The numbers that tell the story of Vettel's 50 career victories
Tuesday 11 December 2018 11:26, UK
Sebastian Vettel's emphatic victory in Canada brought the four-time world champion into an exclusive club when it comes to Formula 1 race winners - drivers who have won 50 Grands Prix.
Alain Prost was the very first to do so, back in 1993. Then there was Michael Schumacher eight years later. Lewis Hamilton reached the milestone at the 2016 US GP and now, 30 races and 20 months on, Vettel has become the fourth man to reach his own symbolic half-century.
But how quickly did the Ferrari driver get there - and where and how have his 50 race wins been achieved?
Who was fastest to 50?
Although Vettel won his first Grand Prix at the then-record young age of 21, and was incredibly a four-time champion by the age of 26, the now 30-year-old has actually taken slightly longer than any of the three other drivers to reach the 50-win landmark.
Vettel's 50 wins have come from 205 race starts which, while still representing a near one-in-four win rate, is nonetheless 20 races more than current title rival Hamilton took, and 13 more than fellow four-time champion Prost.
But Schumacher racked up his half-century in record time, with the first 50 wins of his career 91 coming in just 153 starts.
Where does Vettel win from?
As seen again in Montreal, Vettel is long-established as one of F1's very best front-runners and it is therefore little surprise that 31 of his 50 race wins have come after starting on pole position. That works out at 62 per cent.
But one of the curiosities of Vettel's career remains his failure to win a race when starting outside the front three on the grid.
He has started a race from fourth or lower on 85 occasions, but has still yet to climb the top step of the podium when doing so.
Vettel has raced at 26 different Grands Prix so far in his career and won 21 of them at least once, with the five to have eluded him all currently on the calendar.
In total, he has raced at 29 different circuits but, surprisingly, it's one of his two home tracks - Hockenheim, host of July's returning German GP - where he has raced most often without winning. Vettel's only win in Germany came at the Nurburgring in 2013, yet in five races at Hockenheim he has not finished higher than third.
In fact, it's outside of Europe where Vettel has enjoyed most of his success - with 35 of his 50 victories coming from the 'flyaway' rounds.
September's Italian GP will mark the 10-year anniversary of Vettel's maiden victory, when the then youngster stunned F1 by winning with Toro Rosso at a rain-drenched Monza in arguably the sport's last big upset.
In only two seasons since then, his final one at Red Bull and second at Ferrari, has Vettel failed to register at least one win with his 13 in 2013 - including an astonishing nine in a row at the end of that title-winning campaign - tying Schumacher's all-time benchmark.
Vettel has had six team-mates in the sport but only two, Mark Webber (nine wins) and Daniel Ricciardo (three), have won races while next to him.
With a title-contending car this year, and a Ferrari contract until the end of 2020, Vettel is likely to quickly race past Prost's mark of 51 wins - but catching his idol Schumacher remains a tall order.
