Auto-Racing @ MieNet: Details Worthy of Note in the Formula One 2004 Season: The Whole Season

The 2004 Season F1fan-eBook

Worthy of Note This Season

Ferrari conquered the Constructors' Title in advance, in Hungary, while

Michael Schumacher did the same regarding the Drivers' Crown, in Belgium.

Will Ayrton Senna's record of 65 first-place starts (pole positions) last beyond this Season?

After 15 GP's (three to go, this Season), Michael Schumacher's poles tally amounts to 62. The German Champion has so far set seven poles, this Season (see here).

All pole-sitters, this Season, have gone on to either win the race or take the final flag in P2. The single exception, so far, has been

Jarno Trulli in the GP of Belgium, which the Italian driver surprisingly failed to finish in the points. (see here)

Ralf Schumacher's much speculated though expected move to

Toyota, in 2005, was finally officially announced, prior to the British GP. No reference was made to who will partner the German next Season, though it has been highly speculated that Jarno Trulli could be the man.

On the German Grand Prix weekend, in turn, Jarno Trulli announced that he will be leaving the Renault Team, at the end of this Season. By the time of the GP of Belgium, Trulli declared that he had already signed with a Team, for next Season, but would only make the announcement during the Chinese GP weekend. It sounded as if Trulli simply could not make the announcement then...which leads one to wonder if the Team he has signed with might be

B•A•R (currently waiting for the Contract Recognition Board's decision on Jenson Button), and not

Toyota...

Countryman Fisichella has been announced as the driver to fill in Trulli's vacant seat in the

Renault Team.

After 13 GP's, only two Teams had taken points home, from every Grand Prix, this Season:

	Ferrari
	B•A•R

Now, however, Ferrari is the sole Team to have left every Grand Prix with points in their luggage. More impressive, yet, only once the points Ferrari conquered were not in the two-digit order (GP of Monaco)! — (see here)

Additionally, the Reds have conquered eight one-two finishes so far (see below) and have had both drivers in the points, this Season, in all but the GPs of Monaco and Germany!

The next best, from this viewpoint, are

B•A•R, who have conquered points in all but one GP so far, justly deserving their current second place in the Constructors' Champtionship.

Renault and

Williams, who had conquered points in 11 of the first 13 GP's, failed to bring points home from Belgium, Renault being yet more disappointing, as they also failed to bring points from Monza.

See here how all teams are doing.

On the other hand,

McLaren,

Jordan, and

Minardi hold the largest number of double-DNF's: for three times, this Season, neither of their drivers got to the final flag.

In this context,

Minardi kept remarkably ahead of both McLaren and Jordan up to the 11^th GP of the Season (Hungary): the Faenza Team had endured only two double-DNF's (in Australia and in Spain), when Jenson Button's exploding tire (in Belgium) threw the Brit's B•A•R into a spin, knocking Baumgartner's Minardi off the Grand Prix, in the sequence.

Had it not been for this most unlucky situation for Minardi (Baumgartner having been a mere victim of that frightening collision), the

Minnows of F1 would still have quite a remarkable advantage to boast over both

Jordan and giant

McLaren!

See here how reliable all teams have been this Season.

Up to the GP of Germany, Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari) was the only driver to have finished every one of the eleven Grand Prix in the points, in the current Season!

Now, the Brazilian shares with his

seven-time Champion German team-mate the honors of having conquered points in all but one GP so far. Both are closely followed by

Jenson Button, who has conquered points in all but two GP's, up to the the three fly-aways that will close the Season. (See here)

Barrichello additionally finished nine of these GP's on the Podium – among which, a streak of seven Podium finished (four P2's and three P3's)!

Up to the European GP (Nürbürgring), the drivers who had scored points at every Grand Prix were three:

Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari),

Jenson Button (B•A•R), and

Jarno Trulli (Renault), whose race in Canada, however, lasted no more than a few seconds. And that was the end of Trulli's sequence.

That left the honors of having taken the final flag in the points at every GP, this Season, for two drivers, only:

Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari) and

Jenson Button (B•A•R).

The British driver, however, was forced to retire in Indianapolis, due to car problems. This left the honors of straight points finish to Barrichello, alone.

To make up for Button's misfortunes, his Japanese Team-mate,

Takuma Sato, whose motor had been exploding at every GP since Monaco, not only succeeded in finishing that same U.S. GP, but also conquered his first Podium finish ever, after a hard-fought race and well-deserved third-place.

Barrichello's impressive streak of points finishes finally came to an end. Ironically, it happened at the same venue where the Brazilian had conquered his first win.

Barrichello lost his front wing on the first corner of the German GP, and just about re-started the race from last, after a new wing had been fit onto his Ferrari.

The Brazilian had a hard-fought race, consistently moving up the grid, throughout. He was running in P9, though, when he had a puctured tire, and had to give up hopes of mounting a possible last minute attack onto Sato, on whom Barrichello had been closing.

So, the Ferrari driver just managed to limp to take the flag in P12, thus bringing to a close that impressive sequence of results.

The result of the GP of the USA had earned Rubens Barrichello membership among the elite of F1 drivers listed below.

Then, Barrichello's P3 in the GP of Great Britain moved the Brazilian up to 12 successive GP finishes in the points, thus ahead of two three-time World Champions (Brazilian fellow Nelson Piquet and Austrian Niki Lauda), and sharing this honorable mark with two other World Champions: Jim Clark and Mika Hakkinen.

Barrichello now tops the list of F1 Brazilian drivers, as far as consecutive points finishes, even though among them are three-time World Champions Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna, and two-time World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi.

F1 Elite of Drivers counting 10 or more Straight Points Finishes

Nat.	Driver	# of GP's	Start of Sequence	End of Sequence

	Michael Schumacher	24	Hungary, 2001	Malaysia, 2003
	Michael Schumacher	18	San Marino, 2003	Spain, 2004
	Carlos Reutemann	15	Belgium, 1980	Belgium, 1981
	Jim Clark	12	Belgium, 1963	Belgium, 1964
	Mika Häkkinen	12	San Marino, 2000	Italy, 2000
	Rubens Barrichello	12	Japan, 2003	Great Britain, 2004
	Niki Lauda	11	Germany, 1975	Sweden, 1976
	Nelson Piquet	11	Monaco, 1987	Mexico, 1987
	Eddie Irvine	10	Monaco, 1999	Italy, 1999
	David Coulthard	10	U.S.A., 2000	Monaco, 2001
	Ralf Schumacher	10	Australia, 2003	France, 2003

Neither

Ayrton Senna

nor

Alain Prost

figure above. The fact that these two F1 legends were engaged in fierce competition against each other has likely played a role in their absence from this short honorable list.

Though there have just been four different GP winners this Season, there have been seven different pole sitters (see here), and ten drivers have so far led at least one Grand Prix lap:

Michael Schumacher	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari
Jarno Trulli	Fernando Alonso	Renault
Jenson Button	Takuma Sato	B•A•R-Honda
Juan Pablo Montoya	Ralf Schumacher	Williams-BMW
Antonio Pizzonia		Williams-BMW
Kimi Räikkönen		McLaren-Mercedes

Surprisingly, the McLaren-Mercedes drivers were missing from the above list, for the first 10 GP's. Their new MP4-19B, introduced in the GP of France, has definitely made a difference: Räikkönen was second in England, having battled with M.Schumacher and Barrichello throughout the race, from flag to flag.

Last Season (2003),

BMW-Williams-F1 was the only team to have attained one-two finishes – two, in all. (see details here)

In the 2004 Season, however,

BMW-Williams-F1 has had no wins and only two podium finishes so far (see details here).

Ferrari, in turn, started the Season conquering one-two finishes in every other GP ! (see details here)

The trend was broken in England, when the Reds would have had to conquer another one-two, in order to keep it up. The average, however, is still maintained: a one-two finish per each two GP's (see below). Only if they fail to conquer one more one-two finish, in the remaining GP's, will this remarkable average then no longer hold.

So, Ferrari's one-two finish results quite impressively amount to eight, in fifteen GPs, thus far:

seven of these were conquered on the track, whereas

the eigtth was added to this unusual list, when the Williams-BMW and Toyota Teams were demoted from their finish places, in Canada. Then the Italian Team inherited the second place that would otherwise have been William-BMW's.

See here a bird's eye view of all Teams and Drivers finish places, DNF's, DSQ's, 1-2 finishes, Podium finishes, etc..

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