Although they didn't win the opening round of the 2017 Formula One Championship season at Albert Park on Sunday afternoon, the Mercedes team are happy to have gotten their season off to a great start with a double podium finish.
While their new signing, Valtteri Bottas, was climbing onto the podium for just the tenth time in his F1 career, teammate Lewis Hamilton was making his whopping 105th appearance!
The three time world champion is now only one top three finish behind Alain Prost in the All-Time Greats list.
Lewis also passed another milestone at Albert Park: he and Michael Schumacher are now the only drivers in F1 history to have posted more than 3,000 laps as race leader.
Aside from the main team's double podium finish, there was further cause for celebration little further down the grid as Mercedes Junior driver Esteban Ocon scored his first Formula One points for the Force India team. By doing this he becomes the 36th Frenchman to have his name on the scoresheet in the highest echelon of motorsport.
On a final note, one of the aims behind the new Formula One regulations is to make the cars faster. And in this regard, they have succeeded! On the lap that secured him pole position in Q3, Lewis set the fastest time ever recorded on the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit - 1:22.188 minutes. This bettered the previous fastest time of 1:23.529 minutes (Sebastian Vettel, Q3, 2011) by an impressive 1.241 seconds.
