2006 Monaco GP: facts & Stats

It is rare indeed that a Formula One qualifying session creates more talking points than the actual race, but there's no doubting the major news story of this weekend.

Initially it seemed Michael Schumacher had secured his fourth Monaco Grand Prix pole position. Pole at Monaco hasn't done him much good in the past, though. He won comfortably from pole in 1994 (his first career pole), but that was the first race after the death of Ayrton Senna, and consequently he was without any significant opposition.

He was the pole winner against expectations in 1996, driving the recalcitrant Ferrari F310, but threw it all away in the damp by losing the lead to Damon Hill at Ste Devote, before stuffing it into the barriers at the Portier before the first lap was out. His last pole in the Principality was in 2000, when a surefire win evaporated with a broken rear suspension, following a tap with the barrier.

Late on Saturday night came the news that Schumacher would be starting last rather than first, and it goes without saying that this presents a major problem at Monaco. Looking back in history, the last man to score points in Monaco from so far back was Alex Caffi, who piloted his Arrows-Ford A11B to fifth place from 22nd on the grid, 16 years ago.

Stefan Bellof initially finished third from 20th in the 1984 Monaco GP, but that was a wet race, stopped before half-distance, and, more significantly, his Tyrrell team were later disqualified from the entire 1984 championship. Therefore, this leaves Clay Regazzoni's second place from 16th on the grid in 1979 was the best comeback drive for any podium finisher at Monaco.

Throw in Felipe Massa's crash at Casino Square in the first period of qualifying, and Ferrari found themselves occupying the last row of a Formula One grid for the first time ever. It even beat their dreadful 1980 Canadian GP weekend, where Gilles Villeneuve could only manage 22nd in practice, while Jody Scheckter - the reigning world champion at the time - failed to qualify altogether. Like Villeneuve that weekend, Schumacher fought back to finish fifth on Sunday.

The hyperbole surrounding Ferrari overshadowed a lot of the other storylines of the weekend, notably Fernando Alonso stretching his championship lead to 21 points, while simultaneously stretching existing steaks of finishing in the top two at every race this year, and the second-longest run of podium finishes in history, which now stands at 13 in a row

It was only Renault's third win in any capacity at Monaco - Jarno Trulli won the 2004 race for the constructor, while in their days as an engine supplier, Michael Schumacher won the 1995 race for Benetton.

Alonso spearheaded a Michelin 1-2-3-4 and scored the marque's fifth consecutive victory on this track - the only circuit on which they can boast such a record. It was a fitting tribute to the late Edouard Michelin, who died in tragic circumstances on Friday night.

Alonso was flanked on the podium by two drivers who have won at Monaco on Michelin tyres, Juan Pablo Montoya (2003) and David Coulthard (2002). While it was Montoya's best result since winning last year's Brazilian GP, Coulthard has become rather out of practice with podium ceremonies. You'd have to go back to the 2003 Japanese GP to find a podium that included the Scot, and his 61st podium breaks a tie with Nelson Piquet for 5th place on the all-time list.

He's now tied on podiums with the man who he beat to third place on Sunday, Rubens Barrichello. They both own the dubious honour of having the most podiums ever for a driver who has not won the championship - they only trail Formula One's statistical heavyweights, namely Schumacher (146), Alain Prost (106) and Senna (80).

Red Bull Racing became the 53rd team to finish on the podium in an F1 championship race. This team have existed in various forms since 1997, firstly as the Stewart team (5 podiums from 1997-99), and latterly as Jaguar (two podiums from 2000-04). All three incarnations have each scored their first podium in a Monaco GP, as Rubens Barrichello was second for Stewart in 1997, while Eddie Irvine was third for Jaguar in 2001.

Barrichello was a frustrating fourth, as it appeared as though Honda's two-stop approach cost him a podium. He was wearing the crash helmet colours of IRL driver Tony Kanaan, and it's not the first time something like this has happened in a Monaco GP. At the 1996 event, Coulthard finished second while wearing Michael Schumacher's helmet, after the visor on his own helmet repeatedly fogged up in the wet practice sessions.

You have to wonder what Barrichello might have been thinking in the closing laps. He was being hunted down relentlessly by Schumacher, who was lapping as much as three seconds per lap quicker than him. A year ago, Schumacher mugged Barrichello for seventh place in an audacious last-lap manoeuvre at the chicane, but lightning did not strike twice for the German.

David Coulthard wearing Michael Schumacher's helmet in the 1996 Monaco GP © LAT

BMW-Sauber are the poster team for steady points scoring this year, with Heidfeld's seventh place making it five points-scoring races out of the last six for the Swiss-German squad.

That consistency would be appreciated by the likes of Toyota right now, and Ralf Schumacher's point for eighth place doesn't gloss over the team trailing BMW in the constructors' championship by six points. Jarno Trulli looked set to end a 10-race pointless streak with a podium, only to suffer mechanical failure half a dozen laps from home.

There's no solid evidence suggesting Midland's Tiago Monteiro is made of Teflon, but he's developed a remarkable ability to emerge unscathed from on-track incidents, and Sunday was his 24th finish in 26 races, despite having two collisions. The first came at the start, when the Midland duo committed the cardinal sin of hitting each other, and the second came late in the day when he ran into the back of Super Aguri's Franck Montagny.

Remarkably, the first retirement at this year's Monaco GP came on lap 46, easily breaking the previous best. The 1972 race didn't feature a DNF until lap 16, and that race held the record for most classified finishers on this circuit (17), until this mark was matched on Sunday.

Mark Webber kept up his 100% record of retiring from every race that he has ever led, and it is likely that he would have ended the afternoon in a career-best second, as although Kimi Raikkonen spent most of his day staring at Alonso's gearbox, his car expired at the Grand Hotel hairpin while running behind the safety car.

With safety car driver Bernd Maylander celebrating his 35th birthday on Monday, he has the not-inconsiderable bragging rights of having led the F1 field for more laps this year in his AMG Mercedes (19 laps) than the McLaren-Mercedes team (15 laps). These are not numbers that McLaren would have wanted to hear, on the 40th anniversary of their F1 debut.