Motor racing - Formula One statistics for the Japanese Grand Prix

Statistics for Sunday's Japanese Formula One Grand Prix at Suzuka, round four of the world championship:

Lap distance: 5.807km. Total distance: 307.471km (53 laps)

2023 pole position: Max Verstappen (Netherlands) Red Bull one minute 28.877 seconds.

2023 race winner: Verstappen

Race lap record: Lewis Hamilton (Britain) Mercedes, 2019: One minute 30.983 seconds.

Start time: 0500GMT (1400 local)

JAPAN

Sunday's race will be the 38th Japanese Grand Prix in world championship history and 34th at Suzuka. The race was not held in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The narrow, high-speed circuit is old-style in a figure-of-eight layout, with fast corners Degner 1 and 2, Spoon and 130R, taken at 295kph.

Of current drivers, Hamilton has won five times in Japan (2007 at Fuji, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018) and Fernando Alonso twice (2006 Suzuka and 2008 Fuji). Other winners are Verstappen (2022, 2023) and Valtteri Bottas (2019).

Verstappen has won the last two Japanese Grands Prix, taking victory last year by 19.387 seconds.

Ferrari last won at Suzuka, a Honda-owned circuit, with Michael Schumacher in 2004. The German won the Japanese Grand Prix a record six times, with a total of eight in the country when the Pacific Grands Prix at Aida are included.

In 33 races at Suzuka, the winner has come from the front row on 28 occasions and been on pole in 17. Kimi Raikkonen won from 17th on the grid in 2005 with McLaren.

Ten of the last 17 winners have started on pole.

RB's Yuki Tsunoda is the only Japanese driver on the starting grid, although Ayumu Iwasa will be taking part in first practice for the Red Bull-owned team instead of Daniel Ricciardo.

CHAMPIONSHIP LEAD

Verstappen has led the championship for a record 42 successive races dating back to Spain in May 2022 but arrives in Japan only four points clear of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and five ahead of Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez.

WINS

Verstappen has won two of three races this season, his run of nine wins in a row ended in Australia by Ferrari's Carlos Sainz.

Sainz is the only driver to have beaten Red Bull since 2022.

Hamilton has a record 103 career victories from 335 starts but is chasing his first since 2021 -- a run of 48 races without a win.

Red Bull won 21 of 22 races last year, with Verstappen victorious in a record 19, and have won 33 of the last 36.

The team have won 115 races and are fourth in the all-time list of winners. Ferrari lead with 244, McLaren have 183 and Mercedes 125.

Verstappen has won 56 grands prix and is third on the all-time list. Michael Schumacher is second on 91.

POLE POSITION

Hamilton has a record 104 career poles, his most recent in Hungary last year.

Verstappen has qualified on pole in all three races so far this year and the last four in total. He can become the first driver since Hamilton in 2015 to take pole in the opening four races of a season.

PODIUMS

Verstappen has 100 career podiums.

The Red Bull driver set a record of 21 podiums in a season last year but Michael Schumacher remains the only driver to have stood on the podium in every race of a season (2002).

MILESTONE

Verstappen needs 39 laps in the lead to reach a career total of 3,000, a milestone previously achieved only by Hamilton, Schumacher, and Sebastian Vettel.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Pritha Sarkar)