Takuma Sato led Honda's dominant performance in the Honda-sponsored race at Barber Motorsports Park. In other news from Barber Motorsports Park, a sweeper flipped. At Bristol, Toyota swept the races. After taking a week off, Team Penske's world domination is still on. A Spaniard defended home soil from the Brits. Supercross made its maiden trip to Nashville and nobody other than Cooper Webb wants to win that championship. I completely forgot the World Touring Car Cup season was starting. Next weekend is going to be jam-packed full of races with second of back-to-back weekends for some series, a handful of season openers and an historic milestone event in Formula One. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Looking at 1000
Formula One is hitting a massive milestone this weekend. It is not just any other Chinese Grand Prix but this Sunday from Shanghai will be the 1,000th grand prix in the Formula One World Championship.
Of course, there has been more than 1,000 grand prix races. There is an entire era of grand prix race pre-dating the first Formula One race in 1950, there are the races of Tazio Nuvolari, Bernd Rosemeyer and Rudolf Caracciola before World War I, the early days of the 20th century and many non-championship races that were still considered a grand prix though no championship points were awarded.
Anyway you cut it, Formula One is in its 70th season and it is about to reach a fourth-digit. It is a tremendous occasion and it is natural to look back. It is a chance to see where Formula One has come, not just from race one to 1000 but also in race 900 to race 1000.
The century-mark milestones are coming at a faster rate, the differences between each might not be as grand as from the 100th race, the 1961 German Grand Prix where Stirling Moss scored his final grand prix victory, to the 200th race, the 1971 Monaco Grand Prix where Jackie Stewart took a grand slam victory.
The 900th grand prix was only five years ago in Bahrain, the first night race at the circuit. Lewis Hamilton took the victory for Mercedes-Benz. Hamilton is still at Mercedes-Benz but his teammate Nico Rosberg won a championship and has since retired. Sebastian Vettel has gone from Red Bull to Ferrari, Daniel Ricciardo has gone from Red Bull to Renault. Caterham and Marussia are no longer on the grid. Lotus is now Renault, Sauber is now Alfa Romeo and Force India is now Racing Point. The grid now has an American team in Haas F1.
The differences from race 800 to race 900 might be better but it is amazing that each was a night race, something that had not happened for the first 57 years of Formula One. The 800th race was the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix, a historic event beyond the barriers it broke for Formula One, taking the series solidly into the new money of the 21st century but the controversial results after Renault team orders saw Nelson Piquet, Jr. intentionally spin into the barrier and setting up for Fernando Alonso to take the victory. In the mean time, a botch Felipe Massa pit stop allowed Lewis Hamilton to extend his championship lead and set up one of the most climatic championship finishes in Formula One history.
Beyond the time of the race and the manipulation, it was the naturally aspirated V8-era with 19,000-RPM limiters, pre-Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems, Bridgestone tires and only the top eight received points with the winner scoring ten.
No driver has repeated in winning a century mark grand prix. Someone could join Moss, Stewart, Ronnie Peterson, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet, Jacques Villeneuve, Giancarlo Fisichella, Alonso and Hamilton or Hamilton could do the unprecedented once again. The only manufacture to win multiple century mark grand prix is Lotus. Ferrari has never won one. Ironically, this will be the sixth time a century mark grand prix has occurred in the third round of a season.
Formula One isn't the only series to hit the century mark. After years of relatively smaller calendars it is not a surprise it has taken Formula One this long to reach such a number. NASCAR's 1000th race in the Cup series occurred on February 28, 1971, prior to the start of the modern-era at Ontario and A.J. Foyt won the race. It would take another 16 years to reach the 1500th race. It was at Martinsville on April 26, 1987 and Dale Earnhardt took the victory. The 2000th race was on March 23, 2003 at Bristol and Kurt Busch won it. The 2500th race was a little over two years ago at Atlanta, March 5, 2017 to be specific and Brad Keselowski won that day. After this weekend's race at Bristol, the NASCAR Cup Series has contested 2,557 races.
Brad Keselowski also holds the honor of winning the 1000th race in NASCAR's second national touring division. That came on September 6, 2013 at Richmond and he only led the final 11 laps after Brian Scott led the first 239 laps from pole position.
IndyCar has also reached and surpassed the 1000th race milestone but IndyCar's history is a little more complicated. Stretching back over a century and spanning multiple sanctioning bodies, the record book is a bit contested with discrepancies over number of races during some season and that can easily swing what the 1000th race is by a handful of years. The two notable conflicts are 1920 and 1946. Some say the 1920 season was five races and others say it was 11 races with some races retroactively being added to count toward the championship. The 1946 season is a greater swing of the pendulum. The post-war season was either six races or it was 77 races, as that season the American Automobile Association counted sprint car races to the national championship in worries that there would not be enough entries.
The best guide to follow is IndyCar's record book and it says 1920 was 11 races and 1946 was six races. Using those numbers the 1000th race was June 19, 1988 at Portland and Danny Sullivan took the victory. The 1500th race was at Milwaukee on May 31, 2009 and Scott Dixon won the race. The Barber race on Sunday was IndyCar's 1667th race.
Ironically, the Supercars series reached the 1000th race milestone at Melbourne while running in conjunction with the Australian Grand Prix. Scott McLaughlin won that race and the series is now on its 1004th races.
In Grand Prix Motorcycle racing, between all the classes from MotoGP to 50cc, 500cc to 250cc, Moto2 to Moto3, and all the other classes, there have been 3,102 races. The 1000th race was May 11, 1975 at the Hockenheimring, a 50cc race and Ángel Nieto was the winner. The 2000th race was the second 500cc race of the 1997 season and winner was Mick Doohan at Suzuka on April 20th. The 3,000th race was the MotoGP race on May 7, 2017 at Jerez and Dani Pedrosa took the honor of winning that race.
On paper, the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix is another race, though being Formula One's 1000th race. It will be a giant ceremony and a reflection on 70 seasons of Formula One and when it comes 1000th races this is the time to do it. Nostalgia is good when done at the appropriate times and this is the best time to look back. You have to look back at where you have been and what has changed. You cannot do it all the time but this is the time to do it.
While Formula One is in a time of transition and is trying to figure out new regulations it is going to be around for a long time. There have been many great races and there will be many more to come. Race 1000 is not the end and soon it will be another marker to look back on to see where Formula One was and be used to compare how far the series has gone.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Takuma Sato but did you know...
Kyle Busch won the NASCAR Cup race at Bristol. Christopher Bell won the Grand National Series race.
Scott McLaughlin and Shane Van Gisbergen split the Supercars races from Symmons Plains.
Álvaro Bautista swept the three World Superbike races from Aragón, his third sweep in three weekends and Jonathan Rea finished second in all three races again. Randy Krummenacher won the World Supersport race, his second victory of the season.
Eli Tomac won the Supercross race from Nashville.
Esteban Guerrieri, Gabriele Tarquini and Thed Björk split the World Touring Car Cup races from Marrakesh.
Coming Up This Weekend
The 1000th Formula One grand prix will be in China.
IndyCar has its first back-to-back of the season and will head to Long Beach.
IMSA will also be in Long Beach.
GT4 America makes it three notable series in Long Beach.
MotoGP is back in Marc Márquez's favorite or at least his second favorite country the United States and very few people in the United States will have a chance of watching it.
Supercars has the second of a back-to-back at Phillip Island.
World Superbike has the second of a back-to-back at Assen.
Formula E is in Rome.
Supercross returns to Denver.
NASCAR has its first night race at Richmond.
The European Le Mans Series opens 2019 at Circuit Paul Ricard.
The Blancpain Endurance Series opens 2019 at Monza.
Super GT opens 2019 at Okayama.
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