Why Fernando Alonso’s 2001 debut campaign was the best point-less season in Formula 1 history – opinion

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Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso has had the longest career in the history of Formula 1.

The 43-year-old Spaniard currently races for Aston Martin and hasn’t had the most exciting campaign running in the midfield for much of the year.

It’s not the first time Fernando Alonso hasn’t tasted success in F1, with the 2024 season being his eighth year in the sport without finishing on the podium.

However, it can’t be said that Alonso is performing below expectations despite being double the age of some of his competitors this year.

Alonso finished with nearly triple the points tally of teammate Lance Stroll and 32 points ahead of his nearest challenger Pierre Gasly.

However, simply competing for points would have been a dream for Alonso when he first entered the sport in 2001.

He was given a chance by backmarkers Minardi and was turning heads even when he was nowhere near the top eight each weekend.

How Fernando Alonso ended up racing for Minardi

Alonso’s potential was clear for some time, winning several karting championships before racing in the Euro Open by Nissan in 1999.

He won the championship and was handed his first taste of F1 action at the end of that year in a private test before being named Minardi’s test and reserve driver in 2000.

Another strong performance in the International Formula 3000 series was enough for Minardi to decide he should be handed a full-time race seat in 2001, initially alongside Brazilian Tarso Marques.

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Paul Stoddard had just bought the team and talking about the lead-up to his debut, via GPBlog, he said: “We had a very short timeframe to put the whole team together, which was six weeks and three days from when I acquired it to when we had to fly to Melbourne.

“Fernando was there until midnight, working God knows what hours – around the clock – to get everything done.

“All we managed to do was a quick shakedown at Fiorano, a straight-line track before we shipped the cars.”

It turned out Alonso didn’t need much time to get acquainted with the PS01 before his debut at the Australian Grand Prix.

Fernando Alonso makes Minardi mechanics cry during his Formula 1 debut

There were 22 cars on the grid for Alonso’s debut at Albert Park and Minardi were expected to have the slowest car among the backmarkers.

He was joined by three more rookies – future world champion Kimi Raikkonen (Sauber), Juan Pablo Montoya (Williams) and Enrique Bernoldi (Arrows).

Prost, Jaguar and Arrows were their closest rivals and Alonso managed to qualify 19th, ahead of Gaston Mazzacane, Luciano Burti and Marques.

In fact, Marques fell foul of the 107% rule, designed to stop cars and drivers who were too slow from entering the race, but was allowed to take part anyway.

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Alonso drove very well in the race, avoided collisions that took out much more experienced drivers and finished 12th, with teammate Marques unable to cross the finish line due to a battery issue.

After the race, Stoddard said: “What I always remember is I came off the pit wall absolutely elated that we’d finished the race and that Fernando had come home in 12th place, then I walked into the garage and I could see all the mechanics in tears.

“I thought, ‘What’s happened here that I don’t know about?’ But the reality was, they were just tears of pride, the fact that we’d got there.”

Fernando Alonso’s agonising reliability issues

Alonso followed up his 12th-place finish by coming home in 13th at the following race in Malaysia.

He was a lap ahead of teammate Marques – the last of the classified runners – but that’s where his luck started to run out.

Five retirements in the next six races – intersected with another 13th-place finish at his home race in Spain, could have deterred Alonso.

READ MORE: Fernando Alonso explains how he’ll know exactly when he needs to retire from Formula 1

He was already signed up to Renault’s driver program and he knew that he was eventually going to end up racing for Flavio Briatore.

But he wanted to get as many laps under his belt as possible, and finishes at the next four Grand Prix – including a season-best of 10th in Germany – once again displayed his pedigree to the rest of the paddock.

He was the final finisher at the Hockenheimring, but that wouldn’t have mattered to Alonso as he edged ever closer to that elusive first point.

Fernando Alonso’s year with Minardi comes to an end with a sensational Japanese Grand Prix

He retired from the Hungarian Grand Prix and technically failed to start at Spa due to a gearbox issue, although he drove several laps before the race was restarted due to Burti’s huge shunt.

Alonso had a massive accident in the warm-up that required him to use the spare car, but thankfully he was fit enough to race.

That meant Alonso had three races left before his time with Minardi was set to come to an end.

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He finished 13th at Monza and retired from the United States Grand Prix ahead of the season finale at Suzuka.

Alonso miraculously qualified 18th, ahead of both Arrows cars, new teammate Alex Yoong and Tomas Enge.

He came home in 11th, ahead of Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Olivier Panis, a remarkable feat given they were driving superior cars.

Talking about his efforts, Stoddard said, via Motorsport Magazine: “Fernando was going to Renault. Traditionally when you have a driver leaving, you take all the fuel out of the car in practice and let them do a couple of glory laps.

“I’d already said yes to it, but there was a miscommunication and his race engineer overruled me.

“I saw Fernando in the paddock, and he was seething. I told him ‘Mate, do your talking on track in the race’.

“What followed was 53 laps of pure qualifying. I’ve never seen such a focused drive in all my life.

“The bottom line is that every time Fernando drove the PS01, he got 110 per cent out of it. Let’s face it, the car was a dog, but Fernando made it respectable.”

What the rest of the grid said about Fernando Alonso’s 2001 season with Minardi

In an interview with Formula1.com, his old teammate Marques said: “I drove with many good drivers as my teammates – Giancarlo Fisichella, David Coulthard, Mark Webber, Jarno Trulli and others – but for sure, Fernando was different.

“He had an amazing ability that I had never seen before to adapt himself to a problem with the balance of the car – he could perform miracles in these situations.

“It was one of his best qualities, that even if the balance was not good he could manage to be fast in adapting his driving style, and you don’t [often] see that around [with other drivers].”

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Yoong also spoke about Alonso’s abilities that year and explained: “I remember doing the Monza test before my first Grand Prix; I was pounding around all day and got down to what I thought was a pretty decent time, all things considered.

“Fernando was stuck in the pit box the whole time because of mechanical issues, but they managed to get his car out for one run at the end of the day.

“He went out – I don’t think it was a particularly low-fuel run – and went a second quicker than me straight away…”

Atlas F1 rated Alonso as the sixth-best driver of the season, despite failing to score a point.

They believed he had a better season than the likes of Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello and even world champion Mika Hakkinen.

That potential never went to waste and two world championships and more than 400 Grand Prix later, Alonso’s still going.