With a month 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!

Due to the simple fact that only seven months of the year have 31 days, there are only a few drivers born on the 31st of the month. The only active driver born on the 31st is Justin Wilson. On 31 July 1978, Wilson was born in Sheffield, England. The tall Briton won the 2001 Formula 3000 championship in dominating fashion. With three wins, six second places and a third, he broke records for most points and most podiums, leaving rivals Mark Webber and Tomas Enge far behind.

Despite this excellent performance it took until 2003 before Wilson landed a Formula One seat. Starting the season with Minardi, he replaced the disappointing Antonio Pizzonia at Jaguar halfway through the season. After struggling for most of the season, the American Grand Prix finally gave Wilson something to cheer about.

A decent qualifying performance saw Wilson 16th on the grid. The general mayhem in the early stages of the race saw him move up place after place. After having overtaken Heinz Harald Frentzen, Wilson settled in eleventh. A late pitstop meant that the Jaguar driver briefly drove in third place. Unfortunately Wilson dropped back place after place as the race progressed. An early second stop meant that he even dropped as low as twelfth place. However, in the end it all worked out. As other drivers made their final stop, Wilson settled in eighth position after two thirds of the race and kept it until the end to score his first point.

In his long and often crash prone career, Andrea de Cesaris led two races for a total of 32 laps. The Italian surprised by putting his Alfa Romeo first on the grid in the 1982 USA-West Grand Prix at Long Beach. De Cesaris kept his cool at the start and made full use of his pole position, taking the lead and hanging on to it. Unfortunately, the Alfa driver lost concentration when March driver Raul Boesel didn't move out of the way quickly enough when being lapped. As it happened, the experienced Niki Lauda saw his chance and squeezed his McLaren past de Cesaris. After 14 laps the Italian was demoted to second, from which he then retired some twenty laps later.

The second chance for de Cesaris came during the next season's Belgian Grand Prix. After having qualified third, a rapid start saw the Alfa driver move into the lead. Slowly but surely, de Cesaris started to build a lead. When he pitted after 18 laps, he was nearly seven seconds ahead of Alain Prost. Unfortunately, a jammed wheel during the pitstop ruined de Cesaris' chances of regaining the lead and for the second time the Italian was close to victory, but with empty hands.

Since Mika Salo made his debut in the 1994 Japanese Grand Prix he drove for five different teams and scored a total of 33 points. He finished in the points 16 times but only three times higher than fifth position. Salo scored his first points in the 1995 Italian Grand Prix where he finished fifth for Tyrrell. In the last two races of the year he would score another fifth place in the Japanese and sixth in the Australian Grand Prix. In 1996 and 1997 Salo continued to drive for the Tyrrell team and scored a total of seven points. For the 1998 season he joined Arrows but apart from a fourth place in the Monaco Grand Prix he did not score any more points.

Initially Salo was without a drive for 1999 but it would turn out to be the best season of his career points wise. First he substituted for Ricardo Zonta at BAR and then for Michael Schumacher at Ferrari, who had broken his leg in the British Grand Prix. In the German Grand Prix Salo got his first podium position when he finished second behind teammate Eddie Irvine and in the Italian Grand Prix he finished third bringing his total number of points that year to 10. In 2000 he finished in the points four times driving for the Sauber team but no higher than fifth position.

For 2001 he joined Toyota, who were preparing themselves to enter Formula One in 2002. In the first two races for Toyota in Formula One he scored two sixth places bringing his total of points to 33.

In the first Grand Prix of 1990 there was a surprise leader for 34 laps: Jean Alesi in the Tyrrell. The Frenchman had made his debut with the team halfway through the 1989 season, when he replaced Michele Alboreto, who quit the team just before the French Grand Prix. Alesi immediately had booked good results, but his performance in the streets of Phoenix at the beginning of his second season was beyond any expectation.

In Friday qualifying the young driver was already much higher than Tyrrell was used to in the previous season. However, the session saw lots of unexpected drivers near the top of the table. Alesi was fourth quickest behind Ferrari driver Gerhard Berger, Pierluigi Martini (Minardi) and Andrea de Cesaris (Dallara). On Sunday the grid was the same as after the Friday session, because the second session on Saturday had been wet.

Once the race started, Gerhard Berger immediately was surprised when Alesi outbraked him into the first corner. For the first time since the 1983 Detroit Grand Prix a Tyrrell was in the lead. Over the first few laps, Alesi was able to strike a gap of five seconds over Berger. When the Austrian dropped back, Ayrton Senna took over second place and slowly began closing the gap. While everyone expected the Brazilian to quickly take care of business, Senna effectively got stuck behind Alesi after 25 laps. He tried everything he could, but it would take him another nine laps to get past the Tyrrell. Alesi was realistic enough to see that it was useless to try and get past Senna again and smartly settled for second place.

In the five years between transforming from Ligier and folding at the end of the 2001 season, the Prost team scored 35 points. The majority of these points were scored in the team's first year, 1997. Olivier Panis started the season very well with a fifth place in Australia and a third place in Brazil. In Monaco Panis finished fourth, while the Spanish Grand prix was the highlight of the season with a second place for the Frenchman.

At the following race in Canada, things went dramatically wrong. While in seventh place, Panis suddenly spun right into a wall, breaking both his legs and eliminating him for seven races. Teammate Shinji Nakano finished the race in sixth, but the team had lost its leader. Jarno Trulli took his place and finished fourth in Germany and Nakano sixth in Hungary, but those were the points finishes until Panis returned with a sixth place in the Luxembourg Grand Prix. This gave the team 21 points for the season and sixth place in the Championship.

In 1998 the team had to settle for just one point, scored by Jarno Trulli in Belgium. The following year showed a little progress, but the nine points weren't near what the team hoped for, especially since six of those points came from a single race when Trulli finished second in the European Grand Prix. The 2000 season then became a drama for the team. They retired most of the time and didn't score a single point. In the final year, reliability was up again, but the speed was still lacking. Two sixth places and a fifth for Jean Alesi meant a grand total of four points.

Between 1989 and 1997, Japanese engine manufacturer Yamaha scored 36 points in Formula One. Yamaha made their F1 debut with the German Zakspeed team in 1989 but they only managed to qualify twice. In all the other races the team failed to even pre-qualify.

After the disastrous 1989 season Yamaha took a year off and returned to Formula One in 1991. This time with another team on their way down and out of F1: Brabham. In the Belgian Grand Prix that year, Mark Blundell gave Yamaha their first points by finishing in sixth position. For 1992 Yamaha teamed up with Jordan and for a long time it looked like it would be a year without points. In the last race of the season, however, Stefano Modena finished in sixth position and scored one point. For the next four years Yamaha supplied engines to the Tyrrell team.

1993 was another year without points but things improved in 1994. Ukyo Katayama and Mark Blundell scored a total of 13 points including a third position by Mark Blundell at the Spanish Grand Prix. The Tyrrell-Yamaha combination scored 12 more points in the following season bringing Yamaha's total to 25. In 1997 Yamaha supplied engines to the Arrows team who had signed World Champion Damon Hill to drive for them. Hill finished in the points twice, including a second place in the Hungarian Grand Prix. His teammate Pedro Diniz finished in fifth position in the Luxembourg Grand Prix. With Diniz Yamaha scored their final points in F1, bringing their total to 36.

Between 1950 and 2003, Silverstone hosted no less than 37 races. Only twice the race at Silverstone was not held in July. The 1950 British Grand Prix was the opening round of the championship on the 13th of May.

The other occasion was the 2000 British Grand Prix, which was held in late April, usually the wettest time of year in Britain. This time was no exception and the circuit was literally drenched in the days leading up to the event. However, both qualifying and the race were without rain. With qualifying being done on a drying track, it was the driver with the best timing who claimed pole. As it happened, that was Rubens Barrichello. The Brazilian thus became the first of Michael Schumacher's teammates to score a pole position.

The driver with the most wins at Silverstone is Alain Prost. The Frenchman won in 1983, 1985, 1989, 1990 and 1993 to give victory to each of the teams he drove for in his career. Behind Prost, only Britons Jim Clark and Nigel Mansell have won at Silverstone more than twice, both winning three times at the old airbase. While Prost is the clear leader amongst the drivers, Silverstone doesn't seem to favour any specific team. Both Ferrari and McLaren have scored ten victories, while Williams is close behind with eight.

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