With just two months left before the 2004 season begins, the countdown to the Australian Grand Prix is running strong. However, this is Formula One, and behind every number there is always a story - so every day until the race in Melbourne, Atlas F1 will bring the numbers and the story behind them... Don't forget to check this page for a new addition every day!

Young Briton Jenson Button has already raced four complete Formula One seasons, despite being only 24 years old. In those four years, he collected 45 points. He started off well in his first season with Williams. In only his second race he scored his first point and between some bad races and mixed qualifying results, Button regularly drove in the points. With as highlight a fourth position in Germany, Jenson collected a total of 12 points.

For 2001, Button moved to the struggling Benetton team, where a fifth place finish in Germany was the only highlight of the year. However, it was the year in which Benetton transitioned to Renault. The second year with the team, now under the Renault name, gave Button a modest harvest. After retirement in the opening race, the Briton put together a strong series of two fourths and a fifth. Four more point finished followed, giving Button a total of 14 points and seventh place in the championship.

Last season, Button made the move to BAR, where he was confronted with an uncooperative teammate in Jacques Villeneuve. However, Button wasn't easily intimidated by the 1997 World Champion and outqualified him eight to five. In the races, Button was able to overcome the relative lack of power of the BAR and finished in the points on seven occasions, with fourth places in Austria and Japan as best results.

In his tragically shortened career, Francois Cevert started 46 Grands Prix. His career started with Tyrrell in the 1970 Dutch Grand Prix. Results steadily improved and in the Italian Grand Prix he scored his first point with a sixth position.

In 1971 Cevert was rather accident prone in the beginning of the season, crashing out of three of the first four races. However, in the fifth race of the season things worked out. In his home Grand Prix, Cevert scored a second place behind teammate Jackie Stewart. In Germany he repeated the feat and at Monza he was closer to victory than ever before. In the most spectacular finish of Formula One history, Cevert finished third, just nine hundredths of a second behind winner Peter Gethin and half a second ahead of number five Howden Ganley. Two races later, Cevert scored his first and only win, at Watkins Glen.

The next season was one of bad luck. More often than not the Tyrrell broke down and in only a few occasions it was really competitive. With only second places in Belgium and America and a fourth place in France, the season was a severe setback after the 1971 success. Fortunately for Cevert 1973 saw a return to form for Tyrrell and the Frenchman was able to showcase his talent more than ever before. A string of eight successive point finishes, including six podiums, showed that Cevert was a worthy successor to his mentor Jackie Stewart, who was retiring at the end of the season.

However, in practice for his 47th race, the US Grand Prix in which he had always done well, things went horribly wrong. At the back of the circuit, Cevert hit a curb and the car spun, hitting the guardrail head on. Francois Cevert was killed instantly, ending his career before he could develop into one of Formula One's great champions.

After having moved up the ranks of the lower formulae since 1969, AGS made its Formula One debut in 1986. It was the start of a period that covered just 47 races. The team made its debut in the 1986 Italian Grand Prix with Ivan Capelli behind the wheel.

In the team's second year, Pascal Fabre took the place of Capelli. After a string of races in which Fabre didn't qualify, he was replaced by Roberto Moreno for the final two races of the season. This promptly gave AGS its first success when Moreno finished sixth in Australia.

For 1988 Philippe Streiff was the team's driver. Retirement after retirement followed with the one in the Canadian Grand Prix being the most frustrating of all. After having moved up into fifth place, the rear suspension failed after two thirds of the race, sending Streiff into the gravel and out of the race.

The next year AGS switched to a two driver team for the first time, employing Gabriele Tarquini and Joachim Winkelhock to drive the cars. In the first half of the season Tarquini was able to put the car on the grid regularly, even scoring a point in Mexico, but as the season progressed, the Italian suffered the same faith as his teammate: elimination in pre-qualifying. This continued for most of 1990.

The next year Stefan Johansson was hired, but he moved to Footwork after just two races and replaced by Fabrizio Barbazza. However, the results remained the same as the two years before and after the Spanish Grand Prix the team folded.

Between 1993 and 1999 Luca Badoer started in 48 F1 races. He started his career at the Lola-Scuderia Italia team in 1993, where he was driving alongside Michele Alboreto. The team were using a year-old Ferrari engine which was down on power. Until the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, only 25 drivers were allowed to start in a race and Badoer failed to qualify twice. The highlight of the year was a seventh place at the San Marino Grand Prix. The rest of the season Badoer finished either outside the top 10 or retired due to mechanical reasons.

After the Portuguese Grand Prix the team folded and Badoer was left without a drive. For the 1994 season he joined Minardi as test driver but he did not compete in any of the 16 races that year. After a year of testing he was promoted to race driver for Minardi in 1995. With two eight places at the Canadian and Hungarian Grands Prix as best results, he failed to score any points for the team. In 1996 he joined the Italian Forti team but after ten races the team went bankrupt and Badoer was once again without a drive.

In 1997 Luca Badoer became the official Ferrari test driver, a job he still has today. In 1999, however, he made a comeback to the Grand Prix grid with the Minardi team. The closest he got to scoring points was at the European Grand Prix, where he was driving in fourth position until his gearbox failed.

In the three years that the Stewart team existed, before becoming Jaguar, it started in 49 races. The first year was downright disastrous. The team was enormously plagued by the totally unreliable Ford engine, which blew up on no less than ten occasions. The team set new record for most retirements by a team in a season with 28 retirements in 34 attempts. However, in the one race where both cars finished, things were very sweet indeed. While Jan Magnussen finished just outside the points, Rubens Barrichello scored an incredible second place in Monaco.

The next year at least the middle part of the season was a lot better. In between more retirements, Barrichello managed a fifth in Spain. Two races later both Stewarts finished in the points. In Canada Barrichello claimed his second fifth place. Magnussen scored his one and only point, only to be replaced by Jos Verstappen at the next race.

1999 then became the year where it finally worked for Stewart. Especially Rubens Barrichello was a regular point finisher, while teammate Johnny Herbert occasionally followed his example. However, despite Barrichello's three podium finishes, the team's sole win came courtesy of Herbert. At the European Grand Prix everything worked for the Stewart team as Herbert won and Barrichello finished third. Two races later, the Stewart team raced its last race, as Ford bought the team and renamed it Jaguar as of the 2000 season.

In its capacity as a works team and engine supplier, Porsche drivers collected 50 points over the years. The majority of Porsche's points came in the early sixties, when the make entered its own team.

The first driver to score a point in a Porsche powered car was German Hans Herrmann, who finished sixth in the 1960 Italian Grand Prix. During the two years after that, Porsche celebrated its biggest successes with Dan Gurney and Jo Bonnier. Gurney collected 21 points in 1961 and another 15 in the next year, to give Porsche nearly three quarters of all their points. Bonnier added three in each of the two years, often finishing just outside the points. Dutch privateer Carel Godin de Beaufort added another two points by finishing sixth in Holland and France.

In 1963 de Beaufort and his teammate Gerhard Mitter collected respectively two and three points. As a matter of fact, the eccentric de Beaufort has driven by far the most races in Porsche powered cars. The tall Dutchman entered mostly orange coloured Porsches for his Ecurie Maarsbergen 26 times, eleven more than both Gurney and Bonnier. Those three drivers are the only ones to have driven Porsche powered cars more than four times in Formula One races.

Although Porsche designed the turbo engine that powered the McLaren team to three Drivers' Championships and two Constructors' Championships in the mid eighties, the engine was officially branded a TAG.

In 1991 Porsche briefly returned to Formula One with Footwork, but the year was a disaster. Most of the time the car didn't qualify and when it did, it always retired from a hopeless position.

One of the most legendary drivers in Formula One history ranks high in most categories except in number of races driven. Juan Manuel Fangio doesn't even rank in the top 100 with his 51 starts.

When the World Championship started in 1950, the Argentine was already a seasoned driver at the age of 38. In his first two seasons he drove for Alfa Romeo, where he won his first championship in 1951. Of the 13 races in those two years, Fangio won six. The Argentine missed the 1952 season after crashing heavily in the non-championship Monza Grand Prix. In 1953 he returned to action, driving eight races for Maserati.

In 1954 Fangio won the first two races for Maserati and then switched to Mercedes, where he and teammate Stirling Moss wiped the floor with the rest of the field. In a stunning display of power, Fangio won four of the six races he drove for Mercedes. In 1955 things continued in similar fashion. The season was only six races long and Fangio won four of them, retiring in Monaco and kindly allowing Moss to win in his native Britain.

Mercedes then pulled out of Formula One and Fangio turned to Ferrari for the next year. There he won his third consecutive championship, albeit with just three wins in seven races. The next year again saw Fangio clinch the title, this time for Maserati. It was to be his last, since the master decided after two mediocre results in the next season that it was time for him to stop.

Previous 2004 Countdown Facts & Stats...