Friday,
27th of March – Could it be that the Williams team is on the way to score a pole position in the 2009 season opener in Melbourne? Nico Rosberg sure showed encouraging pace in free practice. But will he be able to repeat that on Saturday, will he manage pole position for his 54th Grand Prix start? Which leave us to the question of how many attempts it took his dad Keke Rosberg until he managed his first ever pole position in a GP?
27/3/1971, David Coulthard is born in Twynholm, Scotland
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David Coulthard stepped into Formula 1 as the official Williams test driver come Grand Prix driver after Ayrton Senna was killed in 1994. Only an ignition problem stopped Coulthard from finishing third in his first Grand Prix at Barcelona but had to alternate with former World Champion Nigel Mansell during the season, becoming a full time Williams driver only in 1995. It was the year of his first F1 victory at the Portuguese GP. At the end of the year he switched to McLaren. It would turn out to be a tough time, having to concede position more than once to team-mate Häkkinen due to team orders. In 2000 Coulthard won the British GP and a week later was fortunate to survive the crash of a chartered private jet at Lyon-Satolas airport, killing both pilots. Occasionally winning the odd GP, his time with McLaren ended late in 2004. Coulthard moved to Red Bull Racing to start afresh. At the Monaco GP in 2006 David managed to score the first podium for Red Bull Racing. And he’s remained quick right up to the end, winning his last career F1 podium at the 2008 Canadian GP at Montreal and retired from F1 at the end of the season.
27/3/1965, Gregor Foitek is born in Zurich, Switzerland
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Gregor Foitek came to Formula 1 with a questionable reputation. He was seen as the driver responsible for a massive high-speed pile-up at the Brands Hatch round of the 1988 international Formula 3000 championship, after which Johnny Herbert had to be extracted from his car with two broken ankles, impounding the Swiss driver’s license.
But he manages to gather the budget to buy a seat in Formula 1 with the Eurobrun team. But after failing to even pre-qualify 11 times and switching to Rial, a broken rear wing causes Foitek to crash badly, ending his season. His true debut came with Brabham at the 1990 United States Grand Prix but he was replaced by David Brabham after two races. Foitek then switched to the Onyx team, by then controlled by Peter Monteverdi, and his Formula 1 career prospects evaporated when the team pulled out in the middle of the year. He briefly tried sports cars and IndyCar racing in 1992 but then disappeared from racing to succeed his father in the management of the family’s fine automobiles dealership in Switzerland.
Hey Mario,
What’s your “prediction” for this year ? I really hope Willians, Toyota and Brawn can keep up with the big teams thoughout the year…F1 needs a good shake !!!
27 March 2009 at 3:45 pm
Don’t think so. The others will press the underfloor issue ahead until everyone has got the same. Especially BrawnGP did a good job on this one, it seems. So for the time being Williams, Brawn and Toyota got a reasonable advantage.
27 March 2009 at 4:18 pm
Ah, Keke Rosberg, my childhood F1 hero! And still is my number 1 choice for favourite driver ever. What’s there to say, when you love to see a driver, you’ll stick with him, no matter what…
His first pole was at the 1982 British GP, held at Brands Hatch, on his 62nd GP weekend. However, until this 62nd GP, he had DNPQ and DNQ’s. Do we have to exclude them?
27 March 2009 at 4:23 pm
I could be cruel and just say. “62? Wrong…”
27 March 2009 at 4:26 pm
47!
27 March 2009 at 4:28 pm
47???
27 March 2009 at 5:33 pm
I guess it will take sometime until the other teams can come up with something similar that works as it will require some major design changes to the bottom part of the car.
I hope the othe other teams concentrate on catching up instead of political battles.
27 March 2009 at 5:57 pm
“Which leave us to the question of how many attempts it took his dad Keke Rosberg until he managed his first ever pole position in a GP?”
Keke Rosber attended 61 GP’s until he scored his first Pole (previously I had counted the 1992 San Marino GP, but the Williams team was one that boycotted it).
1978: attended 16 GP’s, 4 DNQP, 1 DNQ – 11 starts
1979: attended 8 GP’s, 1 DNQP – 7 starts
1980: attended 14 GP’s, 3 DNQ – 11 starts
1981: attended 14 GP’s, 5 DNQ – 9 starts
1982 (until the British GP): attended 9 GP’s – 9 starts
11+7+11+9+9 = 47
“Attempts” (if he DNQP or DNQ he had to try and it should count as an attempt): 61.
27 March 2009 at 6:28 pm
Hi Jose,
I will leave it up to you to take on Mario’s challenges….I am no match for you guys…..
27 March 2009 at 6:46 pm
Hello Flávio!
Neither am I !
I just cross link the info I research
27 March 2009 at 6:49 pm
Sorry again for the delay in answering. JC as accurate as always
Well, I could have been more precise, but leaving it sketchy does make it tougher. Keke missed out on the pre-qualifying on 5 occasions. So he wasn’t able to make an attempt for pole on these events as this can only be done in qualifying.
So it was meant to be tricky and the number I was looking for is, on how many qualifying sessions he took part and how many did it take to finally get as pole. Which is why DNQs count and DNPQs don’t.
So the number I was looking for is 42
1 April 2009 at 9:45 am