Forget Schuhmacher, Mantoya and the front end of Formula One. As the season opens in Australia this weekend, Justin Hynes looks over the credentials of some of the young drivers battling for attention at the back of the pack
Early on Sunday morning millions around the world will set themselves up in front of theis TV sets for the final qualifying round for the opening race of the new Formula One season.
The shake-up for the first grid of the season is a time of intense speculation, wild hope, desperate prayers. Will Ferrari still be the pace, will anyone be able to take the fight to Michael Schumacher?
What of the McLaren pairing of Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen? How will that potentially explosive partnership shape up? Where are Williams in all of this?
A hundred questions, all about the sharp end of the action. Further back things are just as unclear but the circumstances, the hopes and dreams are altogether different. Look down the grid. Beyond Renault and Williams. No, not to Sauber or Toyota, further back, back even beyond the fledgling Red Bull Racing (formerly Jaguar).
Here, on Sunday, will be a battle few viewers will take heed of, a battle which appears to have little significance in the great scheme of F1, but which for the four rookie drivers will be what the whole season is about.
For India's Narain Karthikeyan and Portugal's Tiago Monteiro at Jordan Midland, for the Netherlands' Christijan Albers and Austria's Patrick Freisacher at Minardi, the season starts at the back of row 10 of the Melbourne grid and will likely end at the front of row nine in China in October.
The minnows have always been proving grounds for youngsters and this season is no different. Minardi, the team that gave breaks to Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli among others, has taken on German Touring Car racer Albers and former F3000 pilot Freisacher.
Jordan, who most famously gave Michael Schumacher his F1 start, as well as kick-starting the careers of brother Ralf as well as a host of other F1 stars going all the way back to Jean Alesi in F3000, have opted once again for youth in Monteiro and Karthikeyan.
Even Red Bull is in on the act, having only confirmed last year's Jaguar junior Christian Klien for Melbourne, with highly-rated Italian F3000 star Vitantonio Liuzzi waiting in the wings and likely to be given a shot at sometime during the season.
For these drivers the 2005 season is not about banging wheels with either Schumacher, or even with Red Bull lead driver David Coulthard - it's all about beating their fellow first-years. For most the only time the grid's stragglers attract attention is when they ignore enough blue flags to incur the wrath of the race leaders.
But the tussles for recognition at the gritty end of the grid are often just as fascinating. Remember Jarno Trulli's outstanding Austrian Grand Prix at the wheel of a Prost in 1997. It was enough to bring him to the attention of Damon Hill who recommended the Italian to Eddie Jordan and set Trulli on the road to riches and Toyota. Or Mark Webber's point-scoring debut for Minardi in 2002 which set him on the path to Jaguar and Williams after he had been written off as a has-been test driver.
So are any likely to emerge as contenders from this year's tail-end tussles? Of the quintet, it's the one not racing in Melbourne who may turn out to be the pick of the bunch. Vitantonio Liuzzi was denied a race drive in Australia by Jaguar alumnus Christian Klien, but the Austrian has only been confirmed for that race and it's likely that Red Bull will rotate the two junior to David Coulthard throughout the season. Liuzzi should have enough to see off Klien and probably the other four.
After performing well in his opening F300 campaigns for Coloni, Liuzzi last year switched to Arden, the team run by Christian Horner, now heavily involved at Red Bull Racing, and there the Italian exploded into the spotlight. With Arden, Liuzzi won seven of the 10 races and secured the championship with an excellent drive at Spa, an F3000 event that first alerted the paddock to Fernando Alonso's talent in 2000. Fast and aggressive, Liuzzi so far looks the pick of this year's rookies.
Albers though may give Liuzzi and the others a tough time, even though the Dutchman has spent most of his career racing saloons in the DTM (German Touring Car) series. At 26, he brings experience, having kickstarted his serious racing career in German F3 in 1998. But F1 fought shy of Albers until now and he has had to content himself with successful season in DTM, finishing second in the championship in 2003.
The step to F1 is a massive one and, while he has been a test driver for Minardi on and off since 2001, Albers faces a sharp learning curve given the paucity of test miles undertaken by the cash-strapped team. But his race craft should give him an edge over some of the rookies.
It will also be a big step for Friesacher, the Austrian whose sole claim to fame so far is back-to-back wins at the Hungarian round of the F3000 championship. Aside from those, his career in that series has been average to say the least.
The Jordan pair are a different kettle of fish altogether, their appointments smacking even more heavily of sponsor involvement and also of an interim solution until Midland fully take over the Jordan team.
Both are being trumpeted as the future of F1 by the team. Team chief Trevor Carlin, who ran both in F3, says: "We've been very lucky to put together a driver line-up which gives us a really strong package in terms terms of youth, technical ability, speed and talent."
That, though, is standard-issue "announcement" speak and neither Karthikeyan and Monteiro are likely to rock the F1 world to its foundations. Indeed, Karthikeyan, at 28, is the oldest of the bunch and has been prowling around the junior formulae for over 10 years with a patchy record at best.
Wins at some of the more challenging circuits such as Brand's Hatch and Spa in junior series have pointed to talent but it's an elusive quality most of the time.
Monteiro too has a record that would hardly make much of the grid envious. A middling career in French F3 and F3000 gave way to a troubled time in ChampCar in the US in 2003. F1 looks a bridge too far for the Portuguese.
Of the five, Liuzzi remains the pick. His Red Bull car should also have the edge over the transitional Jordans and the frankly hopeless Minardis.
Regardless of that, however, the forthcoming duels with team-mates and nearest rivals should provide fireworks aplenty. Just remember, in the event that Ferrari and Schumacher are, as last year, three seconds faster than their closest competition in Melbourne, we'll all need some kind of contest to keep us amused.