Debate: The Bottom 10 F1 drivers
16th May 2008, 15:00 by Keith Collantine 40 Comments »
Alan Henry’s done it, F1 Racing did it, and now The Times are naming their top 100 F1 drivers.
I toyed with the idea of doing something similar here but these debates always end up the same: arguments about whether you can compare drivers from the ’50s with those from five decades later, why all the current drivers are over-rated and so on.
Instead let’s go to the other end of the scale and ask who were F1′s very worst drivers ever? I’ve picked five, nominate yours below…
Jean-Denis Deletraz
Presences: 3
Starts: 3
Best grid position: 24
Best finishing position: 15
Deletraz was nine laps into his Grand Prix debut at Adelaide in 1994 when the leaders came by him for the first time. He was ten laps down by the time his car died of shame on lap 57. On his third and final Grand Prix appearance at the Nürburgring in 1995 he actually finished having been lapped seven times.
Giovanni Lavaggi
Presences: 10
Starts: 9
Best grid position: 20
Best finishing position: 10 (classified finish despite having spun off)
After four races with Pacific in 1995 he returned the following year to replace the a young, under-funded Giancarlo Fisichella at Minardi – and promptly failed to qualify for his first race back. He only looked good when Délétraz replaced him.
Ricardo Rosset
Presences: 33
Starts: 26
Best grid position: 17
Best finishing position: 8
You don’t need to know much more about Rosset other than the fact his Tyrrell mechanics used to swap the letters ‘R’ and ‘T’ of his surname around on his car’s stickers.
He provided a sublime comedy moment for ITV’s Murray Walker and Martin Brundle by crashing just was Walker was finished saying, “There’s some debate about whether Rosset is Formula 1 material” to which Brundle dead-panned, “That’s a pretty short debate, Murray.”
Enrico Bertaggia
Presences: 6
Starts: 0
Best grid position: DNPQ
Best finishing position: N/A
The stats say it all, really. In six attempts he never pre-qualified once. But he is trumped by…
Claudio Langes
Presences: 14
Starts: 0
Best grid position: DNPQ
Best finishing position: N/A
Yes. Well, the less said the better really.
Those are my first five. But who do you think belongs on the list of F1′s worst drivers – and why? Do any current or recent drivers deserve to be on the list? Nominate as many as you like as later on we’ll whittle the list down to ten.
In the meantime, here’s a few more names to consider: Taki Inoue, Philippe Adams and Piercarlo Ghinzani.
ade said on 16th May 2008, 15:13
I remember Martin Brundle commenting on Lavaggi:
“There goes Giovanni Lavaggi, or – as he’s known in English, Johnny Handwash”
.
I think Phillipe Addams rates as one of the all time worst drivers ever. Didn’t he struggle mightily to qualify for a superlicence AFER Lotus had signed him?
Scootin159 said on 16th May 2008, 15:19
This debate will be very hard because some of the worst drivers never made it anywhere simply because their machinery was so sub-par. If we look at this year’s results we would be inclined to declare Sato a horrible driver… although we all know that it’s really that SAF1 had a poor car to work with this year (and other things on their mind).
For the real ‘poor performers’, we need to more so look at who did bad in good cars. For instance Michael Andretti… 11th in the championship in 1993, in the same equipment that Senna took to 2nd place. Heck Häkkinen nearly beat him for the season, despite taking over with only 3 races to go for the season.
Robert McKay said on 16th May 2008, 15:26
“This debate will be very hard because some of the worst drivers never made it anywhere simply because their machinery was so sub-par”
Fair point.
The flipside is also true, though, that many of these drivers never made it to better machinery BECAUSE they were so god-awful.
But you are right that the debate has to separate rubbish drivers from rubbish driver-car packages. Lavaggi would still have been infamously bad in a decent car.
Keith Collantine said on 16th May 2008, 15:38
OK so let me throw a potentially interesting name into the mix: Andrea de Cesaris.
TommyB said on 16th May 2008, 15:51
Haha what I’ll always remember about Rosset is at the Spa 98 mass pileup he drove full speed into the wreck like some kind of computer game!
Cooperman said on 16th May 2008, 16:00
Rosset gets my vote – good to see him appear in here.
Where’s Taki Inoue though??
Andy Wolf said on 16th May 2008, 16:07
Blimey, time really does fly. I can’t believe Brundle & Walker were commantating together when Tyrrell were still racing.
Sriram said on 16th May 2008, 16:09
Is it really necessary to do this?
Chalky said on 16th May 2008, 16:12
You can have quite a laugh at some drivers in F1, like:
Otto Stuppacher (1976) – Entered 3 races in 1976 in a Tyrell. He failed to qualify for 2 (27secs off pole at the East US GP!) and only qualified for the remaining race as other competitors had been excluded. Thing is, he had already left the country.
or
Al Pease (1969) – Only driver to be black flagged for driving too slow.
James B said on 16th May 2008, 16:14
Pedro Chaves is nominated for me.
Despite a bad car…
13 appearances
13 DNPQ’s
And about Andrea de Cesaris, it was really before 1991 where Andrea was… bad.
Michael K said on 16th May 2008, 16:23
Ukyo Katayama, he was good for laughs!! I can remember the Japanese commentators (I lived there at the time) screaming his name in a way that only moronic Japanese commentators can, all the way until he spun.
Vertigo said on 16th May 2008, 16:32
Maybe a bit controversial, seeing how big a hero he is, but Alex Zanardi was outclassed 35 points to nil in the 1999 Williams – by Ralf Schumacher of all people! I respect his bravery and the skill he’s shown in Champ Car etc, but he really failed badly in F1.
TommyB said on 16th May 2008, 16:59
Agreed Vertigo. Zanardi is a legend of CART and so brave for still continuing to race despite his condition. Useless in F1 though
francois said on 16th May 2008, 17:17
Taki Inoue? – Didn’t he once manage to crash into a course car after it was towing him along in Monaco?.And he distracted Damon Hill so he ran straight into the back of Schumacher’s Benetton that year as well….
Yuji Ide would be a name I’d be tempted to throw into the mix – he only lasted three races before the FIA took away his superlicence and he struggled to stay on the track as well.
D Winn said on 16th May 2008, 17:33
Andrea de Cesaris
214 Races
15 Seasons
10 Teams
34 Tracks
Scored 59 out of a possible 1985 points !
5 Podiums
1 Fastest lap
22 times in the points
You can’t say he didn’t have opportunities