With every Formula 1 season comes a barrage of statistics and records – positive and negative – broken by a new wave of drivers. The 64th iteration of the championship was no different...

Sebastian Vettel’s success in 2013 means that he has now won the title in more than half of the seasons he has entered in the sport. Vettel’s ninth successive victory draws him level with Alberto Ascari, with the German retaining the opportunity to hit double figures in Australia next March. Vettel matched Michael Schumacher’s 2004 record of victories in one year as he claimed 13 of the 19 races. Vettel has now claimed 39 Formula 1 wins, placing him fourth in the all-time list, behind Schumacher, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. His 45 pole positions put him in third place, behind only Schumacher and Senna. He also claimed his 50th podium finish in the sport when he finished in second place in Monaco. Vettel could have won the constructors’ championship single-handedly for Red Bull Racing as he took 397 points [itself a record in the sport] to Mercedes’s 360. Vettel qualified outside the top three just once – in China, when he opted not to run in Q3 – and never finished outside of the top four. He retired only once, when his gearbox failed while he was leading the British Grand Prix. Vettel became the youngest four time world champion at the age of 26 and his youth is aptly demonstrated by the fact that 2013 was the first time since 2009 where the F1 champion was older than his GP2 counterpart. Fellow four times world champion Alain Prost had not even won a Grand Prix when he was 26.

Vettel also led 684 of the 1131 racing laps in 2013, enjoying spells in the lead at every race bar Monaco and leading from start to finish at five events. Nico Rosberg led 104 laps – including all in Monaco – but never enjoyed a spell in the lead after his victory in Britain. Fernando Alonso led 89 laps but following his win in Spain, he led just four laps across the remainder of the season, all during the pit stop phase in Italy. Mark Webber led 69 laps and Lewis Hamilton 66 – 48 of those in Hungary, which was to be his last spell at the head of the field. Romain Grosjean, Adrian Sutil, Felipe Massa, Jenson Button, Nico Hülkenberg , Paul di Resta and Esteban Gutiérrez all spent a few laps at the front.

Fernando Alonso finished as the runner-up in the championship for the third time in four seasons but qualifying was a relative weakness for him and Ferrari. For the first time since 2001, Alonso failed to qualify on the front row of the grid all season. Alonso has now finished in third place 27 times, one behind the record shared by Rubens Barrichello and Kimi Räikkönen. The Spaniard did, however, celebrates his 200th race in the sport in Bahrain. He also broke the record for points scored in the sport (however, the new system introduced in 2010 skews the picture) and has now claimed 1606, ahead of Schumacher (1566) and Vettel (1451).

Mark Webber finished in third place in the title race for the second time, meaning that the top four in the championship [once you account for Lewis Hamilton] was identical in 2010 and 2013. Webber bowed out of Formula 1 with nine race wins, 42 podiums, 13 pole positions and 19 fastest laps in 215 race starts. The Australian’s pit stop time of 1.923s in the United States Grand Prix is a new record.

Hamilton finished in fourth place in the championship for the third time but while he retained his record of winning a race in every season, his sole victory in Hungary was his lowest tally in his career. Hamilton nonetheless claimed four successive pole positions in the middle of the season, the first occasion a Brit has achieved this since Damon Hill in 1996. Hamilton, who has not finished a race in second place in 43 events, also ended the season without a podium finish in eight races, his longest barren streak since the start of 2009.

Kimi Räikkönen set a new record of 27 points finishes which ran from Bahrain last year until Hungary, but he retired at the following race in Belgium. His replacement, Heikki Kovalainen, extended his run of entering the most consecutive races without scoring a point to 62. Räikkönen won the opening round of the season but never matched that result, the first time a driver has done this since Giancarlo Fisichella in 2005 and the first for a team since 1970. Räikkönen added two fastest laps to his tally, retaining his third place in the all-time list with 39.

Rosberg won at Monaco in Formula 1 for the second time – Nico scored his first win in the principality, to add to father Keke’s triumph 30 years previously. Rosberg’s two wins, combined with Vettel’s 13, meant that German drivers won 15 races – the most for one nationality in a single season. Rosberg’s sixth place in the championship was his highest position in his eighth year in the sport.

Romain Grosjean’s second place in the United States equalled his best career result from Montreal 2012 while the Frenchman also enjoyed the best recovery drive of the year as he gained 14 places in India, finishing in third place after starting from 17th on the grid. Sergio Pérez [in Brazil] and Paul di Resta [in Britain] both recovered 13 places from where they qualified. Grosjean has now claimed nine podiums without a win, the record held by Nick Heidfeld, who visited the rostrum 13 times but never on the top step.

Felipe Massa leaves Ferrari having claimed 11 wins, 12 second places and 13 third places for the team while Jenson Button endured his first season without a podium since 2008 – when he scored just three points for Honda – but became the most experienced British Formula 1 driver when he started his 247th race in Brazil, taking the record from David Coulthard.

Nico Hülkenberg finished in the top 10 of the championship at the third time of asking, while Sergio Pérez has finished in 11th place 12 times in his 58 race career – more than any other position. Fittingly, he finished in 11th place in the championship.

Adrian Sutil’s 11 laps in the lead in Melbourne were the first for him in Formula 1 and he has now participated in 109 races without scoring a podium – just 10 short of Pierluigi Martini’s record.

Esteban Gutiérrez earned the unique distinction of managing to lead a race and set the fastest lap before scoring his first points (he achieved this in Spain) and also set the fastest top speed of 2013 - 341.1kph in Italy. The Mexican became the second youngest driver to set a fastest lap in a Formula 1 race. Gutiérrez was the first of the five rookies in 2013 to score a point although he had to wait until the 15th round of the year in Japan. It was the longest wait for a rookie points’ scorer since 1998, when neither Esteban Tuero nor Toranosuke Takagi claimed a point all year. However, Tuero finished in eighth place in San Marino while Takagi ended up ninth a couple of times, with the caveat that points were only awarded to the top six.

Red Bull became only the third team to win four successive drivers and constructors’ championships. McLaren swept up between 1988 and 1991, while Ferrari won the title between 1999 and 2004, with Schumacher adding the drivers titles between 2000 and 2004. Red Bull has now won 47 races, meaning that the British-based Austrian team is the fifth most successful team in history, behind only Ferrari, McLaren, Williams and Lotus, despite not winning their first race until 2009. Red Bull also claimed their 100th podium finish in Abu Dhabi.

Mercedes took eight pole positions in nine races between Bahrain and Belgium but from there on, it was Red Bull who cleaned up in qualifying. 2013 was Mercedes’s best season in Formula One as a constructor as they scored 360 points and finished in second position, behind Red Bull – although the constructors’ championship did not exist during Juan Manuel Fangio’s success with the Silver Arrows in 1954 and 1955.

Ferrari did not claim a single pole position for the third time in five seasons. A Ferrari has headed the grid just four times in the 94 races since the start of 2009, the last of those at the German Grand Prix in 2012. By comparison, Red Bull has taken all 57 of their pole positions in the same period. Ferrari nonetheless broke the record for the number of races consecutively in the points – held by McLaren until the Canadian Grand Prix – and the Italian team’s run is still ongoing, with a Ferrari having scored points in every race since the 2010 German Grand Prix, a sequence of 67 races.

McLaren endured a miserable season and finished in fifth place in the world championship, their worst result since 2004 (if you ignore the anomalous 2007 season). 2013 was McLaren’s first win-less season since 2006 and the first time since 1980 that the team failed to make a solitary appearance on the podium. Neither Jenson Button nor Sergio Pérez managed to qualify in the top five, the first time this has happened for McLaren since 1983. There was one positive record for McLaren as the Woking based team had both cars classified in every race, completing 99.17% of the racing laps, beating BMW Sauber’s total from 2008.

Sauber celebrated their 20th anniversary in Formula 1 at the start of the season while Force India matched their highest position in the constructors’ championship as they finished in sixth place (also achieved in 2011) although they did not beat their highest points tally, which they managed in 2012 when they took 109.

Toro Rosso achieved their highest position in a Grand Prix for five years courtesy of Jean-Eric Vergne’s sixth place in Canada; only Vettel has finished a race for Toro Rosso in the top five, which he achieved six times.

Williams equalled their worst season in Formula 1 as they matched 2011’s dismal effort of ninth place in the championship with five points. They failed to score a point until the 10th round of the season, their longest wait in history. However, they were able to celebrate their 600th race, although anomalous statistics meant they commemorated it both in Britain and Germany.

Neither driver from Marussia or Caterham managed a single racing lap inside the top 10 but the former finished in the top 10 of the championship for the first time in their four year history. This meant that Caterham recorded their worst position in the championship since the squad’s inception (as Lotus) in 2010 as they finished in 11th. Max Chilton became the first driver to finish every race in his rookie season but was only fourth on the list of laps raced. Out of a possible 1131 racing laps, Button (1126), Vettel (1120) and Pérez (1116) all completed more racing laps than Chilton (1103). Once you remove Räikkönen and Heikki Kovalainen from the list (as they did not enter every race) it was Giedo van der Garde who completed the fewest racing laps in 2013, with 931.

Renault bowed out of the V8 era having won the first and final races of the period. The V8 era began in Bahrain in 2006 and Fernando Alonso secured victory for the French manufacturer. Renault was also the most successful engine supplier in the V8 as they won both drivers and constructors titles in 2006, 2010-13. Ferrari and Mercedes shared three titles apiece; Ferrari did the double in 2007 and claimed the constructors in 2008, while Mercedes supplied McLaren’s Hamilton in 2008 and the Brawn team to the double in 2009. Renault powered cars have also scored points in each of the last 100 races. However, Renault’s points’ streak is trumped by German drivers, who have scored points in each race since the 2008 German Grand Prix, a run of 104 races.

Pirelli supplied 33,200 tyres in 2013 (for both testing and the races). The longest race of the season was Monaco, thanks to a red flag period, as Rosberg crossed the line two hours, 17 minutes, 52.056 seconds after the red lights went out. The Italian Grand Prix at Monza was the shortest, at one hour, 18 minutes, 33.352 seconds. 985 overtaking manoeuvres were completed in 2013 while 951 pit stops were made.