I was intrigued by an incidental fact in the news that Petter Solberg is sponsoring Norwegian F1 hopeful Dennis Olsen in his Formula Renault 2.0 campaign: there has never been a Norwegian Formula 1 driver. And it got me thinking: what’s the biggest country that hasn’t been represented on the F1 grid?

It’s not a hard question to answer: China. It’s the most populous country on the planet, and no Chinese person has competed in a Formula 1 race. Ma Qinghua has taken part in a handful of free practice sessions, but never actually competed.

But there’s more mileage in this. By scraping data from Wikipedia lists of F1 drivers and countries by population, it’s easy to compare the two. First, the top ten countries by population.

Well that’s pretty clear: half of the top ten most populous countries in the world have never been, let alone currently are, represented in Formula 1. That’s over two billion people – which is 30 percent of the planet, give or take – without no-one from their home country to cheer on.

Of the five that have been represented, India and Russia have each had just two drivers – well out of proportion with their population. The United States, Brazil and Japan have remarkably close ranks for population and F1 drivers though. So well done them.

Let’s look the other way: the top ten countries by the number of F1 drivers.

Yep, there we are, the good old UK, punching conspicuously above our weight at the top of the F1 list. Sorry about that.

We’re not the most unlikely country in the top ten though: that would be little old Switzerland, 97th on population, but with 24 F1 drivers, a huge 8th on that measure. Belgium isn’t far behind, 75th on population and 9th on F1 drivers.

What’s the lesson? History means a lot, and shouldn’t be forgotten – particularly as far as races in Europe are concerned. But at the same time, it’s a big world out there, and only by promoting and holding races in new places will the sport spread into new lands. But quite how you square that particular circle is well beyond me.