Incident-filled debut for Doornbos.

Robert Doornbos made an immediate impact on Formula One - and Jacques Villeneuve - as he made his race debut for Minardi in front of a full house at Hockenheim.

The Dutchman, drafted in to the Minardi line-up following Patrick Friesacher's loss of sponsorship, qualified on the ninth row and made a strong start amid the usual first lap German Grand Prix chaos. He also brought the second PS05 home in one piece, but the laps in between contained quite enough incident for a first appearance.

By staying out of trouble at the start, the new recruit jumped from 17th on the grid to 14th on the road on the opening lap, having passed the stricken cars of Mark Webber, Takuma Sato and Jarno Trulli, as well as demoting former world champion Jacques Villeneuve and keeping his former Jordan team-mates Narain Karthikeyan and Tiago Monteiro behind him.

The high position was not to last for long, however, as Doornbos was struck from behind by Villeneuve on lap four. The Canadian later accused Doornbos of weaving under braking, but the upshot was that both men required an early pit-stop for repairs.

Sadly for the Dutchman, the Minardi crew erred by both refuelling and changing his punctured rear tyre during the same visit, earning him a ten-second stop-and-go penalty that dropped him further towards the back of the field. Despite the setback, however, the rookie recovered his composure, and put in a solid performance over the remaining 60 laps, coming home four laps behind race winner Fernando Alonso.

"What an experience!" Doornbos said later, "I'm really happy to have finished my maiden F1 race and still feel fit. It's a shame that I lost the connection with the rest of the field after being hit by Villeneuve, but I'm happy to have gained so much valuable information and experience.

"It was definitely a very eventful race. I had a problem at the start with the launch control, and therefore did a manual start. I'm sure it looked dramatic, with lots of wheelspin, but I lost position against some of the other cars. Once I got going, the first lap was chaos, although it was very good for me, as I gained a number of positions.

"The big hit from Villeneuve meant that I spun and had to make an unscheduled stop to have the car checked, and that was quite a shame because I think we had the pace to stay with the Jordans, and close to my team-mate. If we were going to have a bit of bad luck, though, it's maybe preferable to get it out of the way today, at the first race, and then, next week, it will all go a lot better.

"Overall, it was again a 'good day at the office'. and I can't hardly wait to attack once again in next week's Hungarian Grand Prix."