Drivers that Would Be Rejects if they got to F1...

Cynon · Post by **Cynon** » 02 Apr 2009, 16:35

This thread is for drivers who, judging by what they accomplished (or rather, didn't), would have created all sorts of merth and mayhem in F1. Some drivers here may have been many-times a Reject of the Race award if they didn't stay in Reject status or get Reject of the Year....

So let's begin.

Paul Tracy- Tested for Benetton in the mid 90s sometime, but probably not picked up because Schumi didn't want a strong teammate. But Tracy was also known for a lot of silly smashes, such as crashing his teammate out at Detroit during a CART event and then winning the race! Also, in 1995, Sam Posey (F1 Reject) called Paul Tracy accident prone on the first lap of the first race in Miami, and then Tracy proceeded to run the car into the barriers not 15 seconds later. This is not to say PT didn't have a lot of brilliant drives, but the number of smashes probably put the two tallies on equal terms. Paul Tracy would definitely have made it interesting, especially if he and Sebastien Bourdais were on the grid together... oh Paul, where's your Macho Libre mask and Quebec Flag Cape?

PT would not have been in reject status for long, but he'd have a lot of ROTR awards handed to him.

Alessandro Zampedri- He caused not one, but TWO pileups before lap 1 of the 1994 Surfers Paradise CART round was over, and one before the green flag! In all his other starts that I remember, his pace was... well, really really slow, but, like Jean-Denis Deletraz, he has apparently rejuvenated his career in touring cars, because I hear he's a Porsche Supercup driver (and double champion!) these days.

David Ragan- A NASCAR driver who is known around my household as "Deer in Headlights". There's a good reason for that. Once he wrecked one of his teammates in a pretty pathetic move at a high-speed oval and on road courses he might as well be an inanimate object!

A.J. Allmendinger- Transitioning from NASCAR to F1 is going to be so steep a curve I don't think A.J. could handle it in all honesty... then again, JPM isn't doing so bad, but he had some starts in the lower-tier series before coming up to the Cup level in NASCAR... A.J. would need some GP2 starts if he's going to make a serious F1 attempt.

Paul Menard- NASCAR's first obvious pay driver (yes, he is the son of John Menard, owner of the old Team Menard CART team and the owner of the Menards stores that always emblazened said cars) is actually not bad on road circuits, but he's just so abysmally slow that there were people with fewer starts than him that are beating him in the points standings. Why do I say he would be a reject? Is it possible it's the machinery holding him back? Maybe not when you're 35th in points and your teammate is in 19th...

rffp · Post by **rffp** » 02 Apr 2009, 17:40

Cynon wrote:Alessandro Zampedri- He caused not one, but TWO pileups before lap 1 of the 1994 Surfers Paradise CART round was over, and one before the green flag! In all his other starts that I remember, his pace was... well, really really slow, but, like Jean-Denis Deletraz, he has apparently rejuvenated his career in touring cars, because I hear he's a Porsche Supercup driver (and double champion!) these days.

Now, that is a guy that I almost had forgotten. In the couple of Sudam F3 races Zampedri ran, he seemed like a guy that was out of control indeed.

My pick would be for Danica Patrick, for currently drawing attention to her for all the reasons except her driving, which is amazingly getting worse in each race after her Motegi win. If by a haphazard she gets into F-1, she will be putting at risk every female driver career.

RejectSteve · Post by **RejectSteve** » 02 Apr 2009, 19:56

rffp wrote:My pick would be for Danica Patrick, for currently drawing attention to her for all the reasons except her driving, which is amazingly getting worse in each race after her Motegi win. If by a haphazard she gets into F-1, she will be putting at risk every female driver career.

Absolutely, since she moved to IRL, she left any talent she had back in Atlantics. Let's hope F2 driver Natacha Gachnang gets an F1 shot first, she's shown good speed in Spanish F3 and Star Mazda in the US. The knock against her is Sebastien Buemi is her cousin.

I'd throw a reject worthiness towards Michael Ammermueller. His antics at Durban and Sepang last year in GP2 were humiliatingly stupid plus he's never been a stand out on speed.

rffp · Post by **rffp** » 02 Apr 2009, 20:23

RejectSteve wrote:Absolutely, since she moved to IRL, she left any talent she had back in Atlantics. Let's hope F2 driver Natacha Gachnang gets an F1 shot first, she's shown good speed in Spanish F3 and Star Mazda in the US.

There also is my countrywoman Bia Figueiredo doing a good job in IndyLights.

Another possible reject, IMHO, would be Valentino Rossi. Too much hype and little potential of actually doing a good job in four wheels.

Cynon · Post by **Cynon** » 02 Apr 2009, 20:27

I don't think Danica Patrick has any interest in F1 from what I've heard. Besides, in the IRL, she's very much like Tom Sneva, fantastic on the high speed ovals but mid-rear of the pack everywhere else.

How could I have forgotten these CART flops!

Shigeaki Hattori- Someone actually created a Shigeaki Hattori scorecard for how much chaos he caused. He was banned from CART because he crashed so much, and he even found ways in the IRL and then NASCAR to do the same thing!

Hiro Matsushida- Was never gracious when being lapped. Emerson Fittipaldi had a habit of talking on his radio before he pushed the push to talk button, meaning that the first syllable of whatever he said got cut out. His nickname, King Hiro, should say enough...

Dr. Jack Miller- I'll let this one horror story speak volumes. During an IRL race, he kept flicking the killswitch in his car and told the pitcrew there were electrical problems with the car...

Milka Duno- You know you're probably not cut out for open wheel racing when Danica Patrick yells at you for holding her up -- when you're on a flying lap!!

Yannick · Post by **Yannick** » 02 Apr 2009, 20:50

Well, first of all, to be honest, I don't quite see the point in making up possible F1 rejects out of people who didn't get to F1, because there are just so many real F1 rejects who cannot possibly all be discussed on this site - be it because there isn't enough time to write their profiles, or nerve. And their number is growing each season even!

Secondly, that CART / IRL Reject resume of Hattori-San is mighty impressive, especially the qualifying performances that did work out well.

And Milka Duno, well, with her background in CITGO, she's basically today's equivalent of a female gentleman driver of old (had there been such back then), a gentlewoman driver. She is in racing because she can afford it. Still, in the days of a 30+ car field in F1, one of the reject teams might surely have been interested in giving her a ride.

Jimmy Magnusson · Post by **Jimmy Magnusson** » 02 Apr 2009, 22:44

I think it would be most interesting to try to retro-predict F1 rejects among drivers who could have ended up in F1 for one reason or another (NASCAR drivers are thusly generally out). I would personally not only be interested in the drivers with poor judgement/ability to crash (although those are nice too), but in the Délétrazes and Perry McCarthys of the world. A few suggestions:

Jordi Gené - Brother of Marc. Was the intended driver of the canned Bravo F1 team in the early/mid 90s. Defends his positions vigorously and is a bit off the pace of his quicker team mates.

Giorgio Pantano - If this had been the early 90s Giorgio would have some starts and many DNQ's for teams like Osella, EuroBrun, AGS, Lotus and Pacific. The pretty-good-but-not-a-star driver who really wants to be in F1, if the time he spent in GP2 is anything to go by.

Laurent Rédon - Related to money, drove in F3000. Tested for Benetton in 1999, and again, if this had been the late 80s / early 90s he would've had half a season for Larrousse I'm sure. As with many other potential rejects not a disasterous driver (did well in F3, for one thing).

rffp · Post by **rffp** » 02 Apr 2009, 23:58

Jimmy Magnusson wrote:Giorgio Pantano - If this had been the early 90s Giorgio would have some starts and many DNQ's for teams like Osella, EuroBrun, AGS, Lotus and Pacific. The pretty-good-but-not-a-star driver who really wants to be in F1, if the time he spent in GP2 is anything to go by.

Pantano is an actual reject! He drove in 2004 for Jordan and scored 0 point!

midgrid · Post by **midgrid** » 03 Apr 2009, 00:01

It would have been interesting to see Mazzacane and Marques extend their reject-dom if the Phoenix team had been allowed to compete in 2002.

kb9vrg · Post by **kb9vrg** » 03 Apr 2009, 00:01

Cynon wrote:Dr. Jack Miller- I'll let this one horror story speak volumes. During an IRL race, he kept flicking the killswitch in his car and told the pitcrew there were electrical problems with the car...

Man, I forgot about the "racing dentist". The car did look cool though with that Crest sponsorship.

http://www.theautochannel.com/callahan/98indy/race1/miller01.jpg

Milka Duno- You know you're probably not cut out for open wheel racing when Danica Patrick yells at you for holding her up -- when you're on a flying lap!!

Milk and Donuts would be the perfect reject, wouldn't she?

May I submit Nelson Phillippe or Dan Clarke from the Champ Car days?

Captain Hammer · Post by **Captain Hammer** » 03 Apr 2009, 02:21

Rick Kelly, the Australian V8 Supercar driver. When he won his title, he did so without taking a single round victory, and resorted to pushing his rival off the road on the opening lap of the final race. He claims he was on the racing line, but even an idiot would know that to keep following that line would either result in a trip to the scenery or his rival's rear end.

runningboots · Post by **runningboots** » 03 Apr 2009, 11:44

I think this topic is toooooo wide. You could add anyone who has had a seat fitting:

Russell Spence
David Hunt
Justin Bell
Oliver Gavin
Darren Turner
about 1,000,000,000 people whose name ends with "ini"
:lol:

Enforcer · Post by **Enforcer** » 03 Apr 2009, 18:47

Paul Tracy- Tested for Benetton in the mid 90s sometime, but probably not picked up because Schumi didn't want a strong teammate. But Tracy was also known for a lot of silly smashes, such as crashing his teammate out at Detroit during a CART event and then winning the race! Also, in 1995, Sam Posey (F1 Reject) called Paul Tracy accident prone on the first lap of the first race in Miami, and then Tracy proceeded to run the car into the barriers not 15 seconds later. This is not to say PT didn't have a lot of brilliant drives, but the number of smashes probably put the two tallies on equal terms. Paul Tracy would definitely have made it interesting, especially if he and Sebastien Bourdais were on the grid together... oh Paul, where's your Macho Libre mask and Quebec Flag Cape? PT would not have been in reject status for long, but he'd have a lot of ROTR awards handed to him.

Tracey tested in 1994 presumably with a view to 1995, although Briatore was chopping his drivers around so much it's not inconcievable he thought about Tracey for the latter stages of 1994, which would've probably given him Reject status since the B194 was a horribly twitchy car that only Schumacher could make competitive (Verstappen, Jarviletho and Herbert did very little with it). Plus he only started left-foot braking in 2006, so you have to wonder.

He's too old and fat for F1 now.

Allmendinger's an interesting one. Although if he more or less walked out of Forsythe at the end of his best season ever to go race fat Chevys and Dodges around a big oval, I don't think F1 would interest him.

Danica Patrick will probably end up being shoe-horned into F1 just for someone to collect some sponsorship fees.

Jimmy Magnusson · Post by **Jimmy Magnusson** » 03 Apr 2009, 21:36

rffp wrote:
Jimmy Magnusson wrote:Giorgio Pantano - If this had been the early 90s Giorgio would have some starts and many DNQ's for teams like Osella, EuroBrun, AGS, Lotus and Pacific. The pretty-good-but-not-a-star driver who really wants to be in F1, if the time he spent in GP2 is anything to go by.

Pantano is an actual reject! He drove in 2004 for Jordan and scored 0 point!

*Beats self over head*

Henrique · Post by **Henrique** » 04 Apr 2009, 21:08

Enforcer wrote:Danica Patrick will probably end up being shoe-horned into F1 just for someone to collect some sponsorship fees.

And USGP will need plenty of money to start in F1, right? Makes perfect sense :twisted:

Ross Prawn · Post by **Ross Prawn** » 05 Apr 2009, 20:08

I'd vote for Finnish rally driver Jari-Matti Latvala. An accomplished car destroyer.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 06 Apr 2009, 00:04

Gary Paffett. Impressed me in the first two years in DTM, when he was runner-up and then champion. That landed him a test contract with McLaren, but no one ever heard of him. I suppose he was just not special enough, or couldn't transmit info well enough to the team. For someone who quit DTM ostensibly to try to secure an F1 future, he was never in the cards. He went back to DTM and seemed a bit out of shape after that. I wonder if the experience got to him?

Either way, any touring pilot, used to rubbing door handles and mirrors on the track is probably just a BAD idea.

Henrique · Post by **Henrique** » 06 Apr 2009, 00:35

I got the perfect guy for y'all: Mathias Lauda, son of the great Niki Lauda. It seems he wanted to follow his father's steps. Went to F3000 in 2004 to drive for, how appropriate, Coloni, and only scored 5 points. Stayed in Coloni for the 2005 GP2 series and only scored 3 points this time (6th place in Monaco). And don't forget that he was racing with Nelsinho Piquet and Nico Rosberg and everyone pointed out these three as "OMG, sons of F1 world champions!"
Also raced for Austria on the 2005-06 A1GP season, where he only scored in 4 out of 20 races. His teammate, the one and only Patrick Friesacher, participated in only 2 races and scored on both of them :lol:

Now he only races in DTM and in the closest he'll ever get to F1: Speedcar Series. This guy was simply not made to drive open-wheelers, period.

AussieV8 · Post by **AussieV8** » 06 Apr 2009, 06:45

Jimmy Magnusson wrote:Laurent Rédon - Related to money, drove in F3000. Tested for Benetton in 1999, and again, if this had been the late 80s / early 90s he would've had half a season for Larrousse I'm sure. As with many other potential rejects not a disasterous driver (did well in F3, for one thing).

I seem to remember him showing up in IRL driving for Conquest with MiJack sponsorship. Would have been around 2002, the year before most of the top CART teams jumped across to the IRL, but Conquest went the other way (ie: IRL -> CART). IIRC he was just a midfield runner that year, which doesn't say much for his abilities!

Enforcer wrote:Allmendinger's an interesting one. Although if he more or less walked out of Forsythe at the end of his best season ever to go race fat Chevys and Dodges around a big oval, I don't think F1 would interest him.

IMHO he made a mistake going to Nascar as he seems far more suited to open wheel cars. Yes ChampCar isn't the same as F1, but when he jumped in that Forsythe car, he was immediately quick and could have challenged Bourdais if he had stuck around the following year. If he went to F1 with a semi-decent team (lets face it, even Force India aren't complete "rejects"), he would score a few points.

Henrique wrote:I got the perfect guy for y'all: Mathias Lauda, son of the great Niki Lauda.

Didn't he show up in A1GP? Or am I thinking of someone else.

Post by **Nuppiz** » 06 Apr 2009, 08:49

Ross Prawn wrote:I'd vote for Finnish rally driver Jari-Matti Latvala. An accomplished car destroyer.

Yep, fast but unreliable. It's a shame to see him high on the scoreboard before the last stage and then hear him crash again. His last crash was quite dramatic though, good thing he didn't have the same fate Henri Toivonen had.

I think you guys may have heard that Räikkönen could possibly join the WRC after his F1 career is over?

Klon · Post by **Klon** » 06 Apr 2009, 21:24

Henrique wrote:Now he only races in DTM....

And is there mediocre at best as well, he was beaten by DTM newcomer Ralf Schumacher and only scored his single point by having Schumacher retiring shortly before the line due to brake failure. But when we are at the point of "2nd generation superstars", let's look at Nicolas Prost: I assume that he's quite a talented guy, but his A1GP showings were rather average and I doubt he would fare much better than Nelson Piquet Jr. at the moment.

Kuwashima · Post by **Kuwashima** » 06 Apr 2009, 22:26

As you might have noticed, we tend to love drivers with, ahhh, unusual names.

Therefore Enoch and I always had a great desire to see Czech touring car legend Vaclav Bervid get an F1 drive - despite a career that started in the 1960s, he was still driving super touring races as late as 1997, and could easily have been given a drive by some desperate team in the early 90s. Alas, now we will never know what kind of joy the Czech could have brought to F1.

(I believe we've mentioned him on a podcast once, but I've no idea when or in what context!!)

thehemogoblin · Post by **thehemogoblin** » 07 Apr 2009, 03:47

Kuwashima wrote:As you might have noticed, we tend to love drivers with, ahhh, unusual names.

Therefore Enoch and I always had a great desire to see Czech touring car legend Vaclav Bervid get an F1 drive - despite a career that started in the 1960s, he was still driving super touring races as late as 1997, and could easily have been given a drive by some desperate team in the early 90s. Alas, now we will never know what kind of joy the Czech could have brought to F1.

(I believe we've mentioned him on a podcast once, but I've no idea when or in what context!!)

Because Tom Jones is such an unusual name...

Bleu · Post by **Bleu** » 08 Apr 2009, 10:24

Wasn't that Bervid mentioned when you put replacements for each driver, regarding the rumoured driver's strike last year?

Kuwashima · Post by **Kuwashima** » 08 Apr 2009, 11:27

Bleu wrote:Wasn't that Bervid mentioned when you put replacements for each driver, regarding the rumoured driver's strike last year?

Yes, indeed, you're probably right on that one!! Now you know why....!

eytl · Post by **eytl** » 09 Apr 2009, 00:17

Given that Jamie has just mentioned Mr Bervid (who indeed is one of our all-time favourites), I'm surprised he hasn't also lobbed in Sergey Zlobin and Ananda Mikola!

Where's Mikolamania these days? :lol:

runningboots · Post by **runningboots** » 09 Apr 2009, 09:57

Klon wrote:let's look at Nicolas Prost:

That is very scary. He is so similar to his dad in looks that I think they may have fertilised The Professor himself.

Hmmm, maybe that's why he sat out half of 1991 and 1992 ? :shock:

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 09 Apr 2009, 11:44

runningboots wrote:
Klon wrote:let's look at Nicolas Prost:

That is very scary. He is so similar to his dad in looks that I think they may have fertilised The Professor himself. Hmmm, maybe that's why he sat out half of 1991 and 1992 ?

You're getting a bit ahead of yourself there. But maybe those were the "hormone imbalances"?

The Mansell kids. They don't look fast and, if they have half the bad temper...

RejectSteve · Post by **RejectSteve** » 09 Apr 2009, 15:32

eytl wrote:Where's Mikolamania these days?

He's wasting his time in Speedcar. Why doesn't he drive for Indonesia in A1GP? Hermanto and Soeprapto were rubbish but this Zahir Ali chap looks like he might be modestly effective.

runningboots · Post by **runningboots** » 09 Apr 2009, 16:05

CarlosFerreira wrote:The Mansell kids. They don't look fast and, if they have half the bad temper...

I am more worried about if they have more amateur dramatics (am-dram for the luvvies out there

) skills than their father....my mind wanders back to the agony displayed when he cut his finger on the Rio 89 winners trophy, the literal pain of finishing second to Senna at Monaco in 92 (fair dues he should have walked it) and the whole lump on head at Zeltweg 87 destructathon.

Cynon · Post by **Cynon** » 12 Apr 2009, 10:20

More to add:

Steven Wallace- While his father, NASCAR legend Rusty Wallace was good enough to be F1 world champion (it always says volumes when you massacre the field on tracks that are more driver than car in the 90s. Also, having a World Champion named Rusty would certainly make people smile), Steven is most known for being ... well, somewhat quick and extremely crashworthy.

In other words, he's NASCAR's equivelant of Nelson Piquet, Jr.

Stanton Barrett- NASCAR mdifielder, IRL backmarker (in fact, more like he was the SUPER AGURI of the IRL at St. Petersburg, was lapped like 4 or 5 times...), and Hollywood stuntman! A great deal of enthusiasm, but just not always the quickest of men...

Eric McClure- I'll let the picture below do the talking for me. Found it on a forum somewhere.

lympog · Post by **lympog** » 13 Apr 2009, 06:51

Cynon wrote:Stanton Barrett- NASCAR mdifielder, IRL backmarker (in fact, more like he was the SUPER AGURI of the IRL at St. Petersburg, was lapped like 4 or 5 times...), and Hollywood stuntman! A great deal of enthusiasm, but just not always the quickest of men...

i believe good ol' Stanton is taking the place of our dear beloved Marty Roth in the IRL... now there's someone who could been interesting in F1!!
:shock:

IntegratorTypeR · Post by **IntegratorTypeR** » 13 Apr 2009, 07:57

OK, here's a contraversial one.... Valentino Rossi. Yes he of the 6 MotoGP titles, multiple Ferrari F1 tests, WRC outtings etc etc. Surely with history like that, we've been robbed of a possible re-run of the Michael Andretti saga? Namely massive pre-season hype and expectation that gets shot to pieces with rookie mistakes, first laps shunts and qualifying efforts that make Piquet Jr look good.

Debaser · Post by **Debaser** » 13 Apr 2009, 16:34

I'd propose Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti to this list to create the first father/son reject combination. They're both mediocre in IndyCar and may look to F1 with USF1. I'll also suggest Katsuti Yamamoto who nearly raced for Pacific in 1995 (and who I believe was refused a superlicence when even Deletraz got one) and Emanuele Collard who tested for Benetton in the 90's and never got a race drive.

tastyhouse · Post by **tastyhouse** » 15 Apr 2009, 11:42

Certainly my vote goes to Mohammad Bin Sulayem who gave the r28 a nice demo run at the ING Renault roadshow in dubai...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrVZTgj5AUk

He made it about 100 feet before he pulled a remarkable Nelshino impression...and that was in a straight line...I'd like to see how he handles turning the wheel. :oops:

Henrique · Post by **Henrique** » 15 Apr 2009, 12:58

That's so embarrassing :shock:

thehemogoblin · Post by **thehemogoblin** » 15 Apr 2009, 21:16

Sounds like someone forgot there was no traction control...

kb9vrg · Post by **kb9vrg** » 16 Apr 2009, 01:43

lympog wrote:i believe good ol' Stanton is taking the place of our dear beloved Marty Roth in the IRL... now there's someone who could been interesting in F1!!

It does take a special person to run over two people in pit lane and get punched in the helmet by said pit crew, doesn't it?

thehemogoblin · Post by **thehemogoblin** » 16 Apr 2009, 05:57

Stanton Barrett was by no means a midfielder in NASCAR... he was the Rial there... you were never sure if he was going to make it through qualifying, but he could get lucky every now and then.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 18 Apr 2009, 10:02

IntegratorTypeR wrote:OK, here's a contraversial one.... Valentino Rossi. Yes he of the 6 MotoGP titles, multiple Ferrari F1 tests, WRC outtings etc etc. Surely with history like that, we've been robbed of a possible re-run of the Michael Andretti saga? Namely massive pre-season hype and expectation that gets shot to pieces with rookie mistakes, first laps shunts and qualifying efforts that make Piquet Jr look good.

Bingo! I'm a bit sad him or Ferrari pulled out of the whole shenanigan, would be awesome to see his fan club pull another routine to celebrate him crashing on the first lap three races in a row. :twisted: