Spanish GP Facts, Stats and Memoirs

With Alonso's third consecutive win now in the books, the Spaniard has become the first driver other than Michael Schumacher to achieve this since Damon Hill won the opening three races in 1996. Likewise, Renault's four consecutive wins is the first such run by any team bar Ferrari since Williams won five in a row twice in 1996. In his first season at Ferrari Schumacher found himself with ten points after four races. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Speaking of times long ago, should Jenson Button eventually be disqualified from the San Marino Grand Prix, this will give Alexander Wurz his second career podium, after having scored the first at Silverstone back in 1997. This would quite easily be the largest gap between the first and second podium finish in history. Currently Jackie Oliver holds that record, with a little over four years and ten months between his podium finished in Mexico 1968 and Canada 1973, while it's exactly five years if we include Jim Rathmann's Indianapolis 500 efforts of 1952 and 1957.