I'm a newcomer here so don't know who has been talked about in the past as such. In another thread I asked whether Bertrand Gachot was suitable reject material, but he scores too many points under the current system.
But it was suggested this makes a fair argument for a 'lucky bastard'. To summarise, under the new points system he got 8 points thus saving him, but under the old system he got just 5 across six years which is a long career for someone who only saw the chequered flag on occasion.
Okay so he drove for 6 years, but only got 5 points in his career, half the time couldn't even qualify, most races ended in retirement, a couple of years didn't even see him finish a single race. Maybe it didn't help he drove for Coloni and Pacific which would hamper anyone.
I suppose his big break was with Jordan, because he finished 7 races which accounts for nearly half of the GPs he did finish and he scored 4 of his 5 career points with Jordan. But he squandered this opportunity to use his talent big time by being imprisoned for two months mid-season after assaulting a taxi driver and Jordan dropped him. In the years after that he was picked up by Pacific and it was nearly all DNQs or retirements as his F1 career died.
I do wonder if that deserves a special category, are there any other drivers that binned their careers with a term in prison?
He does come across a bit more sympathetically in this interview -
http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft00094.htmlBut really, he should have known that it's not okay to carry CS-spray in the UK.
