Pole sitters who failed to start from Pole position

[KekeTheKing]

In "Ask the Apex" I posed a question that would take a great deal of research to sort out. Mephistopheles started us out over there, and I thought, why not continue it on a new thread. Interestingly, the example Meph points out is part of the problem when trying to sort out the answer to this question, seeing that officially, Couthard did actually start from Pole as the race was red flagged and Re-started with DC at the front. But we'll worry about that later.

So, please list all known occurrences of when the Pole sitter on the grid failed to start from there for one reason or another. And I think we can only count stalls on the race start if every single car gets away ahead of them.

I will keep a running tally in this first post.

1957 Argentine GP (Buenos Aires-Layout #2) - Stirling Moss - Broken throttle at race start, lost 10 laps
1975 Argentine GP (Buenos Aires-Layout #15) - Jean-Pierre Jarier - Broken transmission on formation lap, did not start the race
1982 Canadian GP (Circuit Gilles Villeneuve) - Didier Pironi - Stalled at race start, hit by Paletti in fatal crash
1982 British GP (Brands Hatch) - Keke Rosberg - Failed to get away on formation lap, started from the back
1985 Dutch GP (Zandvoort) - Nelson Piquet - Stalled at race start, pushed away
1986 Italian GP (Monza) - Teo Fabi - Failed to get away on formation lap, started from the back
1988 Brazilian GP (Jacarepagua) - Ayrton Senna - Broken gear selector on formation lap, started race from Pit Lane in spare, eventually DQ
1993 Hungarian GP (Hungaroring) - Alain Prost - Stalled on formation lap, started from the back
1993 Portuguese GP (Estoril) - Damon Hill - Stalled on formation lap, started from the back, finished 3rd
1995 Italian GP (Monza) - David Coulthard - Went off on formation lap, started from pit lane
1995 European GP (New Nurburgring) - David Coulthard - Went off on formation lap and stalled, race start was aborted
1996 French GP (Magny-Cours) - Michael Schumacher - Blows engine on formation lap and fails to start race
1998 Japanese GP (Suzuka) - Michael Schumacher - Stalled before 2nd formation lap (Trulli stalled after 1st), started from the back
2001 Monaco GP (Monte-Carlo) - David Coulthard - Stalled on formation lap, started from the back
2001 Belgian GP (Spa) - Juan Pablo Montoya - Stalled before 2nd formation lap (Frentzen stalled after 1st), started from the back
2005 United States GP (Indy) - Jarno Trulli - Car withdrawn from the race
2005 Italian GP (Monza) - Kimi Raikkonen - Demoted 10 places for engine change
2006 Australian GP (Albert Park) - Juan Pablo Montoya - Spun on parade lap, started 2nd formation lap from back when Fisichella stalled
2006 Monaco GP (Monte-Carlo) - Michael Schumacher - Sent to the back for blocking the circuit in Qualifying
2007 Hungarian GP (Hungaroring) - Fernando Alonso - Incurred 5 place penalty during Qualifying
2012 Spanish GP (Catalunya) - Lewis Hamilton - Excluded from Qualifying for fuel irregularity
2012 Monaco GP (Monte-Carlo) - Michael Schumacher - Took 5 place Grid Penalty from Spain

 

[KekeTheKing]

With some help from the World Wide Web, I've just added quite a few of the more well known occurrences of the Pole man not actually starting the race from there. The ones that are harder to remember/identify are when the pole sitter stalled at the start of the GP itself. Dig into the memory banks and maybe we can fill in the gaps.

 

[teabagyokel]

Of course, the 1998 Japanese Grand Prix is the more famous one, he lost the title there and then.

 

[Fenderman]

1975 Argentine GP Pole sitter Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jarier's Shadow-Ford suffered Transmission failure on the warm up lap - DNS.

 

[LifeW12]

Senna was on pole at Suzuka '88 and nearly stalled, fell back to 15th or something. Then the great comeback.

You could also technically say Imola '94 but for obvious reasons there's no point.

 

[Fenderman]

1957 Argentine Grand Prix - Moss's throttle linkage broke on the start line and he lost 10 laps having it fixed. Finished 8th seven laps down.

 

[Incubus]

KekeTheKing already mentioned Fabi having to start from the back at the 1986 Italian GP but what made it it even more remarkable was that Prost having qualified alongside him also saw his engine refuse to start at the formation grid. He rushed to his spare car and had to start from the pit-lane. He was also disqualified half-way through the race for changing car too late (his engine was about to expire anyway).

So Mansell inherited first place on the grid from third, wich must be some kind of record because as far as I know to 1986 Italian was the only one I can think of that started without a front-row (if you exclude the 2005 Michelin-abandoned US GP).

 

[Johnny Carwash]

1982 German Grand Prix at Hochenheim. Didier Pironi had a career ending crash during Sunday morning practice.

 

[RasputinLives]

You could also do how many drivers have started from pole having never set the fastest time in a qualifying session.

Winklehock immediatly springs to mind having started from pole on the restart in Germany.

Must be others.

 

[LifeW12]

The only driver to start from last and first in the same race.

 

[Bill Boddy]

No wonder he never came back, his record should be the longest running for many years.

 

[Wombcat]

You could also do how many drivers have started from pole having never set the fastest time in a qualifying session.

Winklehock immediatly springs to mind having started from pole on the restart in Germany.

Must be others.

I'm not sure if that is a pole position.

Webber at Monaco and Maldonado in Spain, both last year, started from pole, but didn't set the fastest time.
Although you could argue that Maldonado did, because Hamiltons' time was scrapped, so technically he didn't set a legal time.

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

1982 German Grand Prix at Hochenheim. Didier Pironi had a career ending crash during Sunday morning practice.

Jeez, was that 31 years ago? I feel very old all of a sudden.

 

[Puhoon]

I'm not sure if that is a pole position.

Webber at Monaco and Maldonado in Spain, both last year, started from pole, but didn't set the fastest time.
Although you could argue that Maldonado did, because Hamiltons' time was scrapped, so technically he didn't set a legal time.

Pole position means the first spot on the grid, not the fastest time in quali.

 

[Incubus]

Only once the initial Grand Prix start procedure is under way though. No positions after any kind of re-start officially count as "pole". It you check Winklehock's profile on any official FIA records it will read "Winklehock - Pole-Positions: 0"

 

[Olivier]

So there's a tie between Coulthard and Schumacher as the most poles who failed to start from pole.

 

[FB]

About the only stat those two share then...

 

[Wombcat]

Pole position means the first spot on the grid, not the fastest time in quali.

Yeah, but I responded to RasputinLives post in which he asked

You could also do how many drivers have started from pole having never set the fastest time in a qualifying session.

Webber and Maldonaldo started from pole, but didn't set the fastest time in qualifying. Although in Maldonaldo's case you could argue that he did, since Hamilton technically didn't set a time in qualifying.

 

[Bleu]

DC started normally in Nürburgring 1995. He went off in the lap where they drive to the grid, took spare car and went to the pole position.

 

[LifeW12]

The Nurburgring 2007 red flag was really just a long safety car period. The race time kept going, it wasn't a new race. And there was no aggregate times either.

Actually the last time a race was done on aggregate was Imola 94. I'm 99% certain they changed it after that.