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Melbourne rookies lineup 1
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The forgotten member of F1’s greatest rookie crop

The 2001 Formula 1 season unveiled three shining lights who would take the challenge to Michael Schumacher – but also delivered a harsh lesson in F1’s cut-throat nature to the fourth member, Arrows driver Enrique Bernoldi

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.

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