Was this only the second time Hamilton has crashed out of a Formula One race? · Racing fans

“I’ve never spun in a race before, at least I don’t remember,” said a stunned Lewis Hamilton after his US Grand Prix ended when he crashed into the Turn 19 gravel trap on the second lap.

“If so, then it may only be once, and maybe even sooner, in all these years.”

Hamilton rarely forgets to remind reporters that his memories of past races are not very good. So how well did his memory serve him this time? Did he really only retire from Formula 1 racing twice?

Remarkably, this is almost true. There’s inevitably a degree of interpretation required for things like this, but Hamilton is very much on the money.

Until last weekend, Hamilton had only crashed out of a race alone once. It was on the last lap of the 2009 Italian Grand Prix when he was trying to attack Jenson Button for second place and crashed into the barrier on the inside between the two Lesmo corners.

There have been many other occasions when Hamilton has retired of his own accord, usually due to collisions with rivals, but this is the only one that can accurately be described as a “spin”. He retired from the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix in a gravel trap, but it was more of a gripless slide. And he was very lucky that his spin during that year’s European Grand Prix did not result in a retirement from the race as he was pulled from the gravel trap by a crane.

Hamilton’s other retirements during his 351-race career were due to either collisions with other drivers or mechanical failures, some of which resulted in accidents, such as when he retired from second place at the Grand Prix. under Spain in 2010.

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Hamilton’s retirement meant he failed to score points in a Grand Prix for the first time in 15 races. However, he scored points in the sprint race. Another small plus is that Max Verstappen also did not win a Grand Prix, and Hamilton’s success rate was again higher than his rival. Hamilton has now won 29.91% of his starts to Verstappen’s 29.90%, reversing the situation from five months ago.

He crashed out in the same spot where his teammate George Russell crashed during qualifying. Russell had to start from the pit lane, but his rise of 14 places to finish sixth (despite a five-second penalty) is the most positions any driver has won in this year’s race. The next achievement is 11th place for Lando Norris in Baku. Other climbers in double figures include Hamilton, also in Baku, and Liam Lawson, who made an impressive return to Formula One last weekend.

Mercedes started the weekend looking like a potential pole position threat, but that has since faded. Instead, Ferrari turned out to be the team to win, despite failing to secure pole position.

Charles Leclerc took the eighth victory of his Grand Prix career, putting him on par with Daniel Ricciardo, whose Formula 1 career appears to have ended following his ousting from the Republic of Belarus after the previous round (in which he, we can now confidently say, the driver who showed the best lap in his last race became the fifth). Leclerc is also now level on victories with Jacques Laffite and 1967 world champion Denny Hulme.

Ferrari achieved their second one-two finish of the year, although their drivers were placed in the opposite order of their first finish in Australia seven months ago.

Lando Norris won Grand Prix pole for the seventh time in his career and the seventh time this year overall, including the sprint race pole in China. Once again he failed to hold the lead from pole on the first lap, something he had only achieved once in his career. His average change of position on the first lap of a race remains the worst of any driver this year, apart from the departed Ricciardo.

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As was the case when Ricciardo set the fastest lap in Singapore, it was again set by a driver who failed to earn a bonus point. Alpine has put Esteban Ocon on a new set of tires so they can take him away from Williams driver Franco Colapinto. He became the 11th driver to set the fastest lap this year, one shy of the record of 12 set in 2012.

After 152 starts, Ocon finally achieved the first fastest lap of his career. This is the third longest wait among drivers, behind only Button (155) and Jarno Trulli (203).

While Colapinto scored the second-highest points total of his career with a 10th-place finish, teammate Alexander Albon had little to celebrate in his 100th Grand Prix and finished out of the points.

Finally, Verstappen won the sprint race, continuing his unbeaten streak in the short format this year. Of the 16 sprint races held since the format was introduced in 2021, he has now won 11, although he later joked that his success was “probably because I don’t like it.”

To you

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