Fernando Alonso winning on his debut for Ferrari at Bahrain in 2010. He was the second driver since Nige “il Leone” Mansell to do such a thing, with the Manx-Brit winning at Brazil on debut in 1989 despite that season’s car being dogged with horrendous reliability. In that time, such noted drivers as Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher, and Kimi Raikkonen all made less spectacular debuts for Ferrari (Prost and Schumacher both retiring on debut, Raikkonen being the other driver to win on debut). Both Prost and Schumacher would go on to win 5 and 3 races respectively.
Despite all four world champions mounting title challenges in their respective debut seasons with the Scuderia, only Kimi Raikkonen was able to win the title in his debut season. He became the first since Jody Scheckter in 1979 to do so, with the pair only joined by the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio in a rare group of drivers to win the world title for the Scuderia in their debut seasons. Surprisingly (or maybe not so much?), this is not Fangio’s most exclusive club, holding five current Formula One records and a plethora more where he has been the historic leader.
Perhaps Fangio’s most staggering record is the astounding 92.31% front-row starting percentage. Michael Schumacher would have had to start front the front row over 250 times in his career to come even close to that, and he is the all time leader with 116.
