Spanish GP Preview: Facts & Stats

For years, the popularity of Formula One in Spain paled in comparison to that of MotoGP. With no Spanish driver or team at the sharp end of the field, the locals preferred bikes to their auto racing.

Only when Fernando Alonso arrived at Renault in 2003 did all that change, and while we eagerly await the 130,000 sellout at this weekend's race, let's not forget everything that has happened since the first Grand Prix was held on Spanish soil, way back in 1913.

Twelve of the previous 47 events have been non-championship affairs, and the Spanish GP has bounced in and out of the schedule throughout its existence. It first appeared on the F1 calendar in 1951. It was three years before it returned, after which there was another 13 years before another race was held, and even then it was non-championship.

After being an ever-present in the 1970s, political wrangling within the sport meant the 1980 event disappeared from the schedule, and after one more race at Jarama in 1981, another five years elapsed before Jerez emerged as the new venue.

When Martin Donnelly suffered his horrific crash in qualifying for the 1990 race, it sounded the end of Jerez's short tenure, with the F1 circus moving to the brand new Circuit de Catalunya in 1991,where it has remained ever since.

Rewinding to 1951, Juan Manuel Fangio was the first winner of a championship race in Spain, when he triumphed at Pedralbes - it was the perfect way to seal his first world title. There then followed a run of six successive wins by British drivers. Mike Hawthorn's 1954 win was followed by Jim Clark in 1967 (non-championship), Graham Hill in 1968, and Jackie Stewart's hat trick of wins from 1969-71.

Hill's '68 victory for Lotus was the antidote to the shock of Jim Clark's death one month earlier. It was the first race ever to be held with a deceased championship leader, as Clark had won the season opener in South Africa.

The 1970 race was the beginning of the end of an era for F1. In qualifying, Jack Brabham took his last career pole position, the 13th of his career. It made him the first driver to take poles in three different decades, as his first pole came at Aintree in 1959. Only Mario Andretti has emulated that achievement since.

Stewart's victory in the race was also one of the last ever on Dunlop tyres. After Pedro Rodriguez's final win for the marque at Spa a few weeks later, Dunlop's 83 wins stood as a record until Goodyear beat it at Austria in 1976. Bridgestone and Michelin only recently surpassed the British tyre firm.

Both Stewart's 1970 and 1971 wins were maiden victories for a constructor - March and Tyrrell both breaking their ducks. Further up the win scale, Emerson Fittipaldi's 1973 win made Lotus the first team to 50 F1 wins.

Joining him on the podium that afternoon was 39-year-old American George Follmer, who followed up being the 43rd man to score points on a Grand Prix debut at the previous race with a run to third place at Montjuich Park. He then never scored another point in Grand Prix racing, making his F1 career a flash in the pan of almost Giancarlo Baghetti proportions.

A year later, and another constructor, Ferrari, were celebrating their 50th win. This time it dovetailed with Niki Lauda's maiden Grand Prix victory, while in 1975 it was the turn of Jochen Mass to open his account - although it is a race overshadowed by Rolf Strommelen's accident which killed four spectators.

Driving the Embassy Hill, Strommelen was leading an F1 race for the only time in his and his team's career, when a rear wing failure sent him over the barriers. Scandalously, it was another four laps before the red flags came out, at which point Mass was the leader, having passed Jacky Ickx's Lotus.

The biggest statistic to come from the race was Lella Lombardi becoming the first (and only) woman to finish in the points, taking sixth in the March - although as the race was the first of three half-points race in history, half a point was all she got for her efforts.

James Hunt won in '76, but only after initially being disqualified for having a McLaren that was slightly too wide, handing the win to Niki Lauda. It took two months for Hunt to be reinstated, and that decision was pivotal in his championship win, as he ended up beating Lauda by a single point.

Gilles Villeneuve (Ferrari 126CK) leads Jacques Laffite (Ligier JS17-Matra), John Watson (McLaren MP4/1-Ford Cosworth), Carlos Reutemann (Williams FW07C-Ford Cosworth) and Elio de Angelis (Lotus 87-Ford Cosworth) 1981 Spanish Grand Prix, Jarama © LAT

Perhaps the most famous Spanish GP ever held was in 1981, Jarama's last F1 race. Alan Jones was comfortably leading before running off the road, leaving Gilles Villeneuve at the front, fending off Carlos Reutemann.

Over the next 67 laps, Jacques Laffite (in his 100th race), John Watson and Elio de Angelis all caught the leading duo, but none of them could pass the Canadian, who took his sixth and last win by leading home one the closest top five finishes ever - 1.24 seconds separated Villeneuve and fifth-placed de Angelis.

After a five-year break, F1 was back in Spain, at Jerez de la Frontera. Ayrton Senna took Lotus' 100th pole position in qualifying, and followed it up with a Villeneuve-like victory in the race, keeping the infinitely quicker Nigel Mansell behind him in the closing laps, and pipping the Englishman to the line by 0.014 seconds, the closest genuine finish since Formula One began timing to the thousandth of a second (Rubens Barrichello beat Michael Schumacher by 0.011 seconds at the 2002 United States Grand Prix, but that was a highly stage-managed affair).

Jerez's brief time as the Spanish GP host ended in 1990 in rather sombre circumstances. Martin Donnelly crashed his Lotus at the fastest corner of the circuit, being thrown from the car and narrowly escaping with his life.

Ayrton Senna took his 50th pole position, but in the race Alain Prost took victory for Ferrari, with teammate Nigel Mansell second. It seems inconceivable in this era, but it would be four years before the Maranello squad were on the top step of the podium once more, and eight years before they recorded another 1-2. Alessandro Nannini, who was never to start another Grand Prix, took third place. He suffered a career-ending helicopter crash just days later.

Barcelona came on the schedule in 1991, and it's created a few notables of its own. In 1992, a young Michael Schumacher qualified on the front row for the first time in his career. 1994 had an eerie resemblance to the 1968 race, as Damon Hill won for Williams, lifting them in the aftermath of Ayrton Senna's death in the same way that his father did for Lotus after Jimmy Clark's passing.

That race was Goodyear's 300th Grand Prix victory (they eventually amassed 368), and Mark Blundell's third place was the last of 77 podiums for the Tyrrell team. In 1995, Michael Schumacher and Johnny Herbert scored Benetton's last 1-2, five years after the team scored their first one.

Twelve months on, and Schumacher had moved to the Ferrari team. In the streaming wet, the German gave a driving lesson in the recalcitrant F310 chassis, beating everyone by 45 seconds, despite the loss of a cylinder. It was the first of his 67 Ferrari victories to-date.

Jacques Villeneuve won in 1997, but Olivier Panis's second place is worth mentioning - it was his fifth podium in 55 starts, but in the 102 starts between then and the end of his F1 career, he never scored another one.

Since the turn of the decade, Michael Schumacher has dominated this race to unreasonable proportions. In 2001, 2002 and 2004, he achieved the "sweep" of pole, victory and fastest lap, but last year he was never in the equation as Kimi Raikkonen cruised to glory. It was the beginning of his run of 162 consecutive laps in the lead, the longest streak for any driver in the last 14 years.