(Reuters) – Statistics for Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Formula One Grand Prix in Jeddah:
Lap distance: 6.174km. Total distance: 308.450km (50 laps)
2021 winner: Lewis Hamilton (Britain) Mercedes
2021 pole: One minute 27.511 seconds (Hamilton)
2021 fastest race lap: 1:30.734 seconds (Hamilton, 2021)
Start time: 1800 GMT (2000 local)
SAUDI ARABIA
The night race in Jeddah made its debut on the calendar last December.
The 27-turn Corniche circuit is the second longest on the calendar, some 800m shorter than Belgium’s Spa, and the fastest street circuit. Track widening at the final turn 27 could make the lap even quicker.
The circuit runs along the shores of the Red Sea.
Three drivers led last year’s race: Hamilton, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.
RACE WINS
Hamilton has a record 103 career victories from 289 starts, the most recent being in Saudi Arabia last year.
Ferrari have won 239 races since 1950, McLaren 183, Mercedes 124, Williams 114 and Red Bull 75.
Ferrari ended a winless run of 45 races with victory in Bahrain last Sunday, their first since 2019.
POLE POSITION
Hamilton has a record 103 career poles, the most recent coming in Saudi Arabia last year.
POINTS
Kevin Magnussen scored more points (10) for Haas in Bahrain than the team had managed in the previous two seasons (three).
Valtter Bottas’s sixth place for Alfa Romeo was that team’s best result since 2019.
Neither Red Bull reached the finish in Bahrain, the first double retirement for the team since Austria in 2020.
Hamilton is 15 points clear of Verstappen, a bigger margin than he enjoyed at any point last year.
MILESTONE
Mercedes are chasing their 125th win in Formula One.
Hamilton’s third place in the Bahrain opener means the seven times world champion has stood on the podium in every season he has started since 2007 — 16 years in a row and a record for the sport, one more than Michael Schumacher managed.
Hamilton is the first driver to score points in 250 races. Schumacher, next on the list, scored in 221.
Jeddah will be Hamilton’s 180th race for Mercedes, a record for a driver with a single team.
Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou became the first Chinese driver to race and score a point in Formula One. He is also the 66th rookie to score on his debut.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc is the first driver from Monaco to lead the championship.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Ed Osmond)
