A Numerical Look at the 2015 Formula 1 Season so Far

Three-week gaps between races ruin the flow of the Formula One season and bring back uncomfortable memories of the pre-season withdrawal period.

But they do at least give us a chance to pause, reflect on what has happened so far and have a dig into the statistics for some interesting facts and figures. Lewis Hamilton currently looks the clear favourite for the drivers' championship, his three race wins complemented by a 100 percent record of pole positions.

Sebastian Vettel has emerged as an outside bet to steal Hamilton's crown, his charge aided by the superior tyre management of the Ferrari. His two-stop strategy in Malaysia was the first and to date only alternative-strategy victory of 2015.

Other drivers have had a tougher time. Six are yet to score, three haven't even done a lap in a points-paying position and one hasn't managed a single racing lap.

Here, we take and expand upon one fact for each number from one to 10—and hopefully discover something interesting or surprising.

Only one driver has qualified on pole position so far in 2015—Lewis Hamilton. More impressively, he has set a pole-worthy time at three of the four grand prix with his "banker lap"—the supposedly reserved, leave-time-on-the-table run early in Q3.

The only race at which he actually needed his final run was Bahrain.

It has been close on two occasions, with less than one-tenth of a second separating Hamilton and the second-placed driver. But at the other races it was comfortable, giving an average gap back to the second-placed driver of 0.281 seconds.

After four races of 2014 there had been two different race winners. Lewis Hamilton had won three and Nico Rosberg one.

Hamilton has also won three in 2015, but his team-mate is yet to taste the winner's champagne (apart from when he got it sprayed in his face). Sebastian Vettel is the other driver with a win.

His victory in Malaysia was his first since the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix and Ferrari's first since Fernando Alonso took the chequered flag at his home race in the same year.

It was also the first time Mercedes have been beaten in the V6 turbo era without either a collision or reliability impacting on their performance.

Only three drivers have achieved the impressive-sounding feat of finishing all four of 2015's races in either the same or a higher position than they qualified.

But is it really something to be proud of?

Nico Rosberg has managed it due to generally poor qualifying performances—had he started where his team-mate did, he wouldn't be on the list. An interesting side fact here is that Rosberg has finished every single race exactly where he started it—the only driver to have done so.

Felipe Nasr is the second name here, but had he started where Marcus Ericsson did in Malaysia, he wouldn't make the grade.

Only Sergio Perez can hold his head high. Even if he'd taken the top Force India qualifying slot at every race, he would still have finished every one of them in either in the same place or higher.

Four different teams have set the quickest entry-to-exit pit stop time so far this year.

Whereas "stationary time" refers solely to the length of time the car is not moving in the pit box, entry-to-exit time takes into account the elapsed seconds between the driver entering and exiting the pit lane.

The bigger teams usually rule the roost here; they have better-funded and equipped mechanics, more resources for training and usually the most precise drivers. Permanent Strategy Group members (Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren and Williams) between them accounted for 18 of the 19 quickest entry-to-exit times last season.

But this year we have more of a mix. Force India took the honours in Australia and Lotus in Bahrain. The other two of the four—Ferrari in Malaysia and Mercedes in China—were more predictable.

As for stationary time, the DHL Pit Stop Challenge tells us it's currently three for Ferrari and one for Force India.

With lots of reliability issues up and down the grid, only five drivers have scored points in every round so far.

The top three in the championship table lead the way; Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have finished every race on the podium, while Sebastian Vettel has three podiums and a fifth.

Felipe Massa's fine recovery drive in Bahrain kept him in this elite club. His presence is all the more impressive when we consider he only got points in four of the first 10 races in 2014.

Daniel Ricciardo has somehow done it too. His Red Bull hasn't been the most reliable car over whole weekends but has only suffered a catastrophic failure in one race—Bahrain, a few hundred metres from the finish line. He managed to roll past the chequered flag for fifth.

An honourable mention goes to Valtteri Bottas—the Finn has scored points in every round he has started, but he missed Australia with a back injury.

A total of 21 drivers have entered a grand prix in 2015; of them, only six have failed to score a single point.

One of those has a bulletproof excuse—Kevin Magnussen qualified for but did not start the Australian Grand Prix. Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi can also be forgiven—their Manor MR03B is several seconds slower than the next-worst car.

Of the remaining three, two are world champions—Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button. McLaren's woeful start to the year has seen each finish no higher than 11th.

A third race winner completes the list. Pastor Maldonado has had appalling luck, and the next race is in Spain, where he won in 2012. Like the McLaren duo, he'll be on the scoreboard sooner rather than later.

Strategy has been a big talking point of 2015 so far, and seven is the total number of pit stops made by the winners of the four races.

The victor made a different number to the second-placed driver only once.

One stop was the order of the day in Australia, a race that saw just 17 stops made. Lewis Hamilton won that one but was beaten to the top step in Malaysia by Sebastian Vettel. The Ferrari man won the race because he only stopped twice; Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg three-stopped.

Strategic variance among the front-runners ended in China as all the big boys two-stopped. The same happened in Bahrain with the exception of three-stopping Vettel in fifth.

But the German's unplanned extra stop did at least bring him into line with his peers. All five drivers to have scored at every round have done a total of eight racing pit stops.

Eight teams have scored at least one championship point in 2015, one more than at this stage last season.

Of the eight, two already have more points than they managed last season. Lotus have 12 (all by Romain Grosjean); in 2014 they only scored 10. Sauber have made an even greater improvement, jumping from zero last year to 19 so far in 2015.

Felipe Nasr has scored 14 of those.

The two teams without a point are McLaren and Manor. Though both scored last season, only McLaren can be considered likely to achieve the feat this year. Manor's hopes rest on how good their new car is—and when it is ready.

Fernando Alonso has more career points than any driver on the grid but is yet to score in 2015.

In the three races so far, the Spaniard has spent just nine laps in points-paying positions—two in eighth, four in ninth and three in 10th. Five of these laps occurred in the Malaysian Grand Prix, where he would probably have recorded at least three more laps in tenth had his car not failed.

The rest were in Bahrain.

Of the other non-scoring drivers, Jenson Button has done six laps in points-paying places and Pastor Maldonado 46.

Just one driver has done at least one lap in every position from first to 10th—Kimi Raikkonen—while only Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel are yet to complete a lap outside the points.

In terms of percentage difference between their points totals, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were the closest team-mate pairing in 2014.

But in one particular stat, they are the least-equal pairing of the current season.

Rosberg has spent just 10 racing laps ahead of team-mate Hamilton—the lowest "laps ahead" total of any driver on the grid. Hamilton, as you might expect, has the highest total—217.

The closest pairing here are the two McLarens. Only counting the laps where both were running, Fernando Alonso leads Jenson Button by 44 laps to 32.

Unless otherwise stated, the information used in this article was sourced from Keith Collantine's peerless database at F1Fanatic, the official Formula 1 website and the FIA.