Race and classic pictures

Look back: Alonso's first F1 title

On this day in 2005, Renault's Fernando Alonso secured his first world championship after finishing in third place in the Brazilian Grand Prix. He was just 24 years and 59 days old at the time, making him the sport's youngest world championship up to that point.

I want to dedicate this championship to my family, and all my close friends who have supported me through my career. Spain is not a country with an F1 culture, and we had to fight alone, every step of the way, to make this happen.

A huge thank you to the team as well: they are the best in Formula 1, and we have done this together. It will say that I am world champion, but we are all champions, and they deserve this.

Alonso had opened his season with five back-to-back podium appearances with third place in Australia followed by three consecutive race wins in Malaysia, Bahrain and San Marino. Before this he'd only had one previous career victory when he had won the 2003 Hungarian Grand Prix.

After a relative slump to 'only' fourth place at Monaco, Alonso would go on to take three more wins at the Nürburgring, Magny-Cours and Hockenheim, but he was forced to miss the United States Grand Prix when Michelin withdrew all their cars from that year's race which allowed Michael Schumacher and Ferrari to close the gap in the points.

Ultimately Alonso proved too strong for the competition, and the title was finally his after he finished on the podium behind McLaren team mates Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen, and one position ahead of Schumacher. With the pressure of the championship now off, Alonso went on to finish the season with a flourish by claiming victory in the season finale in China.

The following season would prove even better for Alonso, when he won the title again with 14 top two finishes from the 18 races that year.

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.