(Reuters) – Formula One statistics for the Qatar Grand Prix, round 17 of the 22-race calendar:
Lap distance: 5.419km. Total distance: 308.611km (57 laps)
No race was held in 2022
2021 pole position: Lewis Hamilton (Britain) Mercedes One minute 20.827 seconds
2021 winner: Hamilton
Race fastest lap: Max Verstappen (Netherlands) Red Bull 1:23.196
Start time: 1700GMT/2000 local
QATAR
The circuit has hosted MotoGP since 2004, becoming a night race in 2008.
Qatar has a 10-year deal to host Formula One from this year after making a debut in 2021. There was no race in 2022 because of the country hosting the soccer World Cup.
The Lusail layout has been completely resurfaced since 2021, with a new pit and paddock complex, and is fast and flowing with 16 medium and high-speed corners and no heavy braking. The main straight is more than one km long.
Daytime temperatures are expected to be around 40 degrees Celsius but dropping to 27 at night. First practice and the Sprint shootout will be run in daytime.
CHAMPIONSHIP
Max Verstappen is set to take his third world championship this weekend, probably in the Saturday sprint. The Dutch driver, who turned 26 last weekend, needs only three points.
Mexican team mate Sergio Perez needs to score six points more than Verstappen in the sprint to keep things open until Sunday.
Verstappen would be the first driver to win a title in a Saturday race since Brazilian Nelson Piquet at the 1983 South African Grand Prix.
Red Bull retained the constructors’ championship at the previous race in Japan.
SPRINT RACE
Red Bull have won all three sprint races so far this season — Perez in Azerbaijan and Verstappen in Austria and Belgium.
WINS
Verstappen has won 13 of 16 races, his record run of 10 wins in a row ending in Singapore last month.
The Dutch driver has 48 wins from 179 starts and is fifth on the all-time list. Alain Prost, with 51, is fourth.
Red Bull have won 15 of 16 races, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz winning in Singapore. Red Bull have also had a team record six one-two finishes in 2023.
Hamilton has a record 103 victories from 326 starts but has not won since Saudi Arabia in December 2021. Aston Martin’s Alonso has 32 wins, most recently in Spain in 2013 with Ferrari, from a record 371 starts.
POLE POSITION
Hamilton has a record 104 poles.
Red Bull have been on pole 11 times this season. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took the top slot in Azerbaijan and Belgium, Hamilton in Hungary and Sainz in Italy and Singapore. Verstappen has nine poles for 2023.
PODIUM
Six teams and 11 drivers have made a podium appearance this season: Red Bull, Alpine, Aston Martin, McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari.
Verstappen has been off the podium only once since Brazil last November.
Verstappen holds the record for most podiums in a season — 18 in 2021 — and has had 15 so far in 2023. Michael Schumacher is the only driver to have finished on the podium in every race of a season, in 2002.
POINTS
Verstappen leads team mate Sergio Perez by 177 points.
FASTEST LAPS
Seven different drivers have taken fastest laps this season – Alonso, Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou, Verstappen (7), Perez (2), Hamilton (3), Mercedes’s George Russell and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Christian Radnedge)
