RIGHT MAN, WRONG AGE, WRONG TEAM

It’s 20 years since sportscar great Allan McNish made his long overdue F1 debut with Toyota, but the circumstances were hardly ideal

JAMES NEWBOLD

It’s fair to say that Allan McNish didn’t fit the typical profile of a Formula 1 debutant when he lined up on the grid for the 2002 Australian Grand Prix with the brand-new Toyota team. Aged 32, the Scotsman hadn’t raced a single-seater since 1995 and was already well established as a top sportscar talent, having won the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1998. Two decades have now passed since McNish’s one and only season as a grand prix racer before Toyota unceremoniously dropped the axe on both him and team-mate Mika Salo. Reflecting on a campaign in which his best finish of seventh in Malaysia wasn’t enough to score points – 2002 was the last year in which only the top six were eligible to score – McNish concedes that…

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Autosport (Digital) - 1 Issue, 3/3/2022

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