Hall of Fame: DHL Fastest Lap Award Winners

All Formula One drivers are fast, but is the race winner really the fastest? Since 2007, DHL has defined a new standard of speed with the DHL Fastest Lap Award. One driver sets the fastest lap in each race, and the award goes to the one who sets the most over the season. Winning calls for speed, passion and excellence – something DHL, as the world’s leading logistics company and Official Logistics Partner of Formula 1, knows a thing or two about.

The competition to see who can post the fastest lap starts all over again next weekend. But first, let’s look back at the previous winners of the DHL Fastest Lap Award. This particular Hall of Fame is also a Who’s Who of Formula 1 stars.

Kimi Räikkönen: 2007 & 2008
The Iceman became the first holder of the DHL Fastest Lap Award in what was his only championship-winning campaign so far – 2007. Just as in the title chase with Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, this was also a close-run affair. Räikkönen and Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa each scored six fastest and two second-fastest laps. In the end, Kimi lifted the trophy by virtue of three third-fastest laps. In 2008, he repeated the feat, defending the DHL Fastest Lap Award in masterly fashion with 10 fastest laps. In any case, the Finn is an expert when it comes to fastest laps – with a career total of 40 so far, he is the most successful of the current crop of drivers in this discipline. 

The Iceman became the first holder of the DHL Fastest Lap Award

Sebastian Vettel: 2009, 2012 & 2013
Four-time champion Sebastian Vettel also ranks as a specialist in fastest laps. Just like Kimi, he has a habit of stepping on the gas towards the end of a race in order to finish at the top of the timesheet. Vettel won the first of his DHL Fastest Lap Awards in his rookie season with Red Bull Racing (2009). Vettel and team-mate Mark Webber each scored three fastest laps, but the German won out due to the tie-breaking number of second-fastest laps. In the years 2012 and 2013, however, he won by a clear margin. His total of three DHL Fastest Lap Awards makes him the record title winner.

Fernando Alonso: 2010
Fernando Alonso may have just lost out to Sebastian Vettel in the 2010 championship showdown in Abu Dhabi, but in the DHL Fastest Lap Award, he prevailed by a narrow margin. The battle for the trophy had been another mighty tussle, with Alonso and Hamilton each setting five fastest laps. A superior tally of second-fastest laps clinched it for the Spaniard. 

The reigning Formula 1 champion is the fifth driver to have claimed the DHL Fastest Lap Award. 

Mark Webber: 2011
Mark Webber was the fastest man of the race in seven of the 19 Grands Prix in 2011. The Australian scored a grand total of 19 fastest laps in his Formula 1 career, the last of which came appropriately in his swansong appearance at the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix. 

Lewis Hamilton: 2014
The reigning Formula 1 champion is the fifth driver to have claimed the DHL Fastest Lap Award. In fact, he already had this particular title sewn up before the season finale in Abu Dhabi and was presented with the trophy beforehand. Hamilton is an out-and-out racer. He clocked up his first fastest lap in the highest echelon of motor racing in only his second Formula 1 outing, namely the 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix. Since then, he has recorded 19 further GP fastest laps.

This coming weekend, the new Formula 1 season gets underway with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. So who do you think is going to set the fastest lap at Albert Park?