Fernando Alonso

Young Fernando in in his first season in the premier league of Motorsport.
Its a bit Like Rushden and Diamonds coming up into the football league.
Much is promised of this youngster but can he perform.
One thing is for sure, he wont be winning for Minardi.
Minardi are a small tail end team with no money. Their car is good but it is underpowered and slow.
What it does have is star drivers of the future cutting their teeth in Formula One. If you can scrape a Minardi off the back row of the grid and up to 20th place or above, you must be good.
This is how I see Fernando.
To be honest, he has been slightly overshadowed this year by another bright prospect at Sauber, Kimi Raikonnen.
Where Raikonnen has posted points and quick lap times, Alonso has outqualified and outpaced his older and more experienced team mate, Tarso Marques consistently and by big margins.
This is tremendous when you think they have exactly the same equipment.

The young Spaniard has a limited experience of single-seater racing but
he has impressed me and the Formula One fraternity with his fourth place finish in International Formula 3000 last year. This is excellent when you consider it was only his second season of single-seater racing.
This is still a little bit behind Raikonnen's handful of single seater drives but not far.

He started his career in the year his idol, Ayrton Senna, died. 1994.
His first proper season in karting saw him become Spanish Champion.
In 1996, Alonso became World and Spanish Champion. Proving he was a star of the future.
In 1997 he again retained his Spanish crown and naroowly missing out on the world title.
In 1999 he jumped into single seater and the Euro Open championship and won it for Nissan.
Still only 19, he has a lot to learn but expect this boy to be a champion in the future. And to think he started with Minardi!