Pre-GP Stats Analysis: Japan

Fisichella set for fifth on veterans list

One more race-start and Giancarlo Fisichella will equal Gerhard Berger's fifth place in the all-time race presences list - the Austrian counts 210 starts. The other Italian, Jarno Trulli, will be present for the 200th race weekend in Fuji, but will have to wait for his 200th race start, since he was a non-starter in San Marino 1997, Malaysia 1999 and USA 2005.

McLaren comeback

After the Singapore Grand Prix McLaren were able to snatch the lead from Ferrari in the constructors' championship, that was a major achievement for the Woking-based team, as they lagged 33 points behind Ferrari 33 after the French Grand Prix. That was the fourth all-time best comeback from a constructors' points deficit.

The three largest gaps are:

1991 - After the Monaco round, Williams were 38 points behind McLaren and went on to take the lead by one point after the Spanish GP. McLaren fought back and eventually won the championship by fourteen points.

1994 - Williams were 36 points behind Benetton in the standings after the French GP but snatched the lead at the penultimate round and won by 15 points.

2006 - The situation after the Canadian GP saw Renault leading with 121 points, followed by Ferrari at 87, for a 34 points margin. The Italian team took the lead after Monza round by three points, but Renault fought back and at the end of the season won by five.

Hamilton targets twenty front rows

Lewis Hamilton approaches his 33rd race with 19 front-row starts under his belt and could become the fifth fastest driver of all time to claim twenty front row starts.

Ahead of him are three drivers from the early days of Formula One. Nino Farina started from the front row in all his first twenty starts, Juan Manuel Fangio clinched the milestone at his 21st race, while Alberto Ascari took 26. In these days though the grids often had more than two spots and Farina, for example, on his sixth race was on the front row by dint of starting third.

The fastest driver of the modern two-place grid era to achieve the feat is Jacques Villeneuve, who conquered his 20th front row start at his 31st race, the 1997 Luxembourg GP.

BMW Sauber third for the longest time

Ferrari saw their sequence of 46 races in the points come to an end in Singapore, but BMW Sauber kept on scoring and in Japan they could reach the third all-time sequence with 33 straight races in the points.

Team       Races  From             To
Ferrari     55    Malaysia 1999    Malaysia 2003
Ferrari     46    San Marino 2006  Italy 2008
Ferrari     33    San Marino 2003  Malaysia 2005
BMW Sauber  32    Australia 2007   ongoing

Hard times for Jenson

Jenson Button ended his 11th straight race outside the points in Singapore. One more race and he will equal his longest drought, recorded from Malaysia 2000 to Great Britain 2001.

Japan personal scorecard

Kimi Raikkonen spun into retirement in his first Japanese GP, but since then he has always finished in the points. He won in 2005 after a memorable comeback through the field and also finished on the podium in 2002, 2003 and 2007. He obtained his best qualifying position in Japan last year - third.

Felipe Massa also retired with a spin on his first Japanese GP appearance. Since then he has only finished in the points twice - 2006 and 2007. His best result is q second place in the 2006 race. The Brazilian qualified on pole in 2006, his only front row appearance.

Nick Heidfeld has scored only one point, in 2006, out of seven races run in Japan. His best qualifying result came last year, fifth. BMW teammate Robert Kubica scored two points last year at his second attempt. His best qualifying result is a ninth place obtained also last year.

Fernando Alonso has only ever scored points in the 2004-2006 time frame in Japan. He won in 2006 after Michael Schumacher's engine failure. He managed to qualify on the front row only last year, in second place, but crashed out in the race.

Nico Rosberg hasn't scored points in his two Japanese Grand Prix outings and his best qualifying result is a tenth, obtained in 2006.

David Coulthard scored four third places from 1998 to 2003, which are his best results in Japan. Since 2001 he alternates a point finish (odd years) to a retirement (even years).

Mark Webber last saw the chequered flag in Japan in 2005, when he classified fourth in his only points finish at the race. He spun out of at Suzuka in 2006 and was hit by Sebastian Vettel last year as a consequence of an unpredictable move by Lewis Hamilton behind the safety car.

Jarno Trulli scored points only in 2003 (fifth) and 2006 (sixth) out of ten races run in Japan.

Vettel was able to hit the front by the 29th lap on his first attempt, becoming the youngest driver ever to lead an F1 race at twenty years, two months and twenty-seven days.

Jenson Button never has retired in Japan, and was able to score points six times in his first seven races. His best result is a third in 2004, while his worst came last year ­- eleventh.

Rubens Barrichello scored points in his first appearance in 1993 (fifth), then had to wait until he was driving a Ferrari to be back in the points, from 2000 to 2003 - when he won the race. He was a victim of an accident the following year and from then onwards he hasn't been able to score points. Rubens recorded his most recent fastest lap of the race in Japan, on October 10, 2004.

Adrian Sutil finished in the points with eighth place last year. That was his maiden (and only) point in F1.

Giancarlo Fisichella has scored points in his last four appearances in Japan, finishing on the podium in 2005 and 2006. The 2006 result is his last podium to date and his fifth place in 2007 marks his last race in the points. The Italian is running the longest pointless streak of the career.

The current McLaren drivers were first and second last year, with Lewis Hamilton beating Heikki Kovalainen, who was driving a Renault at the time. The second place was the Finn's first F1 podium. In 2007 Hamilton scored the hat-trick with pole, win and fastest lap.

Other notes on the Japanese Grand Prix

Ferrari were able to post five straight wins in Japan from 2000 to 2004, but have not been back on the top step of the podium there since. In the last three years, McLaren won in 2005 and 2007 and Renault in 2006. Ferrari have taken pole eight times in the last ten years.

The best result for Toyota in their home country was a sixth place recorded by Jarno Trulli in 2006 out of six participations. Last year and in 2004 they finished outside the points.

Scuderia Toro Rosso have never scored points in Japan.

The last point-scoring race for Williams in Japan was back in 2005, when Mark Webber finished fourth. Last year both Williams cars retired from the race.

Japan has hosted a maiden winner only once out of 23 races run, when in 1989, Alessandro Nannini inherited his only GP victory for a Benetton after Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna collided, and then the Brazilian was subsequently excluded for rejoining the track at the wrong place.

Anniversaries of the race weekend

October 12, 1986 - Mexico City: Gerhard Berger took advantage of a bold non-stop strategy, nursing his Pirelli tyres to score his first ever win in F1, which was also the first for the Benetton team. Pirelli won only one other race before withdrawing from F1 - the 1991 Canadian Grand Prix with Nelson Piquet driving a Benetton.