As a part of the Countdown to Singapore Grand Prix I will be refreshing some older posts on the Singapore GP topic. Here is the first one, originally published on F1Wolf on September 2, 2007 focusing on the history of the Singapore Grand Prix. Yes, there is history.

Singapore will be hosting its first Formula 1 race in 2008 but it will not be its first Grand Prix. The Singapore Grand Prix was a regular feature in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The Formula Libre & Australian AF2 rules races were held on a Thomson Road clockwise 4.865km long clockwise street circuit.
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Teams do have their good years and their bad years. Seeing McLaren winning races and fighting for titles in 2007 and 2008 it is easy to forget that they haven’t won any titles since the days of Mika Hakkinen, haven’t won a single race in 2006 and finished distant 5th in constructors table in 2005.

The last 2 posts - the video preview of Hungarian GP where Button won in 2006 and Briatore’s engine cries - reminded me of the fall from grace of 2 other mighty teams - Renault and Honda.

2004
- BAR Honda 2nd, 11 podiums, 119 pts
- Renault 3rd, 5 podiums, 105 pts

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Williams - those blue or blue and white cars, at least that is how they have looked in these past few years. But it hasn’t been that long ago that Williams painted their cars red. They used red liveries for 2 years back in the nineties. Can you recall when was that ? What drivers drove for the teams in those 2 years ?

Here are few pictures that might help …

Photos: Williams/LAT

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Summer is traditionally time for some changes. I only went back as far as 2004, but there hasn’t been summer without drivers being dropped and replaced.

2004 - After German GP in July Cristiano da Matta was replaced by Ricardo Zonta in Toyota

2005 - After British GP in July Patrick Friesacher was replaced by Robert Doornbos in Minardi

2006 - After US GP in July Juan Pablo Montoya was replaced by Pedro de la Rosa in McLaren, later that month after German GP Jacques Villeneuve had to make way for Robert Kubica in BMW Sauber.

2007 - Early July Christijan Albers lost his seat to Marcus Winkelhock (replaced after one race by Sakon Yamamoto) in Spyker, later the same month Scott Speed got fired by Toro Rosso and Sebastian Vettel came in …

We haven’t seen any changes this year so far. But it is July now, who will be out and who will be in before July ends ?

Photo: Daimler Media

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There are no North American drivers on Formula 1 grid this year and it is hard to see anyone joining anytime soon. The United States GP has been omitted from calendar this year and at the moment does not feature on 2009 calendar either. Except for few sponsors the Canadian GP remains the only connection between North America and Formula 1. Here is a brief overview US and Canadian contribution to Formula 1:

1) First of all America created some chaos in F1 statistics . In the early days, between 1950 - 1960, the Indy 500 race was part of the world championship. European drivers usually did not take part in that race. Also the drivers and teams that raced at Indy did not take part in the European F1 races. The race was therefore pretty much irrelevant to the F1 World Championship. The Indy 500 winners from those years however feature in Formula 1 history charts.

2) Including the Indy 500 drivers mentioned above Canada and USA have supplied Formula 1 with 163 drivers. Three of them - Phil Hill, Mario Andretti (both USA) and Jacques Villeneuve won the F1 drivers titles.

3) The North American drivers claimed 50 race wins (11 of them are the Indy 500 wins), 54 pole positions (11 are Indy 500 poles), 53 fastest laps (again 11 of them are from the Indy 500 races) and 165 drivers made it to podium (here 36 came from Indy 500 as drivers could change in the cars those days). In total US drivers collected so far total of 998 points, Canadians 342 points.

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Some people may have hoped that someone will come out, buy what is left of Super Aguri and perhaps start a new team. Well it does not look like that is going to happen. The online auction of the Super Aguri assets will be conducted later this month. Witin this week the catalog of all the items should be published but there are few items already known to be for sale, a Super Aguri F1 car and the team’s transporter among them.

Getting hand on a piece of recent F1 history will probably require pretty fat wallet.

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Monaco Grand Prix is a special event. If I ever doubted it I do not any more after going to see the race last year (my pictures are here). The special GP needs some special treatment also here, so I beging the Monaco GP countdown with some videos. Here is one, Ayrton Senna’s pole position lap in 1991:

To see more Monaco F1 videos visit the F1Wolf Club and feel free to ad your favourite Monaco F1 videos.

F1Wolf

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