Australia is a circuit that does not go into the Red Bull and Fernando Alonso is confident of hitting the table, beating Checo Pérez and Max Verstappen. And it happened that the statistics play in favor of the Spanish pilot: the example of the Red Bull in Melbourne. Albert Park has never introduced hybrid technology in Formula 1. Since then (2013) the energy drink team has neither won nor achieved pole position there… including the two seasons in which Verstappen was declared world champion.
Numerology also plays for the victory of 33 for Ferdinand Alonso. A very curious statistic tells us that it will be even closer than we think… if we keep it.
Podium 101 was always a victory
These are the times in which the 101st podium for the greatest driver has also meant victory in the Grand Prix. There were not one or two, but up to five cases in which this happened, and all of them great champions.
In the history of Formula 1, only six drivers have reached the magical figure of 100 podiums in their career. If we consider that Fernando Alonso was sixth with third place in Saudi Arabia … we see that the statistics are not: the podium was always 101 victories.
Prost, Schumacher, Hamilton, Vettel, Raikkonen…
Alain Prost turned his first podium into a victory. The legendary Professor won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1993 to do just that. During that time, the Frenchman was on the podium 12 times and signed the third and last title of the century.
The same would later happen with Michael Schumacher. His 11th podium came at Imola, in the San Marino Grand Prix in 2002 and it was another triumph. In the same year, Schumacher kicked the drawer 17 times, 110 of them he was the winner. It is needless to say: The world’s avenger is crowned for the fifth time.
Lewis Hamilton was the next greatest champion to reach 101 podiums (he would later add 90 more to the day), although it would be 14 years since Schumacher achieved that. It was at the United States Grand Prix at the Austin circuit when the British joined that group of drivers who turned their 101st ever podium into victory.
Sebastian Vettel did the same two years later, when he led his Ferrari in the 2018 Bahrain Grand Prix … and Kimi Raikkonen did the same, also with Scuderia, in the same year: his 11th podium victory in the United States Grand Prix, held at the North American Circuit.
