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Age is no object

Michael Schumacher is still a spring chicken compared to Luigi Fagioli, who won a race at 53 © Getty Images

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Michael Schumacher is now 42 - how many drivers older than him have ever won a Grand Prix? asked Dale Evans from Swansea

If Michael Schumacher wins a Grand Prix this coming season he will move into sixth place on this particular list behind Jack Brabham (43 in 1970) but ahead of Nigel Mansell (41 in 1994). The oldest winner remains the Italian Luigi Fagioli, who was 53 when he shared his Alfa-Romeo with Juan-Manuel Fangio to win the French GP in 1951. When Nino Farina won the German GP in 1953 he was 46, a few months older than Fangio when he won his last race, also in Germany in 1957. Piero Taruffi was 45 when he won the Swiss GP in 1952. We should also mention the American Sam Hanks, who was 42 in 1957 when he won the Indianapolis 500, which counted towards the F1 world championship at that time.

There should be five world champions on the grid for the first Grand Prix of the new season. Has this ever happened before? asked Mike Collins from London

As you say, the 2011 season should indeed feature five world champions - Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel. I believe that it has only happened in two previous seasons. In 1968 the first race of the year (in South Africa) featured five world champions: the reigning one Denny Hulme, plus Jack Brabham, Jim Clark, Graham Hill and John Surtees. Sadly, Clark was killed in an accident before the next GP of the year, so that was the only one that season to feature five champions. It happened again in 1970, when most of the season's races included Brabham, Hulme, Hill, Surtees and the 1969 champion Jackie Stewart. My first thought was that it would also have happened in 1973, with Emerson Fittipaldi replacing the retired Jack Brabham, but John Surtees did not take part in any races that year.

I had a bet that Alan Jones was the first to win a Grand Prix in a Williams. Was I right? asked Bob Jones from Nantwich

I'm afraid you lose: the first driver to win a Grand Prix in a Williams was Clay Regazzoni, who won the 1979 British GP. Jones, who had taken pole position (another Williams first) in that race at Silverstone, then won the next three races, in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. The following year Jones became the first to win the world title in a Williams.

Ayrton Senna put in a brilliant display at the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix but just missed out on victory © Getty Images

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Is my memory playing tricks or did Ayrton Senna once pilot the unfancied Toleman car to victory in Monaco? asked Andrew Morgan from Brighton

Your memory is only slightly faulty - Senna drove a Toleman in 1984, and at Monaco that year was rapidly closing on the McLaren of race leader Alain Prost when the race was stopped after only 31 of the scheduled 76 laps because of torrential rain. Senna actually passed Prost before the end of the 32nd lap, so he was first over the line - but under the regulations the positions were frozen at the end of lap 31. Prost had been gesticulating to the pits as the rain worsened, and clerk of the course Jacky Ickx eventually took the unilateral decision to stop the race - leading to all sorts of conspiracy theories, mainly because Ickx was then still driving sports cars for Porsche, whose engine was powering Prost's McLaren. If there was a conspiracy to give Prost victory, which seems improbable, it didn't work out in the long run: he received only half points for this rain-shortened win, and ended up losing that year's world championship to Niki Lauda by half a point.

Will Sergio Perez, who recently signed for Sauber, be the first Mexican to drive in F1? asked Carl Peterson from Liverpool

Sergio Perez will actually become the fifth Mexican to drive in F1, although the country hasn't been represented since Hector Rebaque finished his 41-race career without a win in 1981. The most famous Mexican drivers remain the Rodriguez brothers. Ricardo started his first GP, the Italian in 1961, from the front row, but drove in only five more races before he was killed in practice for the non-championships Mexican GP in 1962, when he was still only 20. His older brother Pedro Rodriguez won two of his 54 GPs before he too died in an accident, in a sports-car race in 1971. Mexico's fourth GP driver was Moises Solana, who took part in eight races - all in Mexico or the United States - between 1963 and 1968 without gaining a point.

I was surprised to discover that HRT's new driver Narain Karthikeyan had once finished fourth in a Grand Prix. Where was this? asked Andrew McDonald from Edinburgh

The Indian Narain Karthikeyan had one previous season in F1, driving a Jordan in 2005. He did indeed finish fourth in one race - but it was a very strange story. The race concerned was the United States GP, at Indianapolis, and after some problems in practice several of the teams became unhappy about the stresses the Michelin tyres were put under when cornering on the high-speed banked turns of the Brickyard. In the end only six drivers, from three Bridgestone-shod teams, entered the race, which became something of a procession. Michael Schumacher led home his Ferrari team-mate Rubens Barrichello, and the Jordans of Tiago Monteiro and Karthikeyan were third and fourth, ahead of Christijan Albers and Patrick Friesacher in Minardis. Of those last four drivers, Monteiro collected one further point in his F1 career, while Albers, Friesacher and Karthikeyan (so far) did not add to their tallies.

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