Stats: Formula 1's pole jinxes

In three of Abu Dhabi's four grands prix, the polesitter has hit mechanical problems and failed to finish - so habitual pole-grabber and new world champion Sebastian Vettel can't be too confident if he dominates qualifying again on Saturday.

Two years ago Vettel himself was the unlucky poleman. Just like now he was already world champion, but his Red Bull picked up a puncture at the first corner at Yas Marina and was left too damaged to continue after spinning off the road.

Lewis Hamilton was the victim of both the other two Abu Dhabi pole failures, retiring with brake problems on lap 20 in 2009 and fuel-pressure issues on lap 19 in '12.

MONZA TOPS THE POLE JINX TALLY

Unsurprisingly, Formula 1's veteran venues are those with the highest tally of retiring polesitters.

Monza leads the way, with 30 polesitters hitting trouble over the years. That not only puts the Italian venue eight clear of nearest rival Monte Carlo and 12 ahead of third-placed Great Britain, but means that nearly half its 64 grands prix have featured a DNF for the polesitter.

Abu Dhabi has a few years to go before it can match Britain and Italy's string of five straight years of luckless pole winners.

Alesi leads Ferrari team-mate Gerhard Berger at Monza in 1994, but it's third-placed Damon Hill's Williams that would win © LAT

But with Britain's 1978-82 run of retirements for Ronnie Peterson, Alan Jones, Didier Pironi, Rene Arnoux and Keke Rosberg being split between Brands Hatch and Silverstone in alternate years, Monza's 1992-96 string is the longest for a single circuit.

It began with Nigel Mansell's Williams hydraulics expiring just after he had let team-mate Riccardo Patrese through in 1992, and continued with Alain Prost's Williams-Renault's late engine blow a year later.

Williams was in the wars again in 1995-96, first when dominant poleman David Coulthard (who had been let off a parade lap spin due to a red flag for a midfield pile-up) skittered into the gravel with a wheelbearing failure, then when Damon Hill clipped one of 1996's controversial chicane tyre stacks.

The middle race in Monza's run of polesitter retirements brought heartbreak for the crowd, as the gearbox in Jean Alesi's Ferrari broke as he led from pole in 1994, just as the team was emerging from its early-nineties doldrums.

SENNA AND CLARK'S POLE DISASTERS

Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna both had long stints holding the record for F1 poles, so it is perhaps little surprise that they also have the most retirements from pole. Sixteen of Clark's 33 poles ended in raceday problems, as did 24 of Senna's 65.

Senna led from pole at Imola in 1990 until a damaged wheel sent him off the road © LAT

Given how often Senna stuck fragile and fuel-hungry Lotuses at the head of the grid in 1985-87, it's interesting to note that only seven of those pole/retirements came in Lotus machinery, whereas 14 were in McLarens.

Senna and Clark also have the longest strings of retiring from pole in consecutive races.

In Senna's case, his run of three ends in tragedy: he took pole for all three of his grands prix with Williams in 1994, but spun out at Interlagos, was taken out by Mika Hakkinen at the first corner at Aida and then suffered his fatal accident at Imola.

Clark's run was the Canadian, German and Italian Grands Prix in 1967, with mechanical problems at each - although this statistic is slightly debateable as he was still classified third at Monza, despite running out of fuel.

SPARE A THOUGHT FOR TWO FRENCHMEN

As for the drivers who suffered the highest percentage of retirements in their career pole tally, that honour goes to two French stars of the early turbo era.

Jean-Pierre Jabouille retired from five of his six pole races, while Patrick Tambay met the same fate in four of his five.

Jabouille's abandoned and punctured Renault at Kyalami in 1980 © LAT

Seeing as Jabouille was in the thick of Renault's revolutionary but initially troubled turbocharged power programme, that's little surprise. But not all his 1979/80 pole/retirement pairings came in a puff of engine smoke - he crashed at Hockenheim in '79 and had a puncture at Kyalami in '80.

And when he did reach the finish having started on pole he won, although famously no one really noticed his 1979 French GP triumph as everyone was watching Gilles Villeneuve and Rene Arnoux's legendary battle for second.

Neither of Tambay's two grands prix wins came from pole, and all four of his retirements from pole were with Ferrari in 1983. The first was due to a tangle with Keke Rosberg on the streets of Long Beach, with the rest due to engine-related issues. He did make it to the flag from pole with Renault at Dijon in 1984, but was beaten into second by Niki Lauda's McLaren.

FRAGILE LOTUSES

In team terms, there is little to separate F1's historic qualifying king squads in the list of retirements from pole. Lotus (the original version) leads the way with 47 DNFs for its cars after taking poles, followed by McLaren and Ferrari on 43 each, then Williams on 41.

But when put into percentages, a big disparity becomes obvious, as Lotus only scored 107 poles in total, compared to 127 for Williams, 155 for McLaren and Ferrari on 207.

Nurburgring 1967: Clark's Lotus on pole, but out after four laps with failed suspension © LAT

So it was not far shy of half Lotus's poles that ended in retirements, while for Ferrari the stat is just one fifth.

Generally those retirements from poles are evenly spread through the teams' histories, with perhaps a slight bias towards periods of speed coupled with fragility - such as Lotus in the 1960s and mid-1980s - or when on the cusp of dominance but still attending to rough edges.

Ferrari at the start of the Lauda/Luca di Montezemolo era is a good example. The Austrian took pole for nine out of 15 races in 1974, but retired from five of those grands prix so was only fourth in the standings. Only his infamous Nurburgring '76 accident prevented him from winning the next three straight championships though.

The 1995-97 period, when Damon Hill, David Coulthard and Jacques Villeneuve sometimes made rather heavy weather of ramming home Williams's advantage, provides a big cluster of squandered poles: of the 25 scored in that time, 13 ended in raceday retirements.

McLaren had a similar flurry of retiring polesitters in 1989. It dominated that season with Prost and Senna, taking 15 poles from 16 races, 13 of them courtesy of the Brazilian. Yet its polewinning car retired on seven occasions, helping Ferrari, Williams and Benetton to grab some wins.

HOW THE CLASS OF 2013 SHAPES UP IN ABU DHABI

GLASS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL...?

Several leading drivers have reason to both love and loathe Yas Marina as it has brought them both career highs and misery.

• Vettel won in Abu Dhabi in 2009 and '10, but in the last two runnings of the Yas Marina race he hit trouble: in '11 he punctured at the first corner and last year he didn't have enough fuel at the end of qualifying, and had to start from the pits at a crucial time in his title fight with Fernando Alonso.

The eventual champion still recovered to third, pulling off no less than 18 on-track passes.

• Alonso has been the Abu Dhabi runner-up for the past two years, and has always qualified between third and sixth for his three races there with Ferrari. Those podiums won't stick in his mind like the pain of 2010, when he arrived leading the points only to get stuck behind Vitaly Petrov due to a strategy miscue, trapping him in seventh as outsider Vettel snatched the title with victory.

Alonso and Renault's relationship came to a disappointing end © XPB

Abu Dhabi was the season finale that year, as it had been on its debut in 2009, when it marked the last race of Alonso's second stint with the Renault team that launched him to F1 stardom.

But by that time both parties were ready for an unsuccessful year to be over, and the double champion's anonymous trundle from 15th on the grid to 14th in the race was a far cry from the 2005/06 glory days.

• Hamilton has only won once in Abu Dhabi, but his total could have been three, given his big part in the retirement/polewinner stat highlighted earlier. In both cases he had led the first stint of the race. He was also second in 2010 behind Vettel. Hamilton has always qualified on the front row in Abu Dhabi, scoring pole in '09 and last year.

• Pastor Maldonado had one of his strongest grands prix in last year's Yas Marina race, qualifying third for Williams and finishing fifth despite KERS problems.

He was passed on track by Alonso and Jenson Button, then he had a close fight with Mark Webber in which the Australian spun, but no penalty was felt necessary.

Conversely, in the 2011 race Maldonado was penalised twice: 10 grid positions for an engine change and 30 seconds in the race for not observing blue flags.

DEFINITELY HALF EMPTY...

• Although Red Bull has been an Abu Dhabi pacesetter every year, Webber's only podium at the venue came when he was second behind Vettel in 2009.

In 2010 he suffered the same fate as title rival Alonso, caught up in eighth place when his strategy dropped him into traffic, and powerless to prevent Vettel leapfrogging him to the crown.

Webber sits and watches after his bruising 2012 Abu Dhabi GP came to an end © XPB

Last year the Australian was in the thick of heated racing that included contact with Maldonado and Felipe Massa, before a final incident with Sergio Perez and Romain Grosjean ended his evening.

• Perez has never qualified or finished in the top 10 in Abu Dhabi, getting involved in accidents on both his appearances, though neither caused a retirement. He needed a new nose on his Sauber after bumping into Adrian Sutil's Force India on lap one in 2011, while last year he was blamed for the tangle with Grosjean and Paul di Resta that also collected Webber, and had to serve a 10s stop/go penalty.

• Grosjean is another man who has had a miserable time in Abu Dhabi. At least he was adjudged blameless in last year's incidents with Nico Rosberg and Perez/di Resta/Webber, which was a welcome contrast to most of his late-2012 dramas.

In 2009 he had fared even worse than Renault team-mate Alonso as he finished a lapped 16th in what seemed at the time like it could have been his final grand prix...

BUTTON EQUALS COULTHARD

This will be the 247th F1 race weekend for Button, matching David Coulthard at fifth in the all-time list, which Rubens Barrichello still tops on 326.

As usual with the 'starts/presences' statistics, a bit of clarification is needed. Both Coulthard and Button were non-starters in the tyre-hampered 2005 United States Grand Prix, and Button is actually one start behind Coulthard as a practice crash ruled him out of the 2003 Monaco GP.

So if all goes well for Button this will be his 245th F1 start. Barrichello notched up 322.