The new kids on the grid
Tuesday, 22 March 2022
Australia has held the opening race of the season for all but two years.
Think of a big name in Formula 1® for the best part of a quarter-century, and there's a fair chance we saw them take their first steps to greatness right here in Melbourne.
Australia has held the opening race of the season for all but two years of the time it has spent on the Formula 1® calendar since 1996, and six drivers who would eventually become world champions – Jacques Villeneuve, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Max Verstappen – raced in F1® for the first time at Albert Park.
Just eight drivers on this year's grid didn’t make their debuts in Australia, while four of that group are yet to race at Albert Park at all (we’ll get back to the other four).
Let's meet our quick quartet for whom the Formula 1® Heineken® Australian Grand Prix 2022 will be their maiden outing in Melbourne.
Nicholas Latifi
'Nicky' has at least been to Albert Park before; the 26-year-old came down to Australia for what was supposed to be his Formula 1® debut for Williams in 2020 before the race weekend was cancelled due to COVID-19 at the 11th hour.
The Canadian had to wait until July that year to finally get going at the first of two races in Austria, and will be one of the many drivers keen for a 'normal' full 2022 calendar, as he's yet to experience every stop on the F1® schedule despite nearing 50 Grands Prix starts.
While the Montreal native will be keen to actually cut some laps of Albert Park this time, you could forgive him for looking further ahead to round nine of the season on June 19; it'll mark the first time Latifi truly has a home race as F1® returns to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for the Canadian Grand Prix for the first time since 2019.
Mick Schumacher
One of the enduring memories of Melbourne's first race on the calendar – given what was to follow – was Michael Schumacher cutting his first laps at a race weekend as a Ferrari driver when he ventured out for Friday practice in 1996. Some 26 years later, Michael's son Mick will get his first taste of Albert Park when he pilots a Haas for the third race of his second season, the 22-year-old debuting in Bahrain last year.
Like Latifi, Schumacher has at least set foot on Australian shores; the Schumacher family have been close friends with Australian motorcycle racing legend Mick Doohan and his family for years, Mick's son and current F2® racer Jack receiving his first go-kart as a gift from Michael as a youngster.
"In terms of place and in terms of people, I'm very much looking forward to Australia," Mick Schumacher told the In The Fast Lane podcast last year.
"I know Jack quite well and I've been visiting with him in Australia once or twice as well. It's quite far and we don't always get to go there, but the times I have been were always great."
Yuki Tsunoda
Like Schumacher, Tsunoda debuted in Bahrain last year – and immediately gained a cult following with a barnstorming drive for points accompanied by some chatter with the AlphaTauri pit wall that required some extra use of the 'bleep' button on the TV feed …
April will be the first time Tsunoda ventures Down Under, the 21-year-old leaving his native Japan in 2019 to race in Europe, first in Formula 3® and the next year in F2®, winning races in both seasons before getting his main-game promotion.
Like Latifi, Tsunoda will be eyeing off his home race as F1® reverts to a full schedule this season; the Japanese Grand Prix is scheduled for October 9 at Suzuka, where Tsunoda's racing story started to gather momentum in 2016 when he graduated from the Suzuka Circuit Racing School and became part of Honda's Formula Dream Project.
Guanyu Zhou
The fourth and final Albert Park newcomer for 2022 is a rookie in the truest sense, with Zhou the only debutant on the Formula 1® grid this season for Alfa Romeo. That's not something that's likely to faze the 22-year-old, who – as China's first full-time F1® driver – is accustomed to breaking new ground.
Zhou's career, ever since he attended the maiden Chinese Grand Prix in his home city of Shanghai in 2004 as a five-year-old, has been a steady successions of 'firsts' after he moved to the UK to seriously pursue motorsport at age 12; he became the first Chinese driver to win a race at an F1 race weekend (F2, Sochi 2020) and the first Chinese to drive in an official F1 session, which he did for Alpine in opening practice at last year's Austrian Grand Prix.
Zhou will have to wait a little longer than Latifi or Tsunoda to experience being the star attraction at his home race weekend, with the Chinese Grand Prix expected to resume its place on the calendar in 2023.
(For the record, the other four drivers on the 2022 grid besides our Albert Park rookies not to debut in Australia: Sebastian Vettel, who stepped in as an injury replacement for Robert Kubica for BMW-Sauber at Indianapolis in 2007; Daniel Ricciardo, who debuted for HRT at Silverstone in 2011; Esteban Ocon, who started with Manor at the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix; and Ocon's fellow Frenchman Pierre Gasly, who first raced for Toro Rosso in Malaysia 2017).
