Find out what negative record could Button equal at this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix, or what are the chances of seeing unexpected changes in the standings. Atlas F1's Marcel Schot brings the statistics and anecdotes ahead of the final round of the 2004 season

Japan saw the Schumacher brothers on the highest two steps of the podium for the fifth time. After Canada and France in 2001, Brazil in 2002 and Canada last year, it was the fourth consecutive year where the brothers scored a family one-two. Behind them, Jenson Button secured his third consecutive podium for his tenth of the year. Should Button not win in Brazil, he'll be the second driver in history to have scored ten podiums in a season without winning. Rubens Barrichello was the first to do it in 2001 with five seconds and five thirds.

With the season coming to a close, there are only few battles still going. There's the fight for fourth in the Drivers' Championship, for which Fernando Alonso has the best papers. The Spaniard has 54, with Juan Pablo Montoya (48) and Jarno Trulli (46) still within reach. Kimi Raikkonen could in theory still pass Trulli for sixth, but with a nine-point gap that doesn't seem likely.

The Constructors' Championship is also about theoretical chances. Renault would need a win and at least a third place with no points for BAR to finish second behind Ferrari. Williams seem almost certain of fourth place with a 13-point lead over McLaren, but with the race to go, it's too early to write off Ron Dennis' boys.

Birthday Boys

Two former Formula One drivers celebrate their birthday this week. Joachim Winkelhock turns 44 on Sunday, while Alessandro Zanardi turns 38 the day before. Both drivers also happened to have special memories of the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Zanardi made his Formula One debut in 1991 with the new Jordan team. He stepped in for the last three races of the season after having finished second in the Formula 3000 championship. The following year also saw Zanardi only for three races as he replaced the injured Christian Fittipaldi. However, his best results in those six races were two ninth places for Jordan. For 1993, the Italian got his first full time seat at Lotus. The opening race of the season ended in a collision with Williams driver Damon Hill, but the second race in Brazil gave Zanardi his first point.

After having had a tough first morning on the unknown Interlagos circuit, Zanardi did as well as could be expected in qualifying. While Lotus was a legendary name, the team's performance was a shade of that in their glory days. Thus ended Zanardi's first day in Brazil at a 16th place, four seconds behind fastest man Alain Prost.

On Saturday things improved slightly, but it didn't get better than 15th place. However, before the race really got underway, Zanardi had already gained a few places. At the start, Michael Andretti and Gerhard Berger collided spectacularly, eliminating both drivers and making a restart necessary. At the restart Zanardi got away quicker than Jordan driver Rubens Barrichello and moved up into 12th place.

On the very next lap, the Lotus driver gained another spot when Benetton's Riccardo Patrese retired. For a long time the situation remained unchanged, until rain started to fall after 25 laps. Early pitstops from others moved Zanardi up into eight position, while the retirement of leader Alain Prost gave him seventh place.

Zanardi himself waited until lap 32 before changing from slick to wets, which proved to be a lucky gamble as he returned onto the track without losing his seventh place. About three laps later the rain stopped and the track started to dry up. Zanardi was one of the first to move back to slicks, which was another good move. He shortly dropped back to ninth, but as others pitted he moved up to sixth place.

However, a few laps later the point was nothing but a dream as Benetton driver Michael Schumacher blasted by, demoting Zanardi to seventh place again. However, on the 53rd lap, JJ Lehto's Sauber suddenly stopped while the Finn was in a comfortable fourth place. This put Zanardi back in the points and with Philippe Alliot in the Ligier losing ground behind him, the Italian was able to safely bring his Lotus home for his first and only point of his Formula One career.

Just when you start to think that Zanardi's Formula One career wasn't much to write home about, you look at that of the man who celebrates his birthday the day after and you think it wasn't that bad for Zanardi. Joachim Winkelhock was German Formula Three champion when he joined the AGS team for his Formula One debut in 1989. He was to be partnered by Philippe Streiff, but at the Brazilian Grand Prix turned out to be the team's only driver after Streiff suffered serious injury following a crash at the FOCA test in Rio shortly before the season.

For Winkelhock, the Brazilian Grand Prix was his debut in a Formula One car and unfortunately it became a very short debut. The team were confined to take part in pre-qualifying, Friday morning at eight o'clock. An hour later the weekend for Winkelhock was over. Only the first five drivers of pre-qualifying were allowed to continue the weekend. For the Brabham drivers it was a walk in the park, as they were clearly a cut above the rest, leaving three spots for the rest to fight for. Gregor Foitek in the Euro Brunn was the fastest, although nearly two seconds slower than the Brabhams. Behind the Swiss driver, Nicola Larini (Osella) and Bernd Schneider (Zakspeed) filled the remaining spots for the real qualifying. Winkelhock, amidst the chaos caused by Streiff's sudden absence, only managed the tenth fastest time, 2.5 seconds away from a qualifying spot.

The disorganisation at AGS didn't improve over the rest of the season and after six more fruitless attempts to extend his weekend beyond Friday morning nine o'clock, Winkelhock was replaced by Yannick Dalmas and didn't return to Formula One, concentrating on German touring cars instead. In his first Formula One outing, he did leave three drivers behind him. Bertrand Gachot, ex-McLaren and Ferrari driver Stefan Johansson and Aguri Suzuki, who would go on to become the first Japanese driver to finish on the podium.

This Week in History

This week it's 14 years ago that Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost clashed at the first corner of the Japanese Grand Prix. However, while this controversy has been discussed many, many times, the following race often gets forgotten. For two drivers this was a very remarkable race in their career. Roberto Moreno and Aguri Suzuki scored their only podium finishes, which in the case of Suzuki meant the first podium finish for a Japanese driver.

On Friday morning, free practice showed mixed results for the two. Suzuki set the fifth fastest time in his Lola-Lambo. At the end of a season full of technical problems and midfield qualifying results at best, this was a promising start for the Japanese driver. For Moreno and his Benetton team things started less inspiring. First driver Nelson Piquet was down in ninth while Moreno himself settled for 14th, a massive 3.5 seconds slower than the fastest driver on the track, McLaren's Gerhard Berger.

The afternoon didn't show any progress for the Benetton team. As Berger took provisional pole, Piquet and Moreno stuck to the same positions as in free practice. However, Moreno wasn't too demotivated by this. With this being his first race for Benetton, replacing Alessandro Nannini after the Italian's helicopter accident, he hadn't actually been in a qualifying session in the second half of the season as his Eurobrunn usually was too slow to get through Friday morning pre-qualifying. Suzuki, meanwhile, was unable to keep the pace of the morning, mainly due to traffic. The local hero had to settle for 11th place.

On Saturday morning Benetton made a huge leap forward and surprisingly it was Moreno who had the better pace than his friend Piquet. While the triple World Champion had to settle for sixth place, Moreno managed a superb third place, less than one tenth behind Nigel Mansell in the Ferrari and ahead of Championship contenders Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

The final qualifying session of course meant that the big guys gave it their all in search of the optimal grid position. Senna grabbed pole ahead of Prost, Mansell and Berger to make the first two rows all Ferraris and McLarens. Behind them, the third and fourth rows was a battle between Williams and Benetton. Thierry Boutsen qualified fifth in the Williams, followed by Piquet, Moreno and Riccardo Patrese. Aguri Suzuki led the rest of the field as number nine and the last driver within four seconds of Senna's pole time. Jean Alesi in the Tyrrell had set a faster time, but after a high speed crash into the first corner, the Frenchman was out for the weekend.

The start of the race saw one of the most controversial crashes in Formula One history. As Prost went ahead, Senna dived inside, didn't lift and crashed both cars out of the race. This left Berger in the lead, with Mansell, Piquet and Moreno following. Suzuki saw Derek Warwick in the Lotus get the better of him, leaving the Lola driver in eighth position. The championship-deciding crash claimed more than two victims, as Brabham driver Stefano Modena ran into the Ligier of Philippe Alliot and both Arrows drivers collided as well.

The second lap saw the final victim of the crash as leader Gerhard Berger spun off into retirement on the sand that was still on the track. Behind new leader Nigel Mansell things remained unchanged for several laps. With three of the four cars from the first two rows on the grid gone, Mansell was now dominating. With a series of fast laps, the Briton was able to strike a gap to the Benettons behind him. When the Ferrari driver went into the pits halfway through the race, his lead was nearly seven seconds. Unfortunately for Mansell, he was a little too eager to get out ahead of the following cars. As a direct result of the power being slammed onto the engine, the Ferrari's drive shaft snapped, which meant the end of Mansell's race.

This left Piquet leading a Benetton one-two with Moreno less than four seconds behind and Williams driver Riccardo Patrese nearly 11 seconds adrift. Behind the Italian was the real surprise. Aguri Suzuki had made his way into fourth position. After having been stuck behind Warwick for six laps, he had found a way past the Lotus driver and followed Patrese. Thierry Boutsen, like Mansell, had to pit halfway through, which meant another position won for Suzuki.

Meanwhile, Patrese's tyres were acting up and the Italian started to lose more and more ground to the two Benettons until he had to give in and pitted for fresh tyres after 36 laps. This gave Suzuki third place, which sent the Japanese fans into an ecstatic cheer. Suzuki was 30 seconds behind Piquet, but with Patrese a good 12 seconds behind him, third place seemed feasible. In the last quarter of the race nothing much happened and thus the podium was one veteran and two first timers. Both Roberto Moreno and Aguri Suzuki never reached that high again throughout their Formula One careers.

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