Who has been the most successful driver in Brazil? What driver has the biggest amount of retirements? And what are the odds of having another race winner at Interlagos? Marcel Schot brings the answers and more anecdotes on the Brazilian Grand Prix

Last year's Brazilian Grand Prix broke a seven year string of World Champion winners: ever since Michael Schumacher won the 1994 race and went on to win the title that season, the winner in Brazil grabbed the title for that year. In 2001, however, David Coulthard grabbed a solid victory after early leader Juan Pablo Montoya was put out of the race by Arrows driver Jos Verstappen.

Besides for future Champions, the Brazilian Grand Prix is also successful for native drivers. Seven times a Brazilian won his home Grand Prix. Only the Britons (22 home wins) and French (8 home wins) are more successful on home soil (not including the Indianapolis 500s that counted towards the Championship in the 50s).

However, it's been a long time since Ayrton Senna won an emotional victory in his 1993 home Grand Prix. This season, Rubens Barrichello is once again the focus of his countrymen. The Ferrari driver probably thinks otherwise, since he doesn't go well at Interlagos, to put it mildly. In the nine times he raced there, he finished only once. That was in 1994, when he scored a superb fourth place in the Jordan.

After that, disaster upon disaster happened. Especially the 1999 race took on dramatic proportions for Barrichello. Qualifying went very well and he equalled Stewart's best ever grid position: third. To the crowd's enjoyment, second place man David Coulthard stalled his engine before the start, leaving only Mika Hakkinen ahead of their star.

Three laps into the race, the crowd erupted in more cheering. All of a sudden, Hakkinen's McLaren slowed down dramatically and Barrichello grabbed the lead. After that, the McLaren picked up speed again, but Hakkinen dropped to third place. Until his pitstop in lap 27, Barrichello remained in the lead. Sadly, after 42 laps the Stewart's engine died and Rubinho's race ended in tears.

Barrichello's lack of luck in his home Grand Prix doesn't stand alone though. When it comes to finishing races, Brazilians do notoriously bad in their own country. Out of the 84 times a Brazilian started his home Grand Prix, only 43 times did he finish as well - 48.8%. Only the Japanese (45.0% in 40 starts), Swedes (38.5% in 13 starts) and Australians (20.0% in 5 starts) did worse.

Barrichello's number of retirements on home ground is nowhere near the record, though - Andrea de Cesaris retired in 21 out of the 27 races on Italian soil he attended. And even Barrichello's retirement rate of 87.5% isn't the worst. Apart from numerous drivers who competed in their home Grand Prix once or twice and failed to finish, there's also former Arrows owner Jackie Oliver. In six attempts at the British Grand Prix, he never finished, making it a 100% retirement rate.

Enough about home advantages and disadvantages, though. After two races this season, we have two winners. Looking at the last twenty years, it's not very likely that we'll have a third winner. Only five times in the last twenty years the season started with three different race winners:

             Wins Podiums
McLaren      10      22
Ferrari       6      16
Williams      5      14
Benetton      2       7
Brabham       2       3
Renault       2       2
Ligier        1       3
Lotus         1       9
Jordan        0       2
Tyrrell       0       2
Arrows        0       1
Fittipaldi    0       1
March         0       1
Prost         0       1
Sauber        0       1
Shadow        0       1