He has changed that in 2001.

Heidfeld's invisibility in his debut year was far from his fault. The Prost team he drove for had a dreadful season; he was never going to impress in that.

If you looked beyond the raw results, Heidfeld did pretty well. Jean Alesi, his team-mate at Prost, is no fool, and the young German outqualified him on an impressive number of occasions.

This should have been no surprise. Heidfeld was the one driver who gave Juan Pablo Montoya anything to think about when he was racing in Formula 3000 - he clearly has some talent.

And he has more than proved that this year. The Sauber was a far better car than anyone was expecting, but Heidfeld looked good in it.

And it says a lot for him that while he was matched by his inexperienced team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, that is being seen as a good reflection on Raikkonen rather than a poor one on Heidfeld. Both men seem to have promising futures in F1.