The forgotten member of F1’s greatest rookie crop
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Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen will mark the 20th anniversaries of their Formula 1 debuts when they line up on the grid for next week’s 2021 season opener in Bahrain. If the cards had fallen differently, they might have expected to rack up many more than their combined total of three world titles, given the potential they showed in their rookie seasons with the backmarker Minardi and upper-midfield Sauber squads respectively.
Together with Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, whose flame in F1 burned brightly but briefly with the Williams and McLaren teams before his departure for NASCAR, the trio’s 2001 emergence represented a changing of the guard in F1. But their ‘F1 debut’ club had a fourth, often-forgotten member.
On the face of it, the Brazilian Red Bull protege partnering Jos Verstappen at Arrows had an anonymous year, scoring no points. But from being threatened with career oblivion by McLaren boss Ron Dennis in Monaco to his lucky escape when a flying wheel struck his car at Hockenheim, to convincing team bosses who were all set to eject him that he was worthy of a second season, Enrique Bernoldi’s rookie campaign was anything but uneventful.
Bernoldi was something of a surprise signing by Arrows. Pedro de la Rosa had
