The mystery of the thousand
A small and curious ‘case’ is forming around the milestone of 1000 Grand Prix races held in Formula 1 that McLaren intends to celebrate this weekend in Monaco with a splendid special livery.
Read more Bearman: “The qualifying in Monaco is part of a unique challenge”
Many authoritative statistics sites, including the famous Statsf1.com, actually record the Woking team as having 998 Grand Prix races held so far in its history, with the event on the streets of the Principality becoming the 999th. But what is the reason for this particular statistical discrepancy?
The double Chinese withdrawal ‘throws off’ the count
The ‘fault’ lies in what happened this year on Sunday, March 15, when the Chinese GP was held. McLaren, which was obviously present that weekend and had also competed in the Saturday Sprint race, did not however compete in the Sunday GP with any of its cars. Both the car of the reigning world champion Lando Norris and that of his teammate Oscar Piastri were forced to retire even before the start of the race due to technical problems.
Read more Quartararo’s disappointment: “I decided to slow down to avoid crashes”
Having not fielded any car at the start of the GP, statistically McLaren in Shanghai is recorded as “did not start” and therefore that race is not counted. Perhaps also because of this particular dispute over the count, the Woking team has decided to use the 1000 GP celebratory livery not only in Monaco but also at the next event in Barcelona, when the British team should actually reach the quadruple-digit milestone.
At that moment McLaren will become only the second team ever to have raced 1000 GPs in F1, after Ferrari, which celebrated this milestone at Mugello in 2020, also bringing a special celebratory livery to the track on that occasion.
Read more Is Adelaide scary? Ezpeleta asks for calm: “It will be a GP like all the others”
