I know i’ve raised this issue before but i have been thinking about it again recently and thought it was worth a mention.

Last year at the Canadian Grand Prix (i think?) Martin Brundle said he was a great one for statistics as Hamilton jumped into the championship lead in that more often than not the championship leader at that point in the year would go on to win the championship. Of course last year this wasn’t to be, but actually this upheld another set of statistics.

No European F2, F3000 or GP2 champion has ever won the F1 world championship (except when F1 was run to F2 rules back in the 50’s). I know Nick suggested that this was because any really good drivers were snapped up before they had a chance to and went straight to F1 and he may well be right but it is interesting nonetheless. These formulas (F2, F3000 and GP2) were/are supposed to be the feeder series for F1 but no one who won them seemed to have had much of a chance at the F1 Championship at all. Indeed ony 4 F3000/GP2 Champions have even won an F1 race let alone a championship. Alesi (1), Panis (1), Montoya (7) and Hamilton (5 currently).

Maybe it is a bit early to judge the GP2 series, and we do have 5 F3000/GP2 Champions in F1 currently, Heidfeld, Bourdais, Rosberg, Hamilton and Glock, and certainly Hamilton has showed he is more than capable of winning a championship, and last year he could have done, but didn’t. Very interesting.

On the flip side using these same statistics, people like Kovalainen and Piquet Jr could be in with a shout of the F1 title at some point, losing the GP2 title could actually be a good thing for their careers.