Compared with the anticipated 120mph-plus average race speed for tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix, the first winner of the event, local hero Carlos de Salamanca, set a more leisurely pace on board a Rolls-Royce in 1913. He completed three laps of the 56-mile course, at Guadarrama, near Toledo, at an undisclosed rate.
The Spanish race has provided several milestones in modern Grand Prix racing, including the debut of a Frank Williams entered car in F1 championship racing in 1969. It was a Brabham-Ford driven by brewery heir Piers Courage.
In 1975 Spain was the setting for the only race to date in which a woman has earned an F1 world championship points score. The late Lella Lombardi, dubbed the Turin tigress, brought her Brabham home sixth but only received half a point, because the race was shortened due to German Rolf Stomellen's car crashing into the crowd, killing five spectators.
Jackie Stewart played his part in the quirky Spanish heritage by recording the largest ever race winning margin, finishing two laps ahead of Bruce McLaren's McLaren, in 1969. Stewart drove a Matra that year, following it up with Spanish wins in 1970 in a March and 1971, driving a Tyrrell.
Conversely Ayrton Senna, Lotus-Renault, secured the closest ever recorded Grand Prix finish, winning by 0.014 of a second from Nigel Mansell's Williams-Honda in 1986. Triple champion Niki Lauda scored his first Grand Prix victory in Spain and father and son wins have been recorded by Graham and Damon Hill (1968 and '94), plus Gilles and Jacques Villeneuve ('81 and '97)
The bad news for Coulthard and Hakkinen is that Michael Schumacher has always finished in the points in the seven Spanish events he has contested. He has been first in 1995 and '96, second in '92 and '94, third in 1993, fourth last year and sixth in 1991.
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