A fifty-race drought
The last race won by an Italian driver is the 2006 Malaysian Grand Prix and thus Italy faces a winning drought that will reach 50 races in China this weekend if the race isn't won by Jarno Trulli or Giancarlo Fisichella.
This is not the longest dearth of wins for Italy. From the 1966 US Grand Prix to the 1975 German Grand Prix, Italy went 113 races without a win. Vittorio Brambilla ended the drought at the Austrian Grand Prix in 1975, but then another winless streak began and this lasted exactly 100 races before Riccardo Patrese won for Brabham at Monte Carlo in 1982.
Lewis Hamilton, Robert Kubica, and Felipe Massa in Monaco © LAT |
There was then another winless period that amounted to 69 races from the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix to the 1989 Spanish Grand Prix - this time brought to an end by Alessandro Nannini, who inherited the Japanese GP when Ayrton Senna was excluded. But the longest period in history without an Italian winner went from the 1992 Australian Grand Prix to the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix, a total of 168 races.