I think the fact that Marlboro chose McNish over Hakkinen shows how good he could have been. His first year performances in F3 and F3000 also showed he was a rare talent. At that time if anyone had said that Hakkinen and Damon Hill would be world champions and McNish would not start a GP until after his thirtieth birthday they would have been laughed at. The idea that Damon Hill would achieve massively more than McNish would have seemed utterly ridiculous.

It’s interesting that the best two Scottish prospects in F1 since Jackie Stewart foundered at McLaren and to think I have always liked Ron.

As a Scot myself, I don’t think that’s relevant. Keith’s absolutely right: it’s because the mainstream media here (UK as a whole) struggle to see anything past F1. Franchitti barely got a mention when he won the Indy 500 and IRL championship, and gets even less attention in NASCAR. Over the past few years only really McRae carved a name for himself as a major player in motorsport outside of F1, and that was really because he either won or crashed big time so there was always a story.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a sports editor in this country for a major TV channel/newspaper that could tell you anything about ALMS, I suspect.

Secondly, Paul Stewart Racing (predecessor of Stewart GP) had pursued a “ladder of talent” policy in nurturing young drivers, taking them up through Formula Vauxhall, F3 and F3000. David Coulthard was one of the earliest products of this system, but was already a McLaren driver. The obvious candidate to pick was Jan Magnussen – who dominated F3 in 1994 and had made a promising GP debut in his one off drive for McLaren in 1995, filling in for an unwell Mika Hakkinen. McNish’s career wasn’t in a good place by this point and, although still quick, he didn’t look quite as world class as in 1989. At this point, Magnussen looked set to be a future world champion and it seemed like the best option.

What better than an experienced driver to help guide the team through its first year, then unleash the by-then mature talent of the Dane who won more F3 races than Ayrton Senna? It didn’t work, but everything is easier in hindsight.

David Coulthard has never been short of attention in F1, certainly not in the late nineties when he was in a top team. The fact of the matter is as far as the mainstream media is concerned F1 is the only type of motorsport and anything else is of barely secondary interest. So however many races McNish wins this year Coulthard will still get more column inches than him just for swearing at Massa on ITV a few months ago.

It has always surprised me that we don’t hear his name (or Frachitti’s for that matter) more often in the British media.

The cynic in me says that’s because he is Scottish not English.

Marlboro had Hakkinen and McNish in 1988 as you say and chose to drop Hakkinen for F3 in 89. Mika ended up driving for a team that wasn’t one of the best so gained a year’s experience and was able to win the championship the next year. McNish because he had a good drive finished second in the championship with more wins than anyone in his only year in the championship. It is interesting to speculate what might have happened had Marlboro made the other choice.

In F3000 still with Marlboro backing he had a great first season after that horror start. He was clear favourite to win the championship the following season but that season Lola built a dog of a car and DAMS were effectively the Lola factory team. Had Lola built a decent car things may have been very different and had DAMS not been so close to Lola they may have quickly dropped the Lola for a Reynard.

I think he also suffered by being the first high profile young test driver in F1. Until then drivers would have the occasional test with one or more teams and then either be signed to race or not but he was the first to have a contract as a full time test driver while in the junior formulae. I think this worked against him getting a full time drive. McLaren were happy with Senna and Berger and other teams saw McNish as a McLaren man who may drive for them short term but as soon as Ron came calling he would disappear off to Woking.

I am still surprised Jackie Stewart never signed him. I still don’t understand that.

I think we can also put Heidfeld in the Mclaren funded kids row…but he did make something out of it in f1, but not as far as it could have been..