After those fraught weeks of blood, sweat and tears, Minardi made it to Australia, where the first pages of Alonso’s record-breaking F1 career would be written. Wasting no time, Alonso placed 17th (ahead of a Jaguar, Prost, Arrows and Benetton) in opening practice, and would go on to qualify a highly-commendable 19th – beating two unquestionably quicker cars.
But race day would be even better as Alonso – piloting a PS01 without power steering and plagued by an array of early-season issues – made it to the chequered flag in the giddy heights of 12th position. It represented an incredible result for Minardi, given their rollercoaster of a winter, and left Stoddart in no doubt that Alonso was destined for greatness.
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“What I always remember is I came off the pit wall absolutely elated that we’d finished the race and that Fernando had come home in 12th place, then I walked into the garage and I could see all the mechanics in tears,” Stoddart recalls.
“I thought, ‘What’s happened here that I don’t know about?’ But the reality was, they were just tears of pride, the fact that we’d got there, as the mechanics all thought the team had gone under in December. Here we were a couple of months later in Melbourne and competing.
“Once Fernando got into the pit lane and out of the car, everyone was hugging him and grabbing him, and they were just elated that he’d managed to achieve that. It was an unbelievable start to his career and what was to follow.
