This weekend Jenson Button is set to become the third driver in Formula One history to reach 300 starts at the Malaysia Grand Prix, joining Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher in accumulating the landmark.
The Englishman is the third driver to reach 300 in this decade after Barrichello and Schumacher celebrated their achievements at the 2010 Belgian and 2012 Singapore Grands Prix respectively.
It is a huge milestone in any racer’s career, which is always an interesting thing to look back upon, especially to give clues to how Button’s day at the Sepang International Circuit could pan out.
Every driver to have raced for the 300th time have started their expected race and avoided having a DNS at the track. However, they have gone on to retire from the event due to collisions.
Barrichello was involved in an opening lap incident at the Bus Stop chicane during the wet race at Spa-Francorchamps in 2010.
With most drivers famously missing their braking points and trying to find a way back onto track from the run-off area, he found the rear of Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari and his event ended after just a couple of minutes.
The contact destroyed the left front corner of his Williams and somehow the Spaniard drove away with no problems.
Schumacher, meanwhile, reached over half-distance in Singapore before his race came to an end. On the 39th lap of 59, he collided with the rear of the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne.
His Mercedes car failed to brake before hammering the rear of the Toro Rosso, causing both drivers to exit the race.
Therefore, history doesn’t read well for Button, whose McLaren car has retired from five races so far in 2016, the most of any driver on the grid.
His tally is one more than Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein, Renault’s Jolyon Palmer and Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson, who have failed to finish four races this season.
Because of his decision to take a break from the sport in 2017, the British driver is expected to end the season behind both Barrichello (327) and Schumacher (306) in the tally of most starts in the sport with 305 to his name.
