Race and classic pictures

Happier days for Fernando

These days we're used to the Formula One season getting underway in the sun and heat of Australia. But it wasn't always that way.

Brazil used to be the traditional curtain raiser for the Formula One season in the 1990s. There were some occasional diversions to the likes of South Africa and the United States. But it wasn't until 1995 that Melbourne hosted the season opener. Ever since then it's just sort of stuck.
There have only been a couple of occasions in the last two decades with a different opening venue. Once such occasion was on this date in 2006 when the season started in Bahrain. The race saw Fernando Alonso take the first of seven Grand Prix victories that year.

Michael Schumacher equalled Alonso's number of wins but came up 13 points short in the championship, meaning the Spaniard took his second world championship. Those days must seen far, far away for Alonso given his struggles in the 2017 pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya this week.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.