Since Sebastian Vettel took his fourth title last weekend at India, there's been plenty of debate as to just where the 26-year-old stands relative to the other greats of Formula One. Following another crushing victory at Abu Dhabi - his seventh in a row and 11th of the year in total - one particular statistic helps to shed some light on this debate.
Now with 36 wins to his name behind the wheel of a Red Bull, Vettel has won more races with the Milton Keynes-based team than the legendary Ayrton Senna did at McLaren. That makes the Vettel-Red Bull partnership the second most successful of all-time, second only to the mighty Schumacher-Ferrari axis that produced an incredible 72 wins.
Just like during the height of the Schumacher era, Vettel's domination has not made for scintillating viewing, and Abu Dhabi must rank as one of the dullest races of the year. Whilst Singapore at least saw a great deal of intrigue in the final dozen or so laps as differing tyre strategies converged, at Abu Dhabi the first four finishers were in no real doubt from the halfway stage onwards.
As for the identity of the winner, that was more or less decided at the first corner as pole-sitter Mark Webber bogged down as the lights went out and allowed Vettel into an early lead at the first corner, Nico Rosberg also sweeping around the outside of the Aussie to grab second.
Vettel promptly proceeded to escape the rest of the field at his usual terrifying rate - by lap five, the gap to Rosberg was as many seconds. By lap 10, when Rosberg made his first pit-stop, the Red Bull driver's advantage stood at 11 seconds, and by lap 20, Vettel's lead had swelled to an unassailable 23 seconds.
Not only this, but Vettel was able to preserve his tyres far more effectively than his pursuers, dispensing of his option tyres a full four laps later than Rosberg. He duly re-joined the circuit still in the lead of the race as a result; any victory ambitions Vettel's rivals may have harboured had by now vanished just as surely as the sun did beneath the horizon at mid-distance.
Attention turned to the battle for second, as Webber, who pitted two laps sooner than Rosberg, began to reel in the Mercedes driver during the second stint. The inevitable pass came on lap 20 at turn 11, one of many DRS-assisted overtaking manoeuvres seen throughout the race.
Despite his earlier first stop, Webber also made his prime tyres last longer than Rosberg, thus ending any realistic hope the Mercedes had of preventing Red Bull from taking a second one-two in the space of three races. Indeed, in the closing stages, Rosberg had a charging Romain Grosjean to contend with.
Grosjean had passed the sister Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton at the start to take fourth, but was unable to remain in touch with Rosberg and Webber ahead. The Lotus driver did nonetheless show a handy turn of pace at the end of the race, but simply ran out of laps in which to catch Rosberg. Grosjean thus had to be content with fourth whilst the German secured a second straight podium finish.
It was a wretched evening for Hamilton, whose race was ruined during the second stint as he became stuck behind the yet-to-stop Esteban Gutierrez for some 10 laps. Once the Mexican pitted, Hamilton had lost touch with the top four and was among the first drivers to pit for a second time.
This put him behind the one-stopping Paul Di Resta, and by the time Hamilton had caught the Force India driver, he had seemingly run out of grip with which to challenge his fellow Briton. This allowed Fernando Alonso, equipped with relatively new option tyres, to close rapidly and pass both Hamilton and Di Resta in the final few laps to claim fifth place.
Ferrari initially appeared to be attempting to get both its cars home with just one pit-stop as both Alonso and Massa went for long first stints on their option tyres, pitting on laps 16 and 18 respectively, but as the second stint wore on it became clear that a second visit to the pits was needed.
At this stage, Massa was holding up Alonso, who had started three places lower than his teammate in 10th, and was in no mood to yield to the Spaniard. This prompted Ferrari to bring in the Brazilian earlier than anticipated for medium tyres, preventing him from challenging the option-shod Alonso and consigning him to eighth place behind Di Resta and Hamilton.
The point-scorers were completed by McLaren's Sergio Perez, who enjoyed a trouble-free run to ninth position, and the second Force India of Adrian Sutil, who at one stage was under scrutiny from the stewards for exceeding track limits.
During a battle with Pastor Maldonado, Sutil was forced off the road by the Williams driver and cut the chicane at turn 11/12, gaining an sizeable advantage in the process. Maldonado meanwhile veered back towards the apex of the corner despite running wide, losing a position to Perez. Sutil escaped without penalty.
Alonso also was under investigation for passing Jean-Eric Vergne by leaving the track at the fast sweeping turn 4 as he exited the pit-lane, but was cleared of any wrongdoing by the stewards after the race.
Maldonado eventually came home 11th, missing out on doubling the Williams team's points haul for the year by one position, ahead of Jenson Button who endured another miserable outing. The McLaren driver made contact with Di Resta at the start, which necessitated an early pit-stop for a new front wing; Button never really looked like hauling himself back into points-scoring contention thereafter.
13th place went to Gutierrez, who finished one place ahead of Sauber teammate Nico Hulkenberg who was denied another points finish when he received a drive-through penalty for an unsafe pit-stop release. Next up was Valtteri Bottas in the second Williams, whose unusual strategy allowed him to run in the top 10 before a late second stop dropped him down to 15th at the chequered flag.
Both Toro Rosso drivers had a race to forget, finishing down in 16th and 17th. Daniel Ricciardo had started a creditable ninth but plummeted to 16th after a dreadful start and was never in the hunt for points from then on. Vergne meanwhile attempted to pull off a one-stop strategy which he was forced to abandon after 'falling off the cliff' in the closing stages.
The four 'Class B' cars rounded off the list of finishers, Giedo van der Garde making up for his recent first-lap collisions with a fairly decisive 'win' over Caterham teammate Charles Pic. The Dutchman even survived a collision with Kimi Raikkonen, who had to start from the back after being thrown out of qualifying for a technical infringement, at the the first corner.
The Finn wasn't so fortunate however, and was forced to park his Lotus there and then. For a while, it seemed that may have been the last F1 fans would see of Raikkonen this year amid claims that he hasn't been paid by Lotus all season, but an agreement has now been reached that will see the 'Iceman' complete the final two Grands Prix of the year.
There are no such tensions in the Red Bull camp, whose relationship with Vettel looks as healthy as ever. But, rumours are abound that the team's star designer Adrian Newey could be lured away from the sport and towards yacht racing in the not-too-distant future; such a move coming to fruition would certainly come as a blow to Red Bull.
But, losing Newey would not have as large an impact as next year's sweeping rule changes will have. Whilst the Milton Keynes team are hardly likely to suffer the same dramatic fall from grace Ferrari experienced in 2005, there's a strong chance we'll see a shake-up in the competitive order.
And if Vettel can still win races in such domineering style as he did at Abu Dhabi behind the wheel of a car that's not the class of the field, nobody will be able to dispute his status as one of the greatest ever.
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