05-05-2014, 20:28
Estupendo articulo con videos incluidos
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/05/02/ro...do-alonso/
Formula One was a minority sport in Spain when Fernando Alonso was born in July 1981.
Eight days before his birthday the unloved Jarama track held its last grand prix – a memorable race in which Gilles Villeneuve scored his final win for Ferrari.
Alonso would eventually follow in Villeneuve’s footsteps and drive for the Scuderia – and unlikely prospect for a youngster from a country where F1 was greeted with indifference at best.
But Jose Luis Alonso had been bitten by the karting bug, and his son first was just three years old when he first got behind the wheel of a go-kart.
The only Spanish driver ever to stand on the podium at a world championship event had been Alfonso de Portago, who shared second place at Silverstone with Peter Collins in 1956. Alonso had taken the first steps towards matching that achievement – and outstripping it.
1984-1998 – Karts
By 1993 Alonso, now 11, had begun to attract the attention of sponsors to support his increasingly hard-pressed family. That allowed him to take his fledgling career to the big time. A triple crown in the Spanish Junior Championships followed, and by 1996 Alonso was the benchmark for others to test themselves against.
That season saw others outside Spain sit up and take notice when Alonso took not only his fourth consecutive Spanish crown but the world championship as well, a feat he mirrored with the Spanish and Italian titles a season later when he moved up to the senior Intercontinental-A category (now KF2).
Alonso showed his class with a dominant performance at a gruelling Intercontinental-A European Championship event at Genk in Belgium in 1997. From a field of 162 runners he won every one of his eight heats.
Grip levels on the hot track ramped up rapidly due to the fact it was in near-constant use, but Alonso continued to control proceedings with another win in the pre-final. Here he is in the unfamiliar combination of a white and blue helmet in kart number 82:
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/05/02/ro...do-alonso/
Formula One was a minority sport in Spain when Fernando Alonso was born in July 1981.
Eight days before his birthday the unloved Jarama track held its last grand prix – a memorable race in which Gilles Villeneuve scored his final win for Ferrari.
Alonso would eventually follow in Villeneuve’s footsteps and drive for the Scuderia – and unlikely prospect for a youngster from a country where F1 was greeted with indifference at best.
But Jose Luis Alonso had been bitten by the karting bug, and his son first was just three years old when he first got behind the wheel of a go-kart.
The only Spanish driver ever to stand on the podium at a world championship event had been Alfonso de Portago, who shared second place at Silverstone with Peter Collins in 1956. Alonso had taken the first steps towards matching that achievement – and outstripping it.
1984-1998 – Karts
By 1993 Alonso, now 11, had begun to attract the attention of sponsors to support his increasingly hard-pressed family. That allowed him to take his fledgling career to the big time. A triple crown in the Spanish Junior Championships followed, and by 1996 Alonso was the benchmark for others to test themselves against.
That season saw others outside Spain sit up and take notice when Alonso took not only his fourth consecutive Spanish crown but the world championship as well, a feat he mirrored with the Spanish and Italian titles a season later when he moved up to the senior Intercontinental-A category (now KF2).
Alonso showed his class with a dominant performance at a gruelling Intercontinental-A European Championship event at Genk in Belgium in 1997. From a field of 162 runners he won every one of his eight heats.
Grip levels on the hot track ramped up rapidly due to the fact it was in near-constant use, but Alonso continued to control proceedings with another win in the pre-final. Here he is in the unfamiliar combination of a white and blue helmet in kart number 82:
Fernando es de otro planeta