Top five stats from the United States Grand Prix - MotorSportsTalk

One special achievement stood out in Sunday’s United States Grand Prix: Sebastian Vettel became the first driver to win eight consecutive rounds of the world championship. Here are the top five stats from Sunday’s race.

Vettel’s record eight-in-a-row…

Vettel may have won eight races in a row but Alberto Ascari went one better, winning nine consecutive races from 1952 to 1953. However during that time Ascari did not enter the 1953 Indianapolis 500, which counted towards the world championship.

Note also that none of these races were run to F1 rules, as the world championship used F2 regulations in 1952 and 1953.

…and eighth hat-trick

Win, pole position, fastest lap: Vettel had them all in Austin, for the eighth time in his F1 career. Only three drivers racked up more during their careers: Michael Schumacher (22), Jim CLark (11) and Juan Manuel Fangio (9).

No points for Kovalainen

Heikki Kovalainen failed to score for Lotus on his F1 comeback. This meant he increased the record for most consecutive starts by an F1 driver without scoring a point to 61. Kovalainen went three seasons without scoring a point while driving for the previous Lotus team (2010-2011) which became Caterham (2012).

Bottas on the board

Valtteri Bottas became the 323rd different driver to score a point in F1 and the seventh Finnish driver to do so.

Vettel can equal wins record

Heading into this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix, Vettel could tie Schumacher’s record of winning 13 races in a season. However Schumacher did so in 2004 when there were 18 races – this year’s calendar has 19.

An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”