Stats: Ferrari's homeland, Red Bull's weak spot

DRIVERS

• Sebastian Vettel has only finished on the podium at Monza twice - both times with a victory (for Toro Rosso in 2008 and Red Bull in 2011). The same is true for front-row starts and leading the race: it only happened in those two years.

• Monza is a bogey track for Mark Webber, who has never finished on the podium, qualified on the front row or led the race. His best race result is a sixth, back in 2010, while his best qualifying position is third, in '08.

In the past four years he has retired three times after going off - in 2009, '11 and last year, when a spin damaged his tyres and he decided to retire the car. Mark has missed out on a top-10 grid spot here seven times out of 11, including last year, when he was 11th on the grid.

• Fernando Alonso has twice taken a pole/victory/fastest lap hat-trick at Monza, in 2007 and '10. He finished third in the past two races and has scored points in the past six. He missed out on a points finish only with Minardi in 2001, Renault in '04 and '06. In the past nine years he has never qualified outside the top 10.

• Felipe Massa has only finished on the podium once in nine races at Monza, with third in 2010. He has, however, scored points in the past four races. He's never started the Italian GP from the front row either, his best grid spot being third, recorded in 2007, '10 and last year.

Button came close to upstaging 2004's dominant Ferrari team in a wet/dry Italian GP but was ultimately defeated © LAT

• Jenson Button has been second three times in the Italian GP (2009-11) and third once ('04), but has never won at Monza. Last year he was set for a comfortable second place, but retired with a fuel-feed problem. He has always qualified among the top six in the past four years, starting from the front row, in second, last year and in 2010.

• Sergio Perez last year recorded a great comeback through the field, finishing second from 12th on the grid. It's one of his two best career results, together with the 2012 Malaysian GP. That second place at Monza remains his most recent podium finish.

• Kimi Raikkonen has taken a top-three finish at Monza three times -second in 2006 and third in '07 and '09. Last year he finished fifth from seventh on the grid, despite lacking overall pace (he was only 17th on the fastest laps table). Kimi has missed out on a top-10 grid spot here only in 2005, when he posted the best qualifying time, but was demoted to 11th for an engine change, and in 2008, when he was 14th in wet qualifying.

• Nico Rosberg can count only three top-10 finishes from seven starts here - fifth in 2010, sixth in '07 and seventh last year. In qualifying he has occupied all the spots from fifth to ninth: fifth in 2008, sixth last year, seventh in 2010, eighth in 2007 and ninth in 2011.

• Lewis Hamilton won the race from pole last year and finished second from second on the grid in 2007, his only podium finishes at Monza. In the dry, he has always qualified among the top five, with pole in 2009 and last year, second in '07 and '11. In 2008, in wet qualifying, he was victim of a strategy mistake by his team and started only 15th.

Sutil put his Force India on the front row at Monza in 2009 © LAT

• Nico Hulkenberg was seventh in 2010 in his Williams, but last year endured a terrible weekend: he had a mechanical failure in Q1, had to start last and then suffered brake failure in the race.

• Paul di Resta has finished eighth in both his Italian GPs to date.

• Pastor Maldonado took 11th place in 2011 and '12.

• Adrian Sutil hit the headlines in 2009, when he was second on the grid and fourth in the race, recording the fastest race lap along the way.

Since then, he has not been able to repeat those feats in 53 races. That was the only time he started from the top-10 and scored points at Monza.

TEAMS

• Monza is one of the worst tracks for Red Bull: the pole position and victory for Sebastian Vettel in 2011 are its only front-row start, podium finish and race led. Last year both its cars retired, with an alternator failure for Vettel and a spin for Webber.

• Ferrari has won 18 times at Monza, to McLaren's 10, the most recent coming in 2010 from pole with Alonso. In the past 10 years the Scuderia has missed out on a podium finish at its home track only in 2005 (missing also the points) and in '08.

Fangio takes his Mercedes to Monza victory in 1954 © LAT

• Since 2005 McLaren has recorded three wins (2005, '07, '12) and five second places, for a total of eight podiums out of 16 starts. In the same period, it has claimed pole five times from eight attempts, missing out on a podium finish only in 2009 (Hamilton was running third, but crashed on the final lap).

• The most recent podium for Lotus at Monza came as Renault, back in 2005 with Alonso in second and Giancarlo Fisichella in third.

• Mercedes won at Monza in 1954 and scored its last one-two to date here in '55 (with Juan Manuel Fangio and Piero Taruffi). Since its return to racing its best race result is a fifth (Rosberg in 2010 and Michael Schumacher in '11) and in qualifying a fourth (Schumacher last year);

• Force India has scored points only three times out of the five races it has contested at Monza - a fourth by Sutil in 2009 and an eighth by di Resta both in 2011 and last year.

• Sauber has twice visited the podium at Monza: with Perez last year in second and with Heinz-Harald Frentzen in third in 1995 (pictured below). Those were also the years when the team was able to score points with both cars: last year Kamui Kobayashi was ninth.

• Toro Rosso's only points here came with Vettel's win in 2008 and with Jaime Alguersuari (seventh) and Sebastien Buemi (10th) in 2011.