Brilliant drivers who never made it in F1

KenSwee

I was chatting to a few of my friends about this.
Who would you have liked to have seen driving a competitive F1 car?

A few I came up with who I think, at their peak, would have been a real contender in a good F1 car.

Walter Röhrl
Henri Toivonen
Stefan Bellof (never saw full potential)
Jimmy Vasser
Al Unser Jr
Klaus Ludwig

Any others?

Infoanon

KenSwee wrote: »

I was chatting to a few of my friends about this.
Who would you have liked to have seen driving a competitive F1 car?

A few I came up with who I think, at their peak, would have been a real contender in a good F1 car.

Walter Röhrl
Henri Toivonen
Stefan Bellof (never saw full potential)
Jimmy Vasser
Al Unser Jr
Klaus Ludwig

Any others?

Jo Gartner - shone in his all to brief F1 career
Paul Tracy - Would have been 'exciting'
Pierluigi Martini - did wonders in the Minardi (even led a race !)
Tony Kannan - his racecraft would have wonderful to watch in a F1 car - indys gain F1's lose

KenSwee

Also thought of Greg Moore. Outstanding driver and a huge loss to motor racing.

CaptainFreedom

Closer to home - Adam Carroll, a lack of sponsorship and recognition (the last A1GP winner)

KenSwee

CaptainFreedom wrote: »

Closer to home - Adam Carroll, a lack of sponsorship and recognition (the last A1GP winner)

Did he start off in Formula Ireland?

CaptainFreedom

KenSwee wrote: »

Did he start off in Formula Ireland?

Formula Ireland :rolleyes: - nothing more than a richmans plaything and another silly Mondello flop class

Infoanon

KenSwee wrote: »

Also thought of Greg Moore. Outstanding driver and a huge loss to motor racing.

Jeff Gordon was at one time looking at open wheel racing but stayed with Nascar following the death of his friend Greg Moore.

Marc Surer is another driver who did wonders in an off the pace Brabham

frostie500

Tom Kristenson and Dario Franchitti are two drivers that I would have loved to have seen get a real chance at F1. But there are litterly hundreds of drivers that could fit the bill

vincenzolorenzo

CaptainFreedom wrote: »

Formula Ireland :rolleyes: - nothing more than a richmans plaything and another silly Mondello flop class

What was the story with Formula Ireland? I've heard a few people with comments like this one. Was it a one make series like F Sheane? What caused it to fail?

Larbre34

frostie500 wrote: »

Tom Kristenson and Dario Franchitti are two drivers that I would have loved to have seen get a real chance at F1. But there are litterly hundreds of drivers that could fit the bill

+1 on that, go to Le Mans any year and youll see 20 or 30 top class wheelmen who might have been on the fringes of F1 but never got the break in a good car

From this years entry alone I could mention Allan McNish, Marc Gené, Soheil Ayari, Pedro Lamy, Jan Magnussen, Seb Bourdais, Franck Montagny, Alex Wurz, Emmanuel Collard

However - not Jean Denis Deletraz or Gimmi Bruni!

Grim.

Larbre34 wrote: »

However - not Jean Denis Deletraz or Gimmi Bruni!

agreed on the joke that is Deletraz but I cant agree about Bruni, apart from that moronic move at Sebring he's a pretty exceptional GT driver.

KenSwee

Larbre34 wrote: »

+1 on that, go to Le Mans any year and youll see 20 or 30 top class wheelmen who might have been on the fringes of F1 but never got the break in a good car

From this years entry alone I could mention Allan McNish, Marc Gené, Soheil Ayari, Pedro Lamy, Jan Magnussen, Seb Bourdais, Franck Montagny, Alex Wurz, Emmanuel Collard

However - not Jean Denis Deletraz or Gimmi Bruni!

I really think that McNish, Magussen, Lamy and Wurz did have the opportunity to show how good they were. I think they just had bad management or something. They all had good access to top teams and when it came to the decision on who to drive with, I believe they just screwed up or didn't do the business when the time came. Maybe I'm not up on the full story but I certainly wouldn't consider them in the same category as Walter Röhrl or Al Unser Jr. A lot of those drivers you mentioned did race in F1, some for a good period of time.

I tried to make the point of my post as trying to look drivers who briefly drove or never drove in F1.

CaptainFreedom

KenSwee wrote: »

I really think that McNish, Magussen, Lamy and Wurz did have the opportunity to show how good they were. I think they just had bad management or something. They all had good access to top teams and when it came to the decision on who to drive with, I believe they just screwed up or didn't do the business when the time came. Maybe I'm not up on the full story but I certainly wouldn't consider them in the same category as Walter Röhrl or Al Unser Jr. A lot of those drivers you mentioned did race in F1, some for a good period of time.

I tried to make the point of my post as trying to look drivers who briefly drove or never drove in F1.

If you are admitting that you dont know the circumstances, you should not be speculating wildly

hmmm

When I was much younger, I saw Paul Warwick (younger brother of F1 driver Derek) racing Superstox. Superstox are like big go-karts, victories tend to be measured in seconds. Paul Warwick won by laps at a time, it was unreal.

He was killed aged 22 at Oulton Park in British F3000 - winning the race & the championship posthumously. He raced for Eddie Jordan in British F3. He was faster than Damon Hill in the same car and was probably going to end up in F1 in his next year racing.

Still to this day he was the best driver I've ever seen in the flesh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se_ZcRffC0k

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Warwick_(racing_driver)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Warwick

KenSwee

CaptainFreedom wrote: »

If you are admitting that you dont know the circumstances, you should not be speculating wildly

I'm entitled to have my opinion just as much as anybody else.
The fact is that the drivers I mentioned did have good opportunities to succeed in F1. Why or how they didn't really isn't the issue.

kenco

Larbre34 wrote: »

frostie500 wrote: »

Tom Kristenson and Dario Franchitti are two drivers that I would have loved to have seen get a real chance at F1. But there are litterly hundreds of drivers that could fit the bill

+1 on that, go to Le Mans any year and youll see 20 or 30 top class wheelmen who might have been on the fringes of F1 but never got the break in a good car

From this years entry alone I could mention Allan McNish, Marc Gené, Soheil Ayari, Pedro Lamy, Jan Magnussen, Seb Bourdais, Franck Montagny, Alex Wurz, Emmanuel Collard

However - not Jean Denis Deletraz or Gimmi Bruni!

I remember all the hype around Magnussen at the time. He was regarded as the next big thing but it never really happened. Remember reading that when he was with Stewart his diet habits were under the microscope so maybe the hype got to him or maybe the hype was just that.....

Huge things were expected from Zanardi and Andreti but for different reasons it didnt happen for them.

For the what could have been I would always look at Herbert and Alesi as guys with huge potential for whom it didnt happen. Trulli and Fisichello also spring to mind

KenSwee

LIGHTNING wrote: »

I`d rather see the like of Röhrl winning in the World Rally Championship than stuck in some piece of junk car at the back of the grid.

The whole point of my original post is seeing Röhrl in a good car.

seanmacc

Alex Zardi. Former cart driver champion, had a flop season with Williams. He crashed in a champ car championships in 2001 and had to have both legs amputated. He's now an Paraolympian in the handbiking.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/paralympic-sport/8973571/Alex-Zanardi-puts-life-threatening-Champ-Car-crash-behind-him-to-go-for-gold-in-hand-cycling-at-London-2012.html

KenSwee

kenco wrote: »

Huge things were expected from Zanardi and Andreti but for different reasons it didnt happen for them.

During his interview for F1 legends on SKyF1, I heard Mika Häkkinen talking about why he thought that Michael Andretti didn't do well. He put it down to the fact that he was commuting from Nazareth for every race and wasn't really focused come race day.

guyfo

KenSwee wrote: »

The whole point of my original post is seeing Röhrl in a good car.

We did. He won 2 world championships. One in 1980 in a 131 arbarth (the car to have at the time) and another title in 1982 in a far outpaced opel ascona against audi quattros.

F1 doesnt matter, there is more than one top tier in motorsports. Formula cars, touring cars, rallying, nascar, gt's rallycross etc are all totally different forms of racing and cant be compared.

Rohrl had the best car in his discipline in 82

KenSwee

KenSwee wrote: »

I was chatting to a few of my friends about this.
Who would you have liked to have seen driving a competitive F1 car?

A few I came up with who I think, at their peak, would have been a real contender in a good F1 car.

Walter Röhrl
Henri Toivonen
Stefan Bellof (never saw full potential)
Jimmy Vasser
Al Unser Jr
Klaus Ludwig

Any others?

guyfo wrote: »

F1 doesnt matter, there is more than one top tier in motorsports. Formula cars, touring cars, rallying, nascar, gt's rallycross etc are all totally different forms of racing and cant be compared.

I can't figure out why you posted the above. My OP is about drivers that we would liked to have seen in F1. As you can see, Röhrl is top of my list so that should tell you what I think of him.

seanmacc

KenSwee wrote: »

I can't figure out why you posted the above. My OP is about drivers that we would liked to have seen in F1. As you can see, Röhrl is top of my list so that should tell you what I think of him.

In fairness you put it as "brilliant drivers who never made it in F1".

Many got drives in F1 and flopped, they didn't make it. The cruel nature of F1 is that if results aren't seen immediately you're thrown onto the merry-go-round at the end of the season and extremely unlikely to get another drive.

I wondered though whether Ralf Firman would of done well given the races and a competitive car.

KenSwee

seanmacc wrote: »

In fairness you put it as "brilliant drivers who never made it in F1".

I wondered though whether Ralf Firman would of done well given the races and a competitive car.

Fair point; I should have called it "Who would you have liked to have seen driving a competitive F1 car?" but if you read my original post you'll get the idea.

I have never been convinced about Firman. I always thought his driving efforts seemed half hearted. Could he have been a bit pushed too much too soon by his dad? He definitely came to Jordan at the end of the party to be fair to him and his later driving after F1 showed much more promise.

macshadow

Good book for the F1 fan http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crashed-Byrned-Greatest-Racing-Driver/dp/1848310285

kenco

macshadow wrote: »

Good book for the F1 fan http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crashed-Byrned-Greatest-Racing-Driver/dp/1848310285

Couldn't remeber his name but did read an article on him some time back. What could have been. Apparent,y Senna regarded him as top notch and a real challenge

CaptainFreedom

kenco wrote: »

Couldn't remeber his name but did read an article on him some time back. What could have been. Apparent,y Senna regarded him as top notch and a real challenge

And if you read the book, it was nothing to do with his driving, he was poorly managed and just couldnt keep his mouth shut. He briefly made it to F1, but I finished the book not having any respect for him in the slightest

kenco

CaptainFreedom wrote: »

And if you read the book, it was nothing to do with his driving, he was poorly managed and just couldnt keep his mouth shut. He briefly made it to F1, but I finished the book not having any respect for him in the slightest

Didnt know he had a book out. Will definitely pick it up. Heard he was a bit mouthy alright which would not have been ideal at the time. That said nature of the beast, Senna, Schumacer, etc would never have been regarded as the easiest of individuals....

Back to the OP was thinking again in more recent times Frentzen promised much but never really delivered. Could be argued he was a very good driver to get so close to the World Title in that Jordan but never followed through.

I think Montoya was at a time one of the best I have seen in an F1 car but then he went off the boil

KenSwee

kenco wrote: »

Didnt know he had a book out. Will definitely pick it up. Heard he was a bit mouthy alright which would not have been ideal at the time.l

Baught it in a Carlow bookshop for €1 a few months ago. I found it mildly interesting. He had good potential like a few Irish drivers at the time.

StephenHendry

martin donnelly, i know he was in f1 but he had potential had he not been seriously injured during practise for the spanish gp in 1990. dan wheldon might have done well in F1 given the right equipment.

StephenHendry

Tommy Byrne , think thats his name. the guy who wrote a book about his time he got a test a F1 car and ended up being faster than senna, great read btw

Marty09

StephenHendry wrote: »

Tommy Byrne , think thats his name. the guy who wrote a book about his time he got a test a F1 car and ended up being faster than senna, great read btw

Yes, Tommy Byrne .
British F3 Champion 1982.
Also drove a handful of races in the same season in F1 with Theodore F1 team.
Deserved a decent drive....lack of funding .

The book is a great read...'Crashed and Byrned'

wandatowell

Marty09 wrote: »

The book is a great read...'Crashed and Byrned'

Can be picked up in HMV for €1.99!!

Marty09

Pity Tommy Byrne was not around for Jordan F1 days...would have been Irish dream team.
Eddie would have given him a chance some how.

af_thefragile

Sebastian Loeb.

He's been completely dominating WRC since the past 8 years and is about to win his 9th title in a row!
He was pretty fast when he tested an F1 car too but because he didn't do enough circuit racing, FIA deemed him ineligible to race in F1. It'ld have been interesting to see what he could do with a F1 car...

chelseaaremagic

lets not forget tommy smith