After his third-place finish in the Malaysian Grand Prix Nick Heidfeld now holds the record for most podium finishes without a win.

He’s finished second or third 13 times – one more than previous record-holder Stefan Johansson.

Heidfeld’s third place was the 100th appearance on the podium by a Renault driver. Only six teams have more (see table).

Team Podiums Ferrari 643 McLaren 454 Williams 296 Lotus 172 Brabham 124 Benetton 102 Renault 100

Sebastian Vettel scored his fourth win in a row and his third consecutive win from pole.

The last driver to win four races in a row was Jenson Button in 2009 (Bahrain, Spain, Monaco and Turkey).

If Vettel can win again in China this weekend he’ll be the first driver to win five in a row since Michael Schumacher in 2004 – and he went on to win seven on the trot.

Vettel’s 12th career win gives him as many as fellow champions Mario Andretti and Alan Jones, plus Carlos Reutemann. His 17th pole position puts him level with Jackie Stewart.

Mark Webber set the fastest lap for the seventh time in his career. But lap times at Sepang were significantly slower than last year.

The quickest lap of the weekend was Vettel’s pole position time of 1’34.870, was 1.3 seconds slower than last year’s best during practice (qualifying was hit by rain).

The fastest race lap was 3.5 seconds slower than last year and 6.3 seconds slower than the 2004 record sent by Juan Pablo Montoya.

Paul di Resta has now scored points in his first two race starts. The last driver to do that was Lewis Hamilton in 2007, but the number of points-paying positions has been increased from eight to ten since then.

As indicated in the previous stats and facts, Hamilton is now the driver who has had the longest career spent with just one team: 73 for McLaren, one more than Jim Clark had with Lotus.

Vettel leads the championship by 24 points, which is a larger lead than anyone held during the whole of last season.

The top five drivers on the grid all qualified in the same positions in the first race.

So far this year Fernando Alonso has led two laps, Lewis Hamilton three, and Sebastian Vettel has led the remaining 109.

Spotted any more interesting facts and stats from the Malaysian Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.

Review the year in statistics so far here:

2011 Malaysian Grand Prix



Image ?�?� Pirelli