300 takeout coffees later…

On This Day in F1: Masterlist

A look back into time at events that occurred on days relevant to the 2024 Formula One season.

Formula One Through Music

Analyses of Formula One teams and drivers through songs

Formula One Color Analysis

Different elements of Formula One analyzed through the use of color

Formula One Analyses and Essays

Any and all analyses/essays that aren't related to music or color.

Includes:

driver lineups

special helmets

why things are the way they are in F1

Life just got really busy in the month of April, but now that things have calmed down a little bit I will be continuing the “On This Day in F1” series. Hopefully by the time Imola comes around, we’ll be back on track

Present: Japan Day 1

History: 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix

I'm going to be honest, the time zone differences from Australia to China are screwing with my perception of when things are happening (and my sleep schedule). Especially since FP1 happened on Thursday night (before midnight) for me and FP3 will be on Friday night. So I've been all over the place since the Australian GP.

But in Japan on April 5th, 2024, FP1 and FP2 occurred. There wasn't much to talk about in FP1 except for Logan Sargeant crashing toward the latter half of the session and Will Buxton revealing that there were other teams that only had two chassis for the weekend. Alpine has confirmed that they are one of those teams.

(Sidenote: the plural of chassis is chassis but it's pronounced with a "z" at the end. So the singular is pronounced like "CHASS-ee" and the plural is pronounced like "CHASS-eez." The more you know, I guess.)

FP2 had even less to talk about. It was raining and more than half of the drivers didn't set a lap time. Briefly, Yuki Tsunoda was at the top of the timing charts with Daniel Ricciardo in second. But then Oscar Piastri set a faster lap with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc finishing out the top 3.

2024 marks 10 years since Jules Bianchi crashed during the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix and lost his life due to the injuries from his crash. In honor of Jules, Charles - Jules' godson - has a special helmet in Jules' colors and with his number 17 on it.

We tend to talk about Jules in relation to his crash, Charles, Daniel, or any other drivers he was friends with. While they are a piece of his story and he is a piece of their stories, we should also remember Jules for himself - for the things he did and loved. He scored his first points in Monaco and that was the first GP he'd attended as a child, he liked dark chocolate, the first meal he cooked wasn't good, his hero was Michael Schumacher because he was winning, etc.

Looking back to another rain-filled day, the 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix took place on April 5th.

Malaysia was the second race of the historic 2009 season - which does go to show how early we start the season now in comparison to the previous seasons.

It should have been 56 laps of racing, but due to torrential rain, drivers were only able to complete 31 classified laps. This did not meet the 75% minimum distance completed for full points to be awarded. Therefore, half points were awarded to drivers. The race had been stopped on lap 33 and was not later resumed due to the darkness. Lap 31 was the penultimate full lap and was the one used to determine classifications per sporting regulations.

Half points are very rarely awarded. Malaysia 2009 was the fifth time in F1 history that it had happened (the 4th time had been the 1991 Australian GP). And it didn't happen again until the 2021 Belgian GP.

Jenson Button, driving for Brawn GP, was declared the winner of the Grand Prix as he started the race on pole position and was the race leader for lap 31.

Nick Heidfeld driving for BMW Sauber finished second and Timo Glock driving for Toyota finished third. Heidfeld was the first driver with a KERS-equipped car to take a podium position.

Since Jenson had won the 2009 Australian Grand Prix as well, Brawn GP became the first team since Alfa Romeo in 1950 to win the first two World Championship Grands Prix of the season.

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Previous: Mar. 24 - 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix

Next: Apr. 6 - Japan Day 2

Only 352 drivers have scored at least 1 WDC point which means about half of all drivers have scored at least 1 point

Only 70 out of the 170 teams have scored a point so about 40%

There have been 1,104 world championship races (and I think Fernando’s driven in about a third of them)

The top 3 for most points scored are Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, and Max Verstappen (Fernando Alonso is 4th — approximately 400 points behind Max)

Present: Australian Grand Prix

History: 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix

On March 24th, 2024, the Australian Grand Prix occurred. After last years Aus GP, most people expected craziness and the Williams lack of third chassis had delivered some of that craziness.

However the main story was Max Verstappen having his first retirement since the 2022 Australian Grand Prix - marking his 43 race streak and preventing him from matching his 10 win streak. Carlos Sainz overtook Verstappen as his car was failing and held the lead for the rest of the race with Charles Leclerc coming in second for a Ferrari 1-2 and Lando Norris on the last step of the podium.

The other big race retirement was Lewis Hamilton due to his engine giving out. Then there were the extremely long Sauber pit stops which gave us a lesser version of the 2020 Ham-Ver-Bot (or any other variation of it) podiums.

And on the last lap, George Russell crashed which was honestly terrifying to see because he was in the middle of the track and the car was on its side. Luckily, Lance Stroll was far back enough that he could be told about Russell in the middle of the track and to take precautions to avoid Russell.

Eleven years ago, Formula One was racing in Malaysia. Most people remember Malaysia for the Red Bull drama with Multi-21. This makes sense because it is a very memorable moment in time and we got the iconic "I was racing, I was faster, I passed him, I won," quote from Sebastian Vettel when he was asked about overtaking his teammate despite being told to not overtake.

(sidenote: Seb's words were true then and they remain true now. You're racing, if you're faster then pass him and win the race. There is a place for team orders, but in at least half of the cases where drivers ask about team orders now, they are not necessary if you're the faster driver. Just pass your teammate.)

While the drama about team orders and Multi-21 was going on at Red Bull, Lewis Hamilton drove into the wrong pit box. It was Hamilton's first season with Mercedes after 6 years with McLaren F1 and a total of 13 years with McLaren.

Both McLaren and Mercedes were prepared for their drivers to pull into the pit box, but McLaren was not expecting their previous driver to stop there. However, Hamilton was able to quickly leave the pit box and go to the Mercedes pit box which luckily was after the McLaren pit box, not before.

Hamilton did end up finishing 3rd in the race and apologized for the gaffe. Jokingly, he said, "I did a Jenson (Button). He did that a couple of years ago, but big apologies to the team." Referring to Jenson Button at the 2011 Chinese GP where he pulled into the Red Bull pit box instead of the McLaren pit box.

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Previous: Mar. 23 - 2016 GPDA Open Letter

Next: Apr. 5 - Japan Day 1

Present: Australia Day 2

History: 2016 GPDA Letter

On March 23rd, 2024, day 2 of the Australian Grand Prix was happening. There was continued backlash against Williams' decision to switch out Logan Sargeant for Alex Albon after Albon crashed his car the previous day. Sargeant was in the garage and showed professionalism concerning the situation.

But this situation has brought forth questions about parts allotment and what would happen if there were to be another unfixable Williams crash in the next few races.

Eight years prior, the GPDA was raising concerns over the direction of Formula One. In the letter, the GPDA directors urged F1 owners and stakeholders to rethink the governance structure. Though not explicitly named in the letter, it alluded to the GPDA's issues with then-owner Bernie Ecclestone.

(Letter Transcript)

Just hours after the open letter was published, it was announced that Sky would get the broadcasting rights to F1. For the first time in 40 years, F1's broadcast would be moved from live free-to-air television in the UK. The following day, the new qualifying system was adopted by FIA President Jean Todt despite it being abandoned by teams following their criticism of it at the first race of the 2016 season.

These were just two of the reasons that caused the drivers to pen this open letter. Other decision-making concerns included:

the double points for just the 2014 final race which was the title-deciding race between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg

the major flaws with the hybrid engine regulations that were just being addressed

proposal to introduce a cheaper alternative engine to run alongside the turbo hybrids, with an equivalence formula to balance performance

All of these decisions could be traced back to either Ecclestone or Todt. Most of these decisions were to either spice up the racing or get more money.

In response to the letter, Bernie Ecclestone called the F1 drivers windbags and essentially powerless in enacting change within the sport.

Windbags United is what the 2016 drivers' dinner picture was captioned and was a jab at Ecclestone. (The dinner in itself is something to discuss on its own with drama over who paid the bill.)

______ Previous: Mar. 22 - 1992 Mexican Grand Prix

Next: Mar. 24 - Australian Grand Prix

The general state of Formula One fan spaces has been hellish, to say the least. It is a cesspool of hate for drivers, hate for fans who just want to watch their driver, and rumors. While I do generally avoid most of it by heavily curating my feeds and timelines, it has been everywhere and nearly unavoidable. It also led me to revisit my original post of Formula One Race Winners and Where They Won From instead of focusing on my somewhat regularly scheduled F1 history posting.

That post had been a slice of the larger pie and focused on just drivers from this season and drivers that I personally liked to watch. This post delves a little bit deeper into race winners as a whole.

So I spent the weekend going through all 113 Formula One race winners and compiling the following information:

Name (obviously)

Country they raced under

Number of wins

Number of championships

Race starts

Percentage of races won out of their total race starts

I have found what true insanity looks like and it is combing through 113 Wikipedia pages because I was annoyed.

The chart was color-coded for easier viewing.

In the yellow color, we have all the world champions who are no longer racing in Formula One. The three world champions who are still racing in Formula One, they're color-coded in purple. In the pink color, we have all the current Formula One drivers who have not won a world championship. And in white are all the other drivers who no longer race in Formula One and have not won a world championship.

So what does this tell us? It's really hard to win more than one race. 78 drivers out of 113 have won more than one race, which alternatively means 35 drivers have not won more than one race in their entire Formula One career. Or 30.97% of race winners have won one race. It is the highest percentage for any number of wins.

Approximately half of the race winners have won 1 to 4 races (51.31%) with a large bulk of that coming from the 35 drivers that have only won a single race. And while I say only a single race, that is not to discredit their achievement in winning that one race.

Here’s another breakdown of how the difference in number of race wins looks like:

It’s very clear to see that there are a few outliers in the data. The first six to eight data points aren’t a part of that very distinct and stable line of wins. In those top 8, rest some of the most known and well accomplished world champions — Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Fernando Alonso, and Nigel Mansell.

The first non-world champion race winner is 18th on the list with 16 race wins. Stirling Moss is described as the greatest driver to never win the Formula One World Championship.

There is the argument that much of the single race winners were from the USA and the race that they won was the Indy 500. The Indy 500 used to be a part of the calendar during the early years of Formula One and a lot of the European drivers wouldn’t make the journey across the Atlantic due to how much time/money it took. But of the single race winners, only 10 were from the USA.

Richie Ginther — won the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix

Rodger Ward — won the 1959 Indy 500

Jim Rathmann — won the 1960 Indy 500

Johnnie Parsons — won the 1950 Indy 500

Jimmy Bryan — won the 1958 Indy 500

Troy Ruttman — won the 1952 Indy 500

Sam Hanks — won the 1957 Indy 500

Bob Sweikert — won the 1955 Indy 500

Pat Flaherty — won the 1956 Indy 500

Lee Wallard — won the 1951 Indy 500

However, even by excluding the nine drivers from the USA that won just the Indy 500 (which is a difficult race to win), there are still 26 drivers that won just one race which is still the most for any number of race wins.

The following is a list of all 34 Formula One World Championship winners:

The visual representation of race winners based on the number of championships:

Other than no championships, the largest category is 1 championship win with a total of 17 drivers. Since 1950, only 34 drivers have won a world championship because it is difficult to have all the necessary factors come together for the entirety of a season to win a championship. Just as, on a much smaller scale, it is difficult to have all the necessary factors come together throughout a race for a win.

The following chart shows how many drivers have won for each country. The UK, USA, Italy, and France have the most race winners (taking out the 9 USA drivers who won the Indy 500 would put the USA in line with Germany and Brazil).

It should be noted that:

2 out of the 20 race winners from the UK are currently on the grid

The only driver to win from the Netherlands is currently on the grid

2 out of the 14 race winners from France are currently on the grid

The only 2 race winners from Spain are currently on the grid

1 of the 5 race winners from Finland is currently on the grid

1 of the 4 race winners from Australia is currently on the grid

1 of the 2 race winners from Mexico is currently on the grid

The only race winner from Monaco is currently on the grid.

The last data point that I collected was the percentage of races each driver won out of their total race starts.

The top ten based on percentage were:

8 of the 10 names here make sense because they are world champions with a lot of race wins. But 2 names stand out - Lee Wallard and Bill Vukovich. Wallard only started 2 races during his Formula One career and won 1 of those races (the 1951 Indy 500) which got him a 50% win rate. Similarly, Vukovich only entered 5 races during his career and won 2 of them (the 1953 and 1954 Indy 500) which gave him a 40% win rate. Due to this, they were able to rank amongst the top 10 drivers with the highest win percentage.

On the other end are the bottom ten based on percentage:

There is no outlier here like there was with the top ten. All of these drivers won one race and had approximately 100+ race starts. As the number of race starts increased, the win percentage decreased. There is a clear and visible pattern here whereas the top ten does not have that.

In conclusion, winning a race is hard, winning multiple races is hard, winning a championship is hard, and winning multiple champions is hard. We focus so much on how a driver/team can dominate and think that is the norm when based on all the data we have, that is not true at all.

Present: Australia Day 1

History: 1992 Mexican Grand Prix

March 22nd, 2024 marked the start of the Australian race weekend with the first two practice sessions.

The big story of the day is with Williams and their decision to have Alex Albon run Logan Sargeant’s car for the rest of the weekend after Albon crashed in FP1. Due to not having a 3rd chassis they could make for Albon and his original chassis being too damaged for repair, team principal James Vowles announced that Sargeant will not be racing.

(Statements from Vowles, Albon, and Sargeant)

Considering that Sargeant was not the one to crash, the decision is being widely seen as unfair and damaging to any morale building within the Williams team. A greater issue is why Williams wouldn’t take precautions to have a third chassis in a race that was filled with carnage last year. The ramifications of this decision are certainly something that we could see as the season progresses - not only for how it impacts Sargeant's confidence but also for the parts allotment allowed for Albon.

_______

On March 22, 1992, Formula One hosted the Mexican Grand Prix at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City. It was the second race of the 1992 season and heavily dominated by British driver, Nigel Mansell.

The 1992 Mexican Grand Prix was in turmoil long before its running on March 22nd. Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez's reputation for being a very bumpy circuit and Mexico City's decline with overpopulation and pollution was considered to be a bad look for Formula One.

Approximately a month prior, Mexico City was under a smog alert due to the dangerous levels of air pollution - the level of air pollution was reported as triple the US standard and four times what California permits. Due to this alert, there were restrictions on the usage of heavy motorized equipment which led to the delay in paving troublesome sections of the race track.

On race day, Nigel Mansell led every lap and finished the race 12.971 seconds ahead of his teammate Riccardo Patrese.

21.429 seconds behind Mansell, Michael Schumacher in the Benetton finished in third place. This was the first of Schumacher's 155 podiums in Formula One.

Of the 30 entrants:

4 drivers did not qualify (including Giovanna Amati - the most recent woman to attempt qualifying for an F1 GP)

13 drivers retired without classifying

1 driver finished 4 laps down from the race leader

2 drivers finished 3 laps down from the race leader

2 drivers finished 2 laps down from the race leader

4 drivers finished 1 lap down from the race leader

4 drivers completed all 69 laps

The 1992 Mexican Grand Prix was the last one hosted in Mexico until 2015 after the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez was revised.

________

Previous: Mar. 9th - 2003 Australian Grand Prix

Next: Mar. 23rd - Australia Day 2

Present: Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

History: 2003 Australian Grand Prix

On March 9th, 2024, the second race of the season occurred. In its 4th running, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix had its first repeat winner with Max Verstappen taking the chequered flag first.

Notable moments of the race included:

Kevin Magnussen's 20 seconds of penalties and his defense that allowed teammate Nico Hulkenberg to pit for new tyres and remain in the points.

Daniel Ricciardo's very long pit stop

Ollie Bearman's great race where he scored points on debut and is currently P10 in the F1 standings while remaining dead last in F2.

On March 9th, 2003, Formula 1 was in Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix.

Australia was the opening race of the 2003 season and the debut of new rules following Ferrari's dominant 2002 season.

Michael Schumacher put his Ferrari on pole position, but he did not go on to win the race or finish on the podium. Schumacher missed the podium by approximately 3 tenths.

Instead, the podium consisted of:

David Coulthard in P1, taking his 13th and final victory in Formula 1

Juan Pablo Montoya who finished P2 after starting in P3

Kimi Raikkonen took the final step of the podium after starting in the pit lane

Of the 20 entrants, only 11 finished the race with Jos Verstappen down 1 lap from the race leader.

Some important stats from this race include:

The first time that Michael Schumacher missed out on a podium since the 2001 Italian Grand Prix

The first time that neither Ferrari finished on the podium since the 1999 European Grand Prix

The end of Ferrari's streak 53 consecutive podium finishes

The podium domination by Michelin tyres (Coulthard and Raikkonen's McLarens used Michelin tyres, as did Montoya's Williams) for the first time since the 1984 Portuguese Grand Prix

The first time that no car using Bridgestone tyres finished on the podium since the 1998 Italian Grand Prix

_____

Previous: Mar. 8th - 1998 Australian Grand Prix

Next: Mar. 22 - Australia Day 1

Present: Saudi Arabia Day 2

History: 1998 Australian Grand Prix

March 8th, 2024 had free practice 3 and qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The big news of the day was Carlos Sainz having appendicitis and Ollie Bearman filling in for him. Now is this just another outcome of Alex Albon’s famous appendix? Or will we be seeing a new line of dominoes falling into place in the coming months? Only time will tell.

Timing remains essential to the 1998 Australian Grand Prix.

On March 8th, 1998, Albert Park (then called the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit) hosted the 1998 season opener. The race was dominated by the McLaren-Mercedes team with its two drivers taking home a 1-2 finish.

While it was no surprise that a McLaren driver took the chequered flag first, there was controversy surrounding it.

For the first half of the Grand Prix, Mika Hakkinen was leading the race. However, on lap 36, he lost the lead due to coming into the pits after a misheard call. This led to Hakkinen's teammate, David Coulthard, leading the race.

Coulthard had a 12-second lead that was reduced to 2 seconds by lap 55. On the front straight during lap 56, Coulthard let Hakkinen pass him. This move and the pre-season agreement between drivers - whoever led the first corner would win the race - drew great controversy and race-fixing allegations.

McLaren Team Boss, Ron Dennis, spoke on the controversy and claimed that someone else had tapped into their team radios which led to Hakkinen losing the lead and coming into the pits.

"We do not and have not manipulated Grands Prix unless there were some exceptional circumstances, which occurred in Australia [1998] when someone had tapped into our radio and instructed Mika Häkkinen to enter the pits."

Eventually, they would go in front of the World Motorsport Council where the verdict was "any future act prejudicial to the interests of competition should be severely punished in accordance with article 151c of the International Sporting Code." Team orders remained controversial in Formula One and were banned following the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix. It wasn't until after the 2010 German Grand Prix that they were allowed again.

In 2023, Hakkinen spoke about the 1998 Australian GP and the agreement that he had with Coulthard:

"The team said something on the radio, I was confused, I thought they asked me to come to change tyres and that was not the case. They were just giving me some different information. So I just drove through the pit lane and I of course lost the lead of the race, David got the lead."

"We were sitting on the front row, me and David – and we just made a deal. The driver who was first at the first corner when the race starts, that driver is going to win the Grand Prix. There's not going to be any fight. We had a deal, so David had to let me past – brilliant!"

_____

Previous: 2004 Australian Grand Prix

Next: Mar. 9th - Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

Can we get a more detailed look of your race rewatch spreadsheet? I feel like it would be v helpful in my own race rewatch

So I have consolidated the spreadsheet since that post. Now it includes all the races from 1981 to 2024 (and all the sprints)

Here are some pictures of my spreadsheet:

I found having this to be very helpful in knowing which races I have watched, how many seasons I have watched from start to end, and more stuff along those lines.

The spreadsheet only goes back to 1981 because that was the furthest that the archive in F1TV went. Watching through the F1TV archive is the easiest for me so that's what I went with. And even then, some of the 1980s and 1990s races don't have the full GPs, but 10-30 minute highlight reels. There are also other avenues through which you can find old races, but I found the F1TV route to be the simplest way of going through the old races.

Most of the spreadsheet is honestly just me visualizing F1 data in different ways and you could totally just have the first sheet and the data sheet.

But if anyone wants, I will link a blank copy of the spreadsheet that you can copy into your Google Drive and fill out. It includes everything that is shown in these pictures, a key for the colors that I have used so far (and will update as I watch races), and a sample sheet with some explanations on how I used the different features of the spreadsheet. Most of the data is set to update as you input different information in the sheets.

Feel free to ask if you have any questions about the spreadsheet, I love talking about this