimi Raikkonen, who finished one place behind Norris in P7, made his F1 debut in 2001…
• Pierre Gasly recorded his first points finish for Red Bull in P8, meaning he scored points in Bahrain for second year running
• Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon scored his first career points with P9. They are the first points scored by a Thai driver since Prince Bira was fourth in the 1954 French Grand Prix