Whether you like him or not, we ought to acknowledge Fernando Alonso's 33rd birthday, which was yesterday. Here's a photo of his first F1 ride in a Minardi in Australia in 2001. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Happy birthday Fernando. He was amazing in that Minardi. Schumacher commented that he would be a future star. From Wikipedia: "Alonso was the third-youngest driver ever to start a Formula One race when he made his debut with Minardi at the Australian Grand Prix. The team was in its first season under the control of new owner Paul Stoddart and their new car, the PS01, was neither fast nor reliable. However Alonso's qualifying performance was good, outqualifying team-mate Tarso Marques by 2.6 seconds on début. At the fourth round at Imola he outqualified both Benettons, a feat he repeated later in the season. At the final round of the season at Suzuka he finished eleventhfive places outside the points but ahead of Heinz-Harald Frentzen's Prost, the BAR of Olivier Panis, the two Arrows and his team-mate Alex Yoong. Four years later, his team boss from the Minardi days, Paul Stoddart, described his race as "53 laps of qualifying"
