Grand Prix Rejects

Evening everyone

It's time for another juicy Driver Profile, and we have a doozy for you tonight. Yuji Ide contested only four F1 races in early 2006 but that was enough ammunition for his detractors to completely destroy his reputation, making him into a hapless comedic figure and a perennial inclusion on "Worst Ever F1 Drivers" lists for perpetuity. While his stint at Super Aguri was a disaster, let's not pretend, it obscures Ide's credentials as one of very few F1 drivers to have grafted for years to earn an FIA Superlicence, with hardly any yen behind him, a far cry from the "lol shitty paydriver" that other websites are wont to have F1 fans believe.

Half Driver Profile, half setting the score right, we honestly feel this is one of the most important pieces ever published on Grand Prix Rejects. Rob Dylan has worked incredible miracles sifting through Japanese media to tell Ide's true story, which you can read right here today!

Driver Profile - Yuji Ide

That's an excellent read, really puts things into perspective. F1 was never going to turn out well for him sadly, and even at the time I thought that while his removal from the team was perhaps the right decision, the revoking of his Superlicence was ridiculously harsh.

Let's not forget that Michael Andretti spent his first four F1 races barreling into anyone (well, Karl Wendlinger mostly) he could find on the first lap and he wasn't treated the same way, funny that....

Fantastic profile, amazing he ever made it to F1 given he had to work so hard to even have a motor racing career. It's a shame that he was thrown into the deep end (at his own volition, of course).

Excellent read, it really put into perspective just how expensive Motorsport is for anyone so it was impressive enough for him to get near F1 in the first place. And also he was 31 at the time, we’ll probably never see a debutant like that again given the junior academies that populate the sport now.

In hindsight it was never going to work for the reasons mentioned, the team being thrown together last minute and the fact it was literally only created to preserve Sato’s disintegrating F1 career which I never understood at the time given how disastrous 2005 was for him. Then there was the 4 year old car which even in it’s heyday was upper midfield at best, and lastly of course was Yuji’s inability to speak English and communicate despite being Japanese in a Japanese team which was basically Ivan Capelli at Ferrari version 2.0.

Oh well we’ll always have F1 Championship Edition to remember him by.

This affirms a prediction made on the old site back in the day.