9 Incredibly Random Formula 1 Facts You Didn’t Know

Remember Adrian Sutil? He raced for Sauber last season and, in case you didn’t know, he’s quite a talented musician. Sutil played piano from an early age and was performing on concert stages when he was 12. He dropped plans to be a concert pianist in favour of racing.

2. Youngest vs oldest

The average age of the 2015 F1 field in Australia was 26. In contrast, the average age of the grid for the first ever F1 race at Silverstone in 1950 was 39, and three drivers were over 50.

3. How he got his nickname

Bernand Charles Ecclestone hasn’t been called that in F1 for a very long time. In fact, it was Jochen Rindt – the sport’s only posthumous world champion after his tragic death at the 1970 Italian Grand Prix – who started calling him Bernie, and it has stuck ever since.

4. Expensive crash

To promote the film Ocean’s 12, Mark Webber and Christian Klien’s Jaguar F1 cars were each fitted with £150,000 diamonds for the 2004 Monaco Grand Prix.

Whoever’s idea it was to fit such expensive gems to the front of F1 cars, at the most tight and twisty track on the calendar, probably felt pretty stupid afterwards. Klien crashed out of the race on lap one and his diamond was never seen again.

5. Funny coincidence

The first ever can of Red Bull energy drink was sold in the same year that Sebastian Vettel was born – 1987.

While onboard cameras were used previously, for tests and other things, they were never fitted to cars during F1 races until the 1985 German Grand Prix. François Hesnault was the lucky driver and the camera was fitted to his Renault.

7. Speed up

Al Pease has the unfortunate distinction of being the only driver to ever be black flagged and disqualified for driving too slowly. He was racing at the 1969 Canadian Grand Prix.

The Nurburgring is the only F1 track to have hosted three different races: The German Grand Prix, European Grand Prix and Luxembourg Grand Prix.

9. Need for speed

Sebastian Vettel holds the F1 record for the shortest time elapsed before picking up a penalty. He was caught speeding in the pit lane in practice for the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix almost immediately after he had exited the garage, just nine seconds into his F1 career. It cost him $1000.