It was the first stage of what could have been a triumphal ride and which instead turned into one of the most bitter disappointments in the history of Ferrari. Twelve years ago, on March 14, 2010, Fernando Alonso he made his debut in the race at the wheel of the red by winning the Bahrain Grand Prix, first race of that World Cup. That GP was the race of the first few times, with Jenson Button joining McLaren as reigning world champion and Robert Kubica getting his first taste of Renault. It was the first time of the three new teams, Virgin, HRT and Lotus F1, but above all it was the first race of the second career of Michael Schumacherwhich with the Mercedes would not have taken away the same joys of his red epic.
The weekend in the desert immediately showed some of the values on the pitch that would then be seen until the end of the season, starting with the speed of the RB6, clearly the most performing car of that year, which Sebastian Vettel took to pole position already at Sakhir. Alonso’s adventure under the banner of the Prancing Horse began with a third place in qualifying, beaten by four tenths by his teammate. Felipe Massa. A roar, that of the Brazilian, however, thwarted by the departure of Alonso himself, who had already hoisted himself in second place after the first corner behind Vettel’s Red Bull. The race itself did not give particular points of emotion, if not one, decisive.
In fact, shortly after halfway through the race, Vettel’s car began to lose power, highlighting another characteristic that would have distinguished the Milton Keynes team that season: thefluctuating reliability. The German driver thus between the 34th and the 38th lap saw himself relegated from the first to the fourth position, overtaken by the two Ferraris and the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton, who in the early stages of the race had overtaken what was a great friend of his at the time: Nico Rosberg, also the protagonist of a debut, but in Mercedes. Alonso repeated Kimi Raikkonen’s feat three years earlier: winning his debut in Ferrari. The season finale, however, unfortunately for the Asturian, was different from that experienced by Raikkonen in 2007.
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