<
>

Ask Steven: What's the record for the longest wait between Grand Prix victories?

There was a four-year gap between Johnny Herbert's second and third Grand Prix wins. Is this a record? asked Malcolm Davies

You're right, there was four years and two weeks between Johnny Herbert's second Grand Prix win, in Italy in 1995, and his third and last one, in the European GP at a sodden Nurburgring in 1999.

Herbert also won the British GP in 1995 while driving for Benetton, while his 1999 victory was the only one for the Stewart team -- which was sold to Jaguar at the end of 1999, and ultimately became Red Bull.

Herbert's four-year gap between Grand Prix wins puts him seventh on that particular list. Rubens Barrichello went four years 11 months without a win between 2004 and 2009, while John Watson endured a gap of a few more days between the Austrian GP of 1976 and winning at Silverstone in 1981.

Mario Andretti won in South Africa at the start of 1971, then not until Japan at the end of 1976; Jack Brabham also went just under six years between victories in 1960 and 1966 -- he won the championship in both those years.

Bruce McLaren didn't taste victory for six years and six days between Monaco in 1962 and Belgium in 1968, the first win for a McLaren car.

But the leader on this list went six years seven months -- and 99 races -- without a victory. Riccardo Patrese won in South Africa in 1983 -- the second of his two victories in a Brabham -- then didn't take the chequered flag again until the San Marino GP at Imola in 1990, the first of his four wins for Williams.