The best driver lineups...before they were actually any good

[flattyre]

A few years ago, in my travels for F1 goodness, I came across this pic from 2001:



Jenson Button? Nah, he's a lazy playboy.
Giancarlo Fisichella? He hasn't won a single race.
Fernando Alonso? He's barely an adult!
Mark Webber? Not a single GP start to his name.

At the time, this driver lineup was hardly eye catching. But, looking at it now... three of these drivers are big, big names. Fisichella was no chump, either.

What other driver lineups have there been like this? Nothing special at the time, but in the future would turn out to be stars of the sport.

I bet Sauber and Minardi have a few up their sleeve...

[Bleu]

While not in F1, I think this deserves mention from the times when Sauber was competing in sports cars.

[tommykl]

Not sure if any photos exist of the three at the time, but at Lotus in 1960, for a brief period, you had Jim Clark, John Surtees and Innes Ireland.

[Enforcer]

Lotus had Hakkinen & Herbert as rookies in 1991. Too bad for the purposes of this thread they never Zanardi and Hakkinen on their books at the same time, because then they'd have had a future double F1 champion and double CART champion.

[Wallio]

The article on Minardi's 2004 Misano test that was on the old site was a great read. The line-up was pretty good:

Chanoch Nissany.
Will Power
Will Davison
Tiago Monteiro
Jos Versappen
Christijan Albers
Jeffrey van Hooydonk
Patrick Huisman
Pastor Maldonado

Multiple Grand Prix wins, a few podiums, a lead lap in a Spyker, an Indycar championship and the greatest reject outside of HWNSNBM, all in one test.

[DemocalypseNow]

Moved to the EvdPMF.

Can't find an image to represent it, but for a brief period of 1964, Reg Parnell Racing had a lineup of Chris Amon & Peter Revson.

Also, this lineup would go on to be a formidable pairing in the following few years, but heading into the the 1959 season, between them Brabham and McLaren had yet to truly make a mark on the F1 scene (although McLaren's drive in an F2 car in '58 was rather impressive).



To put into perspective, these were their F1 track records before the '59 season had kicked off;
Jack Brabham - 7 races, 0 points (best result 7th x2)
Bruce McLaren - 2 races, 0 points (best result 5th)

[dr-baker]

... and the greatest reject outside of HWNSNBM, all in one test.

But Markus Winkelhock was not in that list!!!

[Rob Dylan]

Admittedly it's wishful thinking, but if Perez and Hulkenberg get top drives in the coming years, we'll probably look back at the Force India partnership this year in that way.

- Sauber 2002 had Heidfeld and Massa. Skip forward 6 years and one would be fighting for the world championship and the other would be dangerously consistent and finish every race that season.
- Though it probably doesn't qualify, Williams 2006 would be another example with Mark Webber and Nico Rosberg. Webber wouldn't yet get to properly prove himself against the best until he got a truly awesome car in 2009. Rosberg was only in his first year, and he'd wait 6 years himself before getting a race-winning car. They were stuck in a car that broke down every bloody race.

[tBone]

Lotus had Hakkinen & Herbert as rookies in 1991. Too bad for the purposes of this thread they never Zanardi and Hakkinen on their books at the same time, because then they'd have had a future double F1 champion and double CART champion.

Jordan had Zanardi and Schumacher in 1991, although not at the same time.

[AdrianBelmonte_]

Alonso-Button this year #Joke

[flattyre]

Alonso-Button this year #Joke

Oh, very clever.

[DemocalypseNow]

Alonso-Button this year #Joke

[Rabbi Gordon]

Lauda had some good teammates as a pay driver.

Especially the 1972 March lineup: Peterson-Lauda.
Bet no-one would have thought that Lauda will be more successful than Ronnie.

[James1978]

The mid-90s Jordan line-up of Barrichello and Irvine, both of them to become very solid Ferrari number 2s.

[DemocalypseNow]

Seeing as this is the EvdP, and the thread title is non-specific, perhaps time to throw some other series into the mix?

1988 World Rally Championship. Ford, admittedly, already had their star driver with Stig Blomqvist, but this drew attention away from the two young, unproven drivers partnering him; Carlos Sainz and Didier Auriol. The points system was pretty generous back then, so they had 46 points between them - most of those finishes in the lower half of the Top 10. They would go on two be two of the main protagonists of the early 1990s in the WRC, with Sainz winning and Auriol 2nd as soon as the 1990 season. I bet they wish they'd had that lineup when they replaced the Sierra with the Escort!

[TomWazzleshaw]

2005 V8 Supercar Championship Series: Tasman Motorsport had Jason Richards, Jamie Whincup, Fabian Coulthard and Tony D'Alberto on their books before all of them achieved things in either Supercars or the DVS.

[Waris]

The article on Minardi's 2004 Misano test that was on the old site was a great read. The line-up was pretty good:

Chanoch Nissany.
Will Power
Will Davison
Tiago Monteiro
Jos Versappen
Christijan Albers
Jeffrey van Hooydonk
Patrick Huisman
Pastor Maldonado

Multiple Grand Prix wins, a few podiums, a lead lap in a Spyker, an Indycar championship and the greatest reject outside of HWNSNBM, all in one test.

I'm sorry but where do you see multiple Grand Prix wins in that list? I only see one

[Nessafox]

The article on Minardi's 2004 Misano test that was on the old site was a great read. The line-up was pretty good:

Chanoch Nissany.
Will Power
Will Davison
Tiago Monteiro
Jos Versappen
Christijan Albers
Jeffrey van Hooydonk
Patrick Huisman
Pastor Maldonado

Multiple Grand Prix wins, a few podiums, a lead lap in a Spyker, an Indycar championship and the greatest reject outside of HWNSNBM, all in one test.

I'm sorry but where do you see multiple Grand Prix wins in that list? I only see one

Well, Huisman won plenty of Porsche Supercup races in the same weekends as the Grand Prix'

[Bleu]

Will Power's IndyCar/Champ Car wins:

2007 Las Vegas Grand Prix
2007 Grand Prix of Toronto
2008 Grand Prix of Long Beach
2009 Edmonton Indy
2010 Sao Paulo Indy 300
2010 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
2010 Grand Prix at the Glen
2010 Indy Toronto
2010 Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma
2011 Indy Grand Prix of Alabama
2011 Sao Paulo Indy 300
2011 Twin 275s
2011 Edmonton Indy
2011 Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma
2011 Baltimore Grand Prix
2012 Indy Grand Prix of Alabama
2012 Grand Prix of Long Beach
2012 Sao Paulo Indy 300
2013 Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma
2013 Grand Prix of Houston
2013 500 IndyCar World Championships
2014 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
2014 Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix
2014 Wisconsin 250

I removed sponsor names there but there's quite a many Grand Prix's!

[Salamander]

Also Will Davison is a pretty decent V8 Supercar driver... if he could stop whining.

[GerhardTalger]

1975 Hesketh: Hunt/Jones. Okay, Hunt already had shown he was quite a decent driver...
1977 Shadow: Patrese/Jones. Winner and runnerup in the championship before they scored any podiums whatsoever
1981 Lotus: De Angelis/Mansell
1981 Tyrell: Cheever/Alboreto
1984 Toleman: Senna/Johansson
1984 Tyrell: Bellof/Brundle (although this is somewhat disputable as Bellof never could show his talent)
1997 Jordan possibly, but it wasn't THAT good
2001 Sauber, little better than 2002 Sauber, presumably
2004 BAR possibly

[FullMetalJack]

Gerhard Berger and Thierry Boutsen were teammates for Arrows in 1985, before either of them reached the peak of their careers.