F1 Debuts

[race aficionado]

Arrows.
Now that you seem to have the stats, how did my man Juan do on his first race?
Who did he crash???

. . . . btw, I'm enjoying Juan @ Nascar but can't help imagining him on these new McCars . . . . .

not meaning to highjack the thread . . . . back to the first F1 race stats . . .


mokin:

[BDunnell]

It's all but forgotten now that Jenson Button had a sensational first lap of his first GP, passing about half the field (from the back of the grid) as I recall. It was really impressive.

A mention must go to Peter Arundell. I was delighted to see his name on the front page of The Guardian on Monday in the summary of the Bahrain GP report, referring to the fact that Lewis Hamilton has become the first driver since Arundell in 1964 to get podiums in his first two F1 races. His subsequent career wasn't exactly glittering, but the feat remains impressive, and well worth noting.

[inimitablestoo]

What I would like to point out is that though these drivers in the 50s were technically making their F1 debuts, in reality they had raced (and won) Grands Prix before. Farina, Ascari etc... were racing and winning Grands Prix before WWII

And if you take that into account, it means Hamilton has done something unique in F1 history in leading his first two Grand Prix starts. Fangio led the first five World Championship events (if you discount the Indy 500 from the 1950 list of races, which some record books do and others don't), but of course had raced previously in Grands Prix.

[ArrowsFA1]

Arrows.
Now that you seem to have the stats, how did my man Juan do on his first race?
Who did he crash???

Not exactly a stellar start race because he qualified 11th. In the race he was 3rd...until the BMW blew. He did however have a close run thing with Bernoldi's Arrows in qualifying ("I thought he was going to let me by but when I went to turn he just turned in front of me..."). Must have been something about those orange cars in '01