Twelve races down, nine to go, in a 2018 F1 season which so far has proved as incident-packed as it has been unpredictable. Four different race winners, five changes of the championship lead, and no clear picture yet as to where either world title is headed.
Who has the most race wins?
| Driver | Victories |
| Lewis Hamilton | 5 |
| Sebastian Vettel | 4 |
| Daniel Ricciardo | 2 |
| Max Verstappen | 1 |
| Team | |
| Mercedes | 5 |
| Ferrari | 4 |
| Red Bull | 3 |
Although he had to wait until the fourth round of the season to register his first win of 2018 – and then in fortuitous circumstances in Baku – Lewis Hamilton broke for summer in Hungary with his fifth victory of the campaign, one more than Sebastian Vettel. All of Mercedes and Ferrari’s respective wins have been achieved by their lead championship driver, with Red Bull the only team to get both their drivers on the podium’s top step so far. Incredibly, Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull maintain their domination of race victories in F1’s turbo hybrid era – they have shared all 91 wins between them since the current engines were introduced in 2014.
In fact, the ‘Big Three’ domination of F1 stretches back even further than that. The last race not won by one of that trio was the then-Lotus outfit’s victory with Kimi Raikkonen in 2013’s season-opening Australian GP.
That was 110 races ago.
Who has the most podium finishes?
| Driver | Podiums |
| Lewis Hamilton | 9 |
| Kimi Raikkonen | 8 |
| Sebastian Vettel | 7 |
| Valtteri Bottas | 5 |
| Max Verstappen | 4 |
| Daniel Ricciardo | 2 |
| Sergio Perez | 1 |
| Team | |
| Ferrari | 15 |
| Mercedes | 14 |
| Red Bull | 6 |
| Force India | 1 |
There are certainly more surprises in this table.
While Hamilton’s position at the head of the list certainly isn’t, Kimi Raikkonen’s placing above Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel is. But Kimi broke for summer on a run of five successive podiums to take his 2018 tally to eight, already his best return in a single season in five years. His career-best sequence is seven podiums in a row when he won his world title in 2007.
By contrast, Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo has only stood on the podium twice – albeit both times on the top step in China and Monaco.
Who has retired from most races?
| Drivers with most DNFs | |
| Brendon Hartley | 5 |
| Daniel Ricciardo | 4 |
| Romain Grosjean | 4 |
| Max Verstappen | 4 |
| Fernando Alonso | 4 |
| Overall team DNF totals | |
| Toro Rosso | 8 |
| Red Bull | 8 |
| McLaren | 7 |
| Williams | 6 |
| Haas | 5 |
| Sauber | 5 |
| Renault | 4 |
| Force India | 4 |
| Ferrari | 3 |
| Mercedes | 3 |
This not a table that will sit comfortably with the two Red Bull-owned teams.
Difficult engine suppliers, different circumstances, but eight DNFs apiece for Red Bull and Toro Rosso from 24 race starts across their respective two cars gives each of them a 33 per cent retirement rate. By contrast, Mercedes and Ferrari’s is just 12.5 per cent.
While Brendon Hartley has retired from nearly half of the races so far, five drivers – Hamilton, Vettel, Perez, Kevin Magnussen and Carlos Sainz – have only failed to see the chequered flag once in the opening dozen rounds.
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