Stat Attack: Monaco

Monaco personal scoreboard

• Jenson Button won last year from pole in Monaco and finished second behind Jarno Trulli in 2004. He has the chance to use his ability to conserve tyres: last year he was one of the last front-runners to stop and gained a decisive advantage over his rivals.

• Lewis Hamilton was second in his debut year, behind Fernando Alonso, then won in 2008 in spectacular fashion, overcoming contact with the barrier early in the race. Last year a mistake in qualifying sent him to the back of the field and he finished 12th. He also won here in F3 (two races in 2005) and in GP2 (in 2006).

• Michael Schumacher is second only to Ayrton Senna for wins in the Principality (six to five), but his last visits to Monaco were disappointing: he was rammed by Juan Pablo Montoya with the safety car deployed in 2004, had contact with a Minardi in 2005 which ended in a broken front wing, and in 2006 the infamous Rascasse incident in qualifying sent him at the back of the grid.

• Nico Rosberg scored his first points in Monaco last year with a sixth place at his fourth race here, after two retirements and a 12th place. In the 2005 GP2 championship, he was third behind Adam Carroll and Gianmaria Bruni. In F1 qualifying sessions he has always qualified between fifth and eighth.

• Sebastian Vettel climbed from 19th to fifth in the wet race of 2008, but last year he made a mistake, struggling with the supersoft tyres, and ultimately ended his race in the barrier. He was second in the FR3.5 race in 2007 but he didn't enjoy much luck in F3 in 2005 when he was 18th and 17th.

• Mark Webber scored his maiden podium in Monaco in 2005, and in the last two editions was fourth and fifth. Webber was running well in 2006 and '07, when a broken exhaust and a gearbox sidelined him. He started from the front row in 2006, in second.

• Felipe Massa was the best Ferrari driver in 2007 and '08 (a couple of thirds) and last year was fourth behind team-mate Kimi Raikkonen. He was on pole in 2008 and set the fastest lap last year. In 2008, he was in the position to win the race but a couple of mistakes and a wrong strategy call cost him.

• Fernando Alonso cruised to win from pole here in 2006 and '07, his only podium placements in Monaco. In the last two editions he struggled with Renault, ending 10th and seventh. In 2004 and '05 he missed out on two podium finishes: in 2004 Ralf Schumacher (lapped) drove him off line in the tunnel and he ended up in the barrier, while in 2005 the team's decision to run two-thirds of the race on the same set of tyres forced him to slow down in the closing stages, conceding two positions and ending fourth.

• Rubens Barrichello will become the first man to start 18 Monaco Grands Prix, beating the record he now shares with Riccardo Patrese and Graham Hill. With 62 laps completed, he will also be the one who has raced the highest number of kilometers in Monaco's races, currently Graham Hill leads with 3826, with Barrichello on 3622. Rubens climbed on the podium here five times, four of them second places, and his best qualifying result came last year with a third place.

• Nico Hulkenberg raced at Monaco in last year's GP2 races, coming fifth in race one and third in the second behind Pastor Maldonado and Jerome d'Ambrosio. He has to recover from his two worst race results this year, as he was 15th in China and 16th in Spain.

• Robert Kubica drove in Monaco in 2006 as a Friday tester and set the sixth quickest time in the first session. In 2007 he was fifth in his first Monaco Grand Prix and in the wet 2008 race he was second behind Hamilton. Last year was a disaster as he qualified only 17th and retired with a brake failure.

• Vitaly Petrov was second in the first of the two GP2 races last year, behind team-mate Romain Grosjean, and ended race two in sixth. In 2008, also in GP2, he retired in race one and was 15th in race two. On his GP2 debut here in 2007, he was sixth.

• Two race accidents and a 14th place are Adrian Sutil's results in Monaco. Going back in time, he was second in the 2005 F3 race, behind Lewis Hamilton. In that race, Sutil's fastest lap (1m28.017s) was the weekend's fastest lap, a record which remained unbeaten

• Like his team-mate, Vitantonio Liuzzi has retired twice (race accidents) in three races, and ended the 2006 event in 10th. He hasn't race here since 2007, but in '04 won the F3000 race in front of Enrico Toccacelo and Jose-Maria Lopez, setting the qualifying lap record for the series.

• Sebastian Buemi does not remember Monaco well. Last year he rammed Nelson Piquet Jr after 10 laps, in the 2008 GP2 race he recorded a retirement and an 11th, and in 2007 he finished seventh.

• Jaime Alguersuari last year had his first taste of this track in FR3.5: he was sixth in a race won by current GP2 driver Oliver Turvey.

Jarno Trulli, Monaco 2004 © LAT

• Jarno Trulli won here from pole in 2004 - his only race win out of 220 contested. Since then his best results is 10th, in the last two editions he finished 13th. He started from the front row in 2000, but retired with a gearbox problem when he was running second.

• In three attempts, Heikki Kovalainen has scored only one point here, with an eighth place in 2008. Last year he was seventh when he made a mistake and hit the barrier at Ste Devote. In 2005, he was on pole and led 21 laps of the GP2 race, but a pitstop problem put him down to fifth.

• Karun Chandhok raced five times in GP2 in Monaco, finishing third in the first 2008 race, behind Bruno Senna and Pastor Maldonado. Last year in race two a broken halfshaft deprived him of second place.

• Bruno Senna has raced three times in GP2 here and won race one in 2008. His first race in Monaco dates back 2006 when he was a guest in the Porsche Supercup series: he was 22nd in qualifying and retired during the first lap with a clutch failure.

• Pedro de la Rosa raced here in F1 from 1999 to 2002: he recorded two mechanical failures, an accident which caused a red flag (in 2000) and a 10th place in 2002. His best grid spot is 14th in 2001.

• Kamui Kobayashi recorded three retirements and a 12th place in his four GP2 races contested here.

• Timo Glock finished the two grands prix he contested here, in 12th and 10th. In GP2, he was on the podium in third in 2007, behind Pastor Maldonado and Giorgio Pantano, while in 2006 he retired when running fifth.

• Lucas di Grassi contested four GP2 races in Monaco, and saw the chequered flag each time: his best result is fourth in both 2009 races.

Team notes

• McLaren is the most successful team in Monaco, with 15 wins - five in the last 10 years.

• Ferrari has scored more podiums at Monaco than any other team (46 to McLaren's 25), but a Ferrari hasn't won at Monte Carlo since 2001.

Adrian Sutil, Monaco 2008 © LAT

• Force India missed out on a points finish last year by only two seconds as Fisichella finished ninth, while in 2008 both Force Indias retired - Sutil when he has rammed out of fourth place by Raikkonen.

• Lotus counts seven wins in Monaco, the last in 1987 with Ayrton Senna. That was also the last race which featured a Lotus in the points in the Principality.

• Red Bull scored its maiden podium here in 2006 with David Coulthard. Last year Vettel was running third behind the Brawns before crashing out.

• Renault has won twice in Monaco, in 2004 with Trulli and in 2006 with Alonso.

• Toro Rosso's best performance came in 2008 with Vettel fifth in a wet race. Sebastian Bourdais finished in the points last year, eighth.

• Williams managed to score points here in the last three editions, though its last win in Monaco came back in 2003 with Juan Pablo Montoya.

Other notes

• Red Bull is going for a sixth straight pole this season: the benchmark for that stat is McLaren, which in 1998 posted the first eight poles of the year.