Remember the fuss a couple of years back when Peter Sauber signed twenty-one-year-old Kimi Raikkonen?

Various drivers - though not Michael Schumacher, who was fully supportive of the youngster - were up in arms claiming that the Finn was too inexperienced for F1, while FIA President Max Mosley got in on the act by issuing him with a temporary superlicence.

A year later the Finn was replacing his countryman Mika Hakkinen at McLaren, Peter Sauber clearly not the only man in the pitlane who knows a talented youth when he sees one.

As if the shock of a twenty-one-year-old wasn't bad enough, Minardi gave a seat to Flavio Briatore's new hot-shot Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard was a mere nineteen-and-a-half when he lined up on the grid in Melbourne.

In 2002 Peter Sauber once again went cradle-snatching, the Swiss selecting twenty-year-old Felipe Massa to line up alongside former F3000 champion Nick Heidfeld.

In 2003 Alonso made history by becoming the youngest driver to win a round of the Formula One World Championship, and remains on track to become the sport's youngest World Champion, as does Kimi Raikkonen.

Youngest driver on the grid in Melbourne will be Jaguar's Christian Klien, who celebrates his twenty-first birthday on February 7.

Most of these achievements are as nothing however compared to the exploits of a youngster in the US last weekend.

John Edwards, from Little Rock, Arkansas, won both rounds of the Skip Barber Formula Dodge Race Series, to become the youngest race winner in the history of the series and the youngest driver to win a single-seater race in the US, and possibly anywhere else. John is 12.

Having taken pole position in qualifying on Saturday morning, John led the 13-car field from flag-to-flag in the 30-minute race for his first car victory.

Edwards is the youngest driver ever to compete in the 28-year history of the Skip Barber Race Series; though in years past a handful of 15-year-olds have contested the series.

Edwards backed up his impressive and possibly record-setting Saturday win with another victory on Sunday, with a startling 25-second margin of victory - in pouring rain - over second place finisher Atle Gulbrandsen, 25, from Norway.

Edwards, a Karter who stepped up into Formula Dodge in October, has shown race craft and discipline that belies his age according to reports. The cars used in the series are identically prepared 2-litre, wings-and-slicks 140 mph open-wheel, single-seat Formula Dodges.

No doubt Peter Sauber is fully aware of John's exploits, and if he wasn't, he soon will be.