Some boring F1 statistics for you:
The country with the current longest streak in having a driver in Formula One is the United Kingdom, having had a driver every year. The leanest year was 2004 with just two drivers represented in David Coulthard and Jenson Button.
This is not a surprise. The next two longest tenured countries are slightly surprising, in their own ways.
Germany
A country that did not really have a successful driver in F1 until Michael Schumacher, Germany has actually had a driver in Formula One every year since 1981, a remarkable 38 years and a full decade before Schumacher's arrival. Manfred Winkelhock, Stefan Bellof, Christian Danner and Bernd Schneider valiantly carried the Bundesfahne during the 1980s and in 1990 before Schumacher cemented a German F1 legacy that has continued ever since through Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel.
Finland
Not surprising because Finland produces untalented drivers but because Finland produces few F1 drivers in a gross numeric scale, with just 9 drivers representing the siniristilippu. In fact, there has been a Finnish driver in F1 every year since 1989, an astonishing 30 years. JJ Lehto carried the first two years before the most famous names of Mika Häkkinen Kimi Raikkönen and Valtteri Bottas kept the lineage going, not forgetting Mika Salo and Heikki Kovaleinen, who fortuitously bridged the gap inbetween Raikkönen's sabbatical.
Which historically famous F1 countries miss the cut?
Italy
The producer of the second-greatest number of Formula One drivers had its bloc interrupted in 2012 where there were no Italian drivers on the grid; Giancarlo Fisichella retired in 2009 and neither Jarno Trulli nor Tonio Liuzzi were retained after 2011.
It is worth noting that Italy has produced two of the top ten most experienced Grand Prix drivers in history in Jarno Trulli and Riccardo Patrese and that specifically, between 1989-1991 there were thirteen Italian Grand Prix drivers on the grid each year.
France
Once a powerhouse of driver production in the 1960s and 1970s, France started falling on hard times starting in the 1990s. After Olivier Panis' retirement from Formula One, 2005 saw no French drivers on the grid meaning that France's current streak is nowhere as long as it should be.
Acknowledging Franck Montagny's drives in 2006 and Romain Grosjean's debut drives in 2009, it would be eight years until a full-time French Grand Prix driver was on the grid between Panis' exit in 2004 and the return of Grosjean in 2012.
Brazil
With a continuous legacy stretching back to Emerson Fittipaldi's debut in 1970 that continued with major career blocs from Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna and Rubens Barrichello, Brazil had a remarkable run of 47 years but since Felipe Massa's retirement in 2017, there hasn't been a driver from Brazil on the grid.
