A young beginner

For the 2000 Formula 1 season, Giancarlo Minardi had convinced his new partner Paul Stoddart to trust a young teenager without experience, the Spaniard Fernando Alonso (seen here at Imola).

He had attracted the attention of all observers by winning the Formula 3000 race at Spa-Francorchamps a few months earlier, at the tender age of 19 (picture below), while he was only at his second full season in single seaters on the international stage. Twenty years later, the phenomenon is still there!