Formula One returns to the Spa-Francorchamps circuit for the Belgian Grand Prix, and being his favourite circuit, World Champion Michael Schumacher will be looking to collect more records as he continues with his impressive season. Atlas F1's Marcel Schot brings the statistics and anecdotes ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix

This weekend Formula One makes a return to Spa-Francorchamps after a year's absence. The return of the circuit in the Ardennes is a welcome one, both for the drivers and the fans. Spa always provided for entertainment throughout the weekend, with its notoriously unpredictable weather. After having seen Michael Schumacher complete his record breaking 12th win of the season and the 20th hat trick of his career in what was arguably one of the most boring races in recent years, the fans are eager to see something less predictable and more exciting. After all, Formula One has literally been dry for a long time now.

Another race, another record for Michael Schumacher to claim. A victory at Spa would mean the eight consecutive race won by the German. This would make Schumacher the sole record holder, as he would break the tie with Alberto Ascari, who was the winner in seven consecutive races in 1952 and 1953. After France and Canada, this can also become the third Grand Prix that's been won seven times by Schumacher. Of course there are other reasons for the German to have a special place for Spa in his heart. In 1991 he made his debut at the circuit, while in 1992 he scored his first victory there.

Behind the six time World Champion things are getting more interesting as various teams and drivers are getting in shape. Fernando Alonso is putting on a good challenge with two consecutive podium finishes and after a weak period following Ralf Schumacher's crash, Williams are also regaining some consistency with Juan Pablo Montoya in the points for four consecutive races and Antonio Pizzonia doing the same for the last two. BAR are keeping step with Williams as Takuma Sato has been clear of problems for the last two races and finished both in the points to add to Jenson Button's successes. This sees BAR in the points for the last 14 races.

Over the last four races, the battle behind Ferrari is interesting and while it's essentially Renault versus BAR for second place in the Championship, Williams and McLaren are joining the fight for the points to make the best of their seasons as well. While Ferrari's supremacy clearly shows with 60 points in the last four races, the four teams behind them are just seven points apart: Renault and BAR both scored 25, McLaren 20 and Williams 18.

When we look at the number of laps driven in the points, we see the same. Renault, BAR and Williams are very close to one another, while McLaren are making a push in the second half of the season. Behind them, there is a massive gap to the non-contenders.

Ferrari     1585
Renault    1252
BAR       1222
Williams  1106
McLaren  693
Sauber     345
Jaguar      257
Toyota     231
Jordan       68
Minardi       5

A look at the percentage of their laps run in the points for the drivers should phase out at least part of the unreliability that some drivers have to deal with. While Schumacher is unsurprisingly the only driver to have driven all his laps in the points, we do see some surprising results behind the German. Second in the list is not Rubens Barrichello, but Jenson Button. The Briton drove 93.4% of all his laps in the points. Fourth behind Barrichello is Jarno Trulli, the man who's widely known for his complete lack of luck. The Italian had his car in scoring position 90.3% of the time. At Williams Antonio Pizzonia shows why he's preferred over Marc Gene. While the Spaniard drove only 3.8% of his laps in the points, Pizzonia managed 63.7%.

This Week in History

The 1982 Swiss Grand Prix was the first one since 1954. After the horrifying crash of Pierre Levegh in Le Mans a year later, racing was banned in Switzerland, resulting in this Swiss Grand Prix actually being the second French Grand Prix of the season. The 14th round of the championship was run on the Dijon-Prenois circuit, which had been the host of the French Grand Prix on four occasions in the previous nine years.

The season had been a strange one so far. While Ferrari started dominant and was destined to go home with both titles, two major accidents turned things around. First Gilles Villeneuve was killed at Zolder and in early August Didier Pironi suffered a career-ending crash at Hockenheim. With not a single team or driver taking charge, it so happened that when the circus arrived in Dijon, Pironi and Ferrari were still leading the championships. Pironi's lead was six points over Williams driver Keke Rosberg, who had been the more consistent driver of the others without actually having won a race. Three points behind Rosberg it was McLaren's John Watson, who in turn was four ahead of teammate Niki Lauda. Alain Prost hadn't accumulated many points for Renault after having won the first two rounds and thus the Frenchman found himself a point behind Lauda in fifth place.

The lack of dominance resulted in the unusual fact that with just three rounds to go, no less than eleven drivers had a theoretical chance of clinching the championship. The constructors' championship was a four team affair, with Ferrari leading with 64, eight ahead of McLaren. Williams and Renault followed respectively ten and twelve points behind McLaren. However, Ferrari's lead was rapidly diminishing as the team headed to Dijon with only one car for the second race in a row.

Qualifying on Friday showed Renault's usual dominance. Prost was fastest with Arnoux second three tenths behind and 1.3 seconds ahead of number three Niki Lauda. The Austrian was closely followed by Riccardo Patrese in the Brabham and Andrea de Cesaris in the Alfa Romeo. As the track wasn't quite as fast for Saturday qualifying, the Renaults didn't really bother and the session ended with two Brabhams ahead, followed by two Williams.

Before the race started on Sunday, Ferrari lost its only remaining driver when Patrick Tambay had to forfeit with a nerve problem in his back. When the race got underway, Arnoux had the better start of the two Renaults. However, going into the second lap Prost took over. Behind them followed Patrese, Lauda, Piquet and Rosberg. The Renaults moved away rapidly, but most of the others weren't too worried. It had happened before and most of the time the Renaults ran into problems later in the race. So when Piquet found himself nearly seven seconds behind Prost after having disposed of Patrese in the fourth lap, there wasn't much reason for concern.

Two laps later Keke Rosberg also made his way past Patrese as the Renaults kept increasing their lead. Prost was now 5.5 seconds clear of Arnoux, who in turn was three seconds ahead of Piquet, while Rosberg was just under ten seconds away from the leader. From this moment on Prost wasn't able to extend his lead any further. While Arnoux stayed the same distance behind, Piquet closed up on the second Renault. It took the Brabham driver several laps, but after eleven laps he had fought his way into second place, now looking at a seven second gap towards Prost.

For the next several laps the entire top five were driving at a similar pace. Only on lap 22 there was a brief moment of excitement when Prost lost time in traffic and Piquet was able to make up no less than one and a half second. However, Prost regained his pace and Piquet stayed over five seconds behind. Behind Piquet Rene Arnoux was in a relative void. The Brabham driver was 2.5 seconds ahead of him, while Rosberg in the Williams was some three second behind him. Niki Lauda was in fifth, another 2.5 seconds behind Rosberg. Behind them was a very large gap indeed, as sixth place driver Riccardo Patrese led a train of five cars about 43 seconds behind the leader.

Heading towards the halfway point, Keke Rosberg lost touch with Arnoux, but managed to stay narrowly ahead of Lauda's McLaren. However, if things would go as planned, the Finn was in an ideal position. The retirement of both Renaults had been almost a certainty after the first two races of the season and the Brabham team were the only ones to use a pitstop to put fresh tyres on the cars and refuel them. When the cars arrived at the halfway point, Piquet indeed made his pitstop, dropping him to fifth place and well out of contention.

As Prost was slowly losing his lead, Rosberg put in a charge to bring him from twelve to seven seconds behind the Frenchman within the space of five laps. However, at that point the Williams driver encountered Rene Arnoux, who held him up and also allowed Lauda to close in and put the pressure on Rosberg from behind. Over the next six laps the Williams and McLaren had something other than Arnoux' Renault to deal with. The problem was backmarker Andrea de Cesaris in the Alfa Romeo. The Italian kept playing deaf, dumb and blind and refused to acknowledge that the numbers three and four in the race were trying to make their way past him. The faster drivers finally had wrestled their way past, the Renault of Prost was twenty seconds ahead instead of the expected six.

Rosberg, now very agitated, put the pedal to the metal and went full force ahead and over the next twenty laps raged around the track on his way back to Arnoux. Just as the Finn was reaching his target, the target vanished. After 73 laps Arnoux was the first Renault to retire, having suffered a problem with the fuel injection. However, Rosberg continued his charge, as he was now back to being six seconds behind Alain Prost with as many laps to go. A lap from the end, Rosberg had made up all lost ground and was closely behind the Renault. As the cars approached the start-finish line on their penultimate lap, the official with the chequered flag readied himself and only Williams team manager Peter Collins prevented the man from actually ending the race a lap early.

On that last lap, a mistake from Prost was enough for Rosberg, and the Williams driver launched himself into the lead halfway through the final lap and quickly moved away to grab his first win of the season. However, as he crossed the line the confusion became complete, as no chequered flag was waved! In order to be sure, the Finn continued for another lap after which he did get the chequered flag to make his win official.

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