With four or more wins at half the races on the calendar, one win looks mediocre at best and if we look at how his win last year was achieved, it looks downright bad.

However, let's forget about that nasty incident last year and have a look at the positive things the Austrian Grand Prix has had to offer in the past. Take the 1997 race, for instance. It delivered what became the last highlight of the Prost team.

It was the first race on the new Osterreichring, now named A1-Ring after its major sponsor. Since the changes from the old circuit, last used in 1987, were quite significant, the drivers were allowed two one-hour familiarization sessions on Thursday before the race.

On Friday, times were very close. The top six drivers were covered by less than half a second, with both Williamses in front. Rubens Barrichello (Stewart) and Jordan driver Giancarlo Fisichella followed with both McLarens on their tail.

After the Saturday morning practice, the front looked very different. Jacques Villeneuve was the fastest Williams, but behind two surprising cars: Jan Magnussen in the Stewart claimed second, while the fastest was Pedro Diniz in the Arrows. Another surprise upfront was Prost driver Jarno Trulli in fourth.

However, only the afternoon was of real importance. The first row showed no surprise, with Jacques Villeneuve grabbing his eighth pole of the season ahead of Mika Hakkinen in the McLaren. Behind them, though, Jarno Trulli had been able to keep the morning pace and put his Prost third on the grid. For Trulli it was the best qualifying performance of his career and for Prost the best of the season together with Olivier Panis's third in Argentina.

On race day eyes were focussed on the first corner, which had caused so many restarts on the old circuit. However, none of that happened as the field took the first bend without any victims. Villeneuve made a poor start, which allowed Mika Hakkinen to take the lead. Trulli followed and overtook Villeneuve for second in the first corner. As the first lap continued, Villeneuve also fell victim to Rubens Barrichello. Just before the end of the lap, leader Hakkinen cruised to a halt when his engine faded. This gave Jarno Trulli in the Prost the lead, with Barrichello, Villeneuve, Magnussen and Frentzen following.

In the following laps it became clear that Trulli and Villeneuve were faster than the Stewarts. However, Villeneuve was stuck behind Barrichello and saw no way past, allowing Trulli to increase his lead little by little.

After 24 laps, Villeneuve finally made his way past Barrichello, but the gap was ten seconds by now. Neverhtless, the power of the Williams became apparent, as the Canadian decreased Trulli's lead just as fast as it had increased before.

When Trulli pitted on lap 37, the gap had fallen to less than four seconds. The Italian came back on the track in fifth, behind David Coulthard. However, when Villeneuve stopped three laps later, the Williams driver was able to rejoin in front of Trulli. The gap quickly climbed to 7.5 seconds, after which Trulli launched a final assault on the lead. He wasn't able to eat off more than a second and a half of the gap. After that all hope litteraly went up in smoke. On lap 58 the Prost Mugen-Honda engine blew up and Trulli's quest for a win came to an end. The 1997 Austrian Grand Prix was the only race ever led by a Prost driver.

Another Italian to have one of his career highlights in the Styrian mountains was Giancarlo Fisichella. A year after Trulli's heroics, Fisichella's moment came on Saturday afternoon, just before two o'clock. An hour before qualifying the unexpected rain began to fall hard, and the timing of the qualifying runs would be essential.

As the track was soaking wet at the start of the session, most drivers sat out the first half hour. However, after that time was running close and everyone went out in order to use their laps. Some drivers even drove the entire twelve laps at once. In the end the drivers who took to the track last were the lucky ones. Jean Alesi managed a second place in the Sauber, but Giancarlo Fisichella was the last driver to cross the line and took a surprising pole position for Benetton.

Not only are Trulli and Fisichella both Italians with exceptional performances in Austria, they're also both drivers who started their Formula One career with Minardi. Including current Minardi driver Justin Wilson, we have no less than five drivers in this year's field who have made their Grand Prix debut with Minardi. The other two are Renault driver Fernando Alonso and Jaguar pilot Mark Webber. With that Minardi has the most debut starts among the current Formula One field, just ahead of Jordan and Williams, who both gave four drivers their first race opportunity.

Minardi           5 (Fisichella, Trulli, Webber, Alonso, Wilson)
Jordan            4 (Barrichello, Firman, M.Schumacher, R.Schumacher)
Williams          4 (Button, Coulthard, Montoya, Villeneuve)
Sauber            2 (Frentzen, Raikkonen)
Prost/Ligier      2 (Heidfeld, Panis)
Toyota            1 (da Matta)
Jaguar            1 (Pizzonia)
Renault/Benetton  1 (Verstappen)
Ferrari           0
McLaren           0
BAR               0