Grand Prix Rejects

Hi,

Well since i am pretty new to this site after looking at the drivers list it left me thinking. 'Although there are some obvious people that deserve to be there, there are others that perhaps don't'. I mean some of the drivers could have been put into some of the leading teams cars of their time and still dramatically failed. However there are others that would have had the ability, pace and temperament to at least achieve podiums or even race wins.

So who would you like to give a pardon to? Who showed that with what they had they could have achieved much more in the right car/team etc.

For me (perhaps i'm somewhat prejudice to the more modern racers due to my age) i would have to say Luca Badoer. If only he had been given the chance in that Ferrari we would have never seen him gracing this site.

I agree with you about Luca Badoer. I really would've liked to have seen what he could've done instead of Mika Salo. It's not that Mika Salo did a terrible job, but he wasn't wholly consistent. Ferrari have kept their faith in Luca Badoer over the years as a test driver so it's clear that he's not a complete waste of time behind the wheels of a Formula 1 car.
Also, let's not forget what happened at the Nurburgring in 1999

Isn't Luca Badoer still the official Ferrari reserve driver? So he's still got a chance to get out of rejectdom, even though it may be a slim one this year.
He's been great in F3000 and would have deserved better machinery in F1.
Still, I think it was the right decision to put in Salo at the time.

Yannick wrote:Still, I think it was the right decision to put in Salo at the time.

He did a good job at Hockenheim, but wasn't he way off the pace at either/both the A1-Ring/Hungaroring??

Pedro_Diniz wrote:

Yannick wrote:Still, I think it was the right decision to put in Salo at the time.

He did a good job at Hockenheim, but wasn't he way off the pace at either/both the A1-Ring/Hungaroring??

He was slightly off Irvine's pace at the A1-Ring, Nurburgring, and Spa-Francorchamps (in which he sacrificed his own race to block Ralf Schumacher from passing Irvine during the pit stops), way off the pace at the Hungaroring but faster at the Hockenheimring and Monza.

I think in the site introduction it is stated that a F-1 reject was not necessarily a bad driver, he might have been a hapless one. Eric van de Poole for instance matched many of Damon Hill's qualifying times in 1992 when both drove for Brabham - although comparing times done in bad cars is not always a good parameter.

Yannick Dalmas is another driver that didn't get a good break. He showed promise in the beginning, but by the end of 1988 he was terribly ill and was way off the pace at the beginning of 1989 resulting in a "demotion" from Larrousse to AGS and being stuck in a car that was underdeveloped.

What about Alessando Zanardi?
One of the best CART drivers ever who had 2 bites of the F1 cherry and frankly he had the talent to take the World Championship. Sadly the machinery he was paired up with didn't suit his driving style at all (The Williams FW21 fall into this catagory). Does anyone agree with me?

I seem to recall Ralf Schumacher out-performing Zanardi in both qualifying and the race all season ...

I think Zanardi's case for reprieve is not justified, because the topic is drivers who were at least decent in F1 but were for whatever circumstances, rejects. Alex Zanardi is very much like Sebastien Bourdais, while a fantastic racing driver, just crap in an F1 car.

Badoer, van de Poele, and Dalmas I think are best represented by this.

Cynon wrote:I think Zanardi's case for reprieve is not justified, because the topic is drivers who were at least decent in F1 but were for whatever circumstances, rejects. Alex Zanardi is very much like Sebastien Bourdais, while a fantastic racing driver, just crap in an F1 car.

Badoer, van de Poele, and Dalmas I think are best represented by this.

Badoer was hamstrung by equipment seemingly made of fecal matter for his entire race-driving career.

Sarrazin was another one of those drivers that seemed to have lots of talent, but simply no luck in terms of a F1 career. F1 is half luck and many Rejects simply didn't have it.

LionZoo wrote:Sarrazin was another one of those drivers that seemed to have lots of talent, but simply no luck in terms of a F1 career. F1 is half luck and many Rejects simply didn't have it.

Stephane Sarrazin had a fiery crash in his only F1 start in Brazil in the Minardi. It's up on youtube if you can find it and it looks quite scary, hitting the tyre barrier somewhat head-on in front of the wall coming out of the penultimate corner on the highspeed run leading uphill to the pitlane entrance. I can imagine he'd had enough of F1 right there and then and decided it was not worth it getting a ride in these kind of cars. But only an interview could find out the real reasons.

Yannick wrote:

LionZoo wrote:Sarrazin was another one of those drivers that seemed to have lots of talent, but simply no luck in terms of a F1 career. F1 is half luck and many Rejects simply didn't have it.

Stephane Sarrazin had a fiery crash in his only F1 start in Brazil in the Minardi. It's up on youtube if you can find it and it looks quite scary, hitting the tyre barrier somewhat head-on in front of the wall coming out of the penultimate corner on the highspeed run leading uphill to the pitlane entrance. I can imagine he'd had enough of F1 right there and then and decided it was not worth it getting a ride in these kind of cars. But only an interview could find out the real reasons.

His profile is on the website. You can find the real reasons there and no it has nothing to do with him not wanting to drive a F1 car.

Captain Hammer wrote:I seem to recall Ralf Schumacher out-performing Zanardi in both qualifying and the race all season ...

Actually, Zanardi was outperformed by Johnny Herbert in Lotus, which is worse than being outperformed by Ralf. I never expected him to deliver much in 1999, but zero point with a Williams is an unprecedented feat, not even Wurz and Nakajima son were able to do that.

Pedro_Diniz wrote:I agree with you about Luca Badoer. I really would've liked to have seen what he could've done instead of Mika Salo. It's not that Mika Salo did a terrible job, but he wasn't wholly consistent. Ferrari have kept their faith in Luca Badoer over the years as a test driver so it's clear that he's not a complete waste of time behind the wheels of a Formula 1 car.
Also, let's not forget what happened at the Nurburgring in 1999

I agree with all of that, although I would have missed his driving for Minardi had he got the Ferrari drive in the second half of 1999, as I feel that the Gené/Badoer partnership was pretty good for Minardi that year.

Badoer holds the record for the most starts for no points in F1, which doesn't reflect his ability, and of course had the Minardi's gearbox not broken at the Nurburgring in 1999 he would have finished fourth, and we wouldn't even be discussing whether he should be granted a reprieve. I certainly think he is one of the unluckier members of the 'reject club', but there are others, as has already been pointed out.

Piercarlo Ghinzani deserves a mention too, after all he would have expected to score some points with Ligier in 1987, and would have done, had the Megatron engines been more reliable. After all those years driving for Osella (my second favourite team after Minardi ), I sort of feel as though he should get a reprieve based on that fifth place he scored at Dallas in 1984 alone.

Mike Thackwell. His only mistake was going to F1 too soon.