Most Rejectful Team-mates in Motorsport

[Har1MAS1415]

Examples:

Dave Walker at Lotus in the 1972 F1 Season.

Mario Haberfeld at the McLaren Junior team in the 1999 International F3000 Season.

Andy Neate in the British Touring Car Championship, regardless of team.

[Salamander]

Kenny Irwin, Jr. for Robert Yates Racing in the Cup series for 1998-99. Particularly in 1999, when his teammate Dale Jarrett was unquestionably the best driver/team combo in the garage area, Irwin spent his two years at Yates wasting what was one of the best cars available, showcasing speed but also overdriving it to the point where he'd make countless mistakes - and get in a pretty funny feud with Tony Stewart at Martinsville late in 1999. This was then underlined when Ricky Rudd took over driving duties from 2000 and regularly performed on par with Jarrett.

[Har1MAS1415]

Phil Martin-Dye in the 1981 British Saloon/Touring Car Championship.

He replaced Stuart Graham (who, in turn, had replaced Andy Rouse) as team-mate to Gordon Spice after 2 races.

He scored just 4 points all season! Gordon Spice scored 38 and ranked 4th in class by season's end.

[Loadsamoney]

I will not go through one new topic without complaining about Niels Koolen. If I think of more I’ll post them tomorrow.

[James1978]

Hate to say it but Damon Hill in 1999 against Frentzen!

[Alextrax52]

Joel Esteban in Moto3 this year. Team Mate David Alonso romped to the title winning 14 of the 20 races. Esteban meanwhile finished down in 17th overall on 45 points with just a 4th place in France as his only meaningful result, on an Aspar bike which is usually one of if not the best team in that category of MotoGP

[Har1MAS1415]

Gianni Morbidelli at Volvo in the 1998 British Touring Car Championship.

No podiums and finished nearly 200 points behind his team-mate Rickard Rydell who WON the title!

To think he was a candidate for the all-conquering Renault team the previous year!

[Alextrax52]

Gianni Morbidelli at Volvo in the 1998 British Touring Car Championship.

No podiums and finished nearly 200 points behind his team-mate Rickard Rydell who WON the title!

To think he was a candidate for the all-conquering Renault team the previous year!

I’ll also throw Peter Kox into the mix from that year. He actually finished behind Morbidelli in the championship, also failed to get on the podium and was just over 150 points behind his teammate James Thompson who won 4 races and came 3rd. At least he closed up a bit in 1999 and even won the first ever BTCC night race at Snetterton.

[Har1MAS1415]

Gianni Morbidelli at Volvo in the 1998 British Touring Car Championship.

No podiums and finished nearly 200 points behind his team-mate Rickard Rydell who WON the title!

To think he was a candidate for the all-conquering Renault team the previous year!

I’ll also throw Peter Kox into the mix from that year. He actually finished behind Morbidelli in the championship, also failed to get on the podium and was just over 150 points behind his teammate James Thompson who won 4 races and came 3rd. At least he closed up a bit in 1999 and even won the first ever BTCC night race at Snetterton.

Liam Griffin at Motorbase in the 2011 Season.

One 9th place all season!

Teammate Jackson scored 4 wins and finished 4th overall and even led the championship at one point.

[Pointrox]

Junior formulae have their fair share of such pairings, but one that springs to mind is the iSport International lineup from GP2's maiden season.

Scott Speed, for whom GP2 was a significant step up from Formula Renault 2000, scored 67.5 of iSport's 69.5 points on his way to P3, conceding only to Heikki Kovalainen and Nico Rosberg. All three graduated to F1 in one capacity or another, only one got punched by Franz Tost on his way out.
Meanwhile Can Artam, who already had a season of F3000 a year prior and was touted to be the #1 driver of the team, capped off the season with a mere 2 points, all scored in the chaotic Monaco round as one of only 9 drivers that made it to the finish line. Turkey's (and certainly Artam's) F1 hopes had significantly tapered off by the end of the season.

Oh, and in the same year we had the DAMS team of Fairuz Fauzy and Jose-Maria Lopez. The Argentine driver did all the heavy lifting to collect 36 points, while Fauzy was the only full-timer of the season to not score a single one. What is more, both of them were teammates the following season in Super Nova and yet again, JML scored 30 points for the Italian outfit, while the Malaysian protege scored none.

[Har1MAS1415]

Tiago Monteiro in the 2002 International F3000 Season.

Just one 5th place, while team-mate Sebastien Bourdais goes on to win the title!

[Har1MAS1415]

Sam Smelt in the 2021 British Touring Car Championship.

Only scored 5 points in the Speedworks Toyota Corolla all season!

Team-mate Rory Butcher?

3 Wins
6 Podiums
22 Points Finishes out of a possible 30
247 Points
7th in the Championship

Suffice it to say, every Speedworks driver since then has done better than that, despite their own struggles with the Corolla.

[Wallio]

Scott Speed, for whom GP2 was a significant step up from Formula Renault 2000, scored 67.5 of iSport's 69.5 points on his way to P3, conceding only to Heikki Kovalainen and Nico Rosberg. All three graduated to F1 in one capacity or another, only one got punched by Franz Tost on his way out.
Meanwhile Can Artam, who already had a season of F3000 a year prior and was touted to be the #1 driver of the team, capped off the season with a mere 2 points, all scored in the chaotic Monaco round as one of only 9 drivers that made it to the finish line. Turkey's (and certainly Artam's) F1 hopes had significantly tapered off by the end of the season.

It really is amazing how much talent Scott actually had. I'll never forget when he drove for Dragon Racing in 2011 trying to qualify for Indy. The car was slow, his last run was all it had, and he told them that, so Jay Penske fired him on TV and said live "we found a driver who isn't scared". Patrick Carpantier then wrote the car off on a qualifying attempt that was in fact slower, and Dragon DNQ'd.

[Har1MAS1415]

Gianni Morbidelli at Volvo in the 1998 British Touring Car Championship.

No podiums and finished nearly 200 points behind his team-mate Rickard Rydell who WON the title!

To think he was a candidate for the all-conquering Renault team the previous year!

I’ll also throw Peter Kox into the mix from that year. He actually finished behind Morbidelli in the championship, also failed to get on the podium and was just over 150 points behind his teammate James Thompson who won 4 races and came 3rd. At least he closed up a bit in 1999 and even won the first ever BTCC night race at Snetterton.

To a lesser extent, Craig Baird at Ford that same year, even Nigel Mansell scored 1 more point than him despite only doing three meetings to Baird's 10. The late Will Hoy at least managed 2 podiums, including a win, and ranked 10th overall.

[Alextrax52]

Mikko Hirvonen at Subaru in the 2004 WRC. Finished only 7th in the championship with just 29 points and was the only full time works driver not to score a single podium while Petter Solberg finished runner up on 82 points with 7 podiums 5 of which were wins. He finished only one point ahead of Harri Rovenpera’s Peugeot who missed 5 rallies. Crashing on a short super special stage in Finland was the nadir.

Mind you most of Solberg’s Subaru team mates post-Richard Burns had no answer to him and I include the great Tommi Makinen in that especially 2003 when he finished only 8th with 2 podiums while Petter won 4 rallies on his way to the title

[Har1MAS1415]

Mikko Hirvonen at Subaru in the 2004 WRC. Finished only 7th in the championship with just 29 points and was the only full time works driver not to score a single podium while Petter Solberg finished runner up on 82 points with 7 podiums 5 of which were wins. He finished only one point ahead of Harri Rovenpera’s Peugeot who missed 5 rallies. Crashing on a short super special stage in Finland was the nadir.

Mind you most of Solberg’s Subaru team mates post-Richard Burns had no answer to him and I include the great Tommi Makinen in that especially 2003 when he finished only 8th with 2 podiums while Petter won 4 rallies on his way to the title

I was so disappointed when Subaru hired Mikko over Colin McRae.

[Alextrax52]

Mikko Hirvonen at Subaru in the 2004 WRC. Finished only 7th in the championship with just 29 points and was the only full time works driver not to score a single podium while Petter Solberg finished runner up on 82 points with 7 podiums 5 of which were wins. He finished only one point ahead of Harri Rovenpera’s Peugeot who missed 5 rallies. Crashing on a short super special stage in Finland was the nadir.

Mind you most of Solberg’s Subaru team mates post-Richard Burns had no answer to him and I include the great Tommi Makinen in that especially 2003 when he finished only 8th with 2 podiums while Petter won 4 rallies on his way to the title

I was so disappointed when Subaru hired Mikko over Colin McRae.

Let’s not forget that Burns was due to rejoin Subaru for that year until the start of the illness that led to his tragic passing (RIP Burnsy). A great what if that as in 2001 Burns was clear team leader over Solberg, by 2004 Solberg was world champion and a much better driver, seeing that version of Petter up against Burnsy would have been fun.

And if you want another reject team mate from WRC I give you Freddy Loix at Mitsubishi from 1999-2001, no podiums in 3 years while Tommi Makinen gets 16 of them half of which were wins and the 1999 world title in that period. Even Thomas Radstrom in a one off drive got more podiums for Mitsubishi than Loix did.

[Har1MAS1415]

Mikko Hirvonen at Subaru in the 2004 WRC. Finished only 7th in the championship with just 29 points and was the only full time works driver not to score a single podium while Petter Solberg finished runner up on 82 points with 7 podiums 5 of which were wins. He finished only one point ahead of Harri Rovenpera’s Peugeot who missed 5 rallies. Crashing on a short super special stage in Finland was the nadir.

Mind you most of Solberg’s Subaru team mates post-Richard Burns had no answer to him and I include the great Tommi Makinen in that especially 2003 when he finished only 8th with 2 podiums while Petter won 4 rallies on his way to the title

I was so disappointed when Subaru hired Mikko over Colin McRae.

Let’s not forget that Burns was due to rejoin Subaru for that year until the start of the illness that led to his tragic passing (RIP Burnsy). A great what if that as in 2001 Burns was clear team leader over Solberg, by 2004 Solberg was world champion and a much better driver, seeing that version of Petter up against Burnsy would have been fun.

And if you want another reject team mate from WRC I give you Freddy Loix at Mitsubishi from 1999-2001, no podiums in 3 years while Tommi Makinen gets 16 of them half of which were wins and the 1999 world title in that period. Even Thomas Radstrom in a one off drive got more podiums for Mitsubishi than Loix did.

Oh yes, forgot the 2004 Subaru seat was originally earmarked for Richard Burns.