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Driver moves that just didn't work (29 posts)

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DJPastey said 2 years, 3 months ago:

Howabout: Zanardi to Williams, Michael Andretti to McLaren, Christiano de Matta to Toyota, Scott Speed to Toro Rosso, Sebastien Bourdais to Toro Rosso – in fact most American drivers and drivers in Indycar / Champ Car to any Formula 1 team in the last 2 decades has been pretty disastrous! Exceptions would be JPM & Jacques Villeneuve, but can’t think of any others. Any theories as to why?

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The Last Pope said 2 years, 3 months ago:

I don’t see why Button’s signing to drive for Williams in 2006 wouldn’t qualify for this. Obviously when Williams lost their BMW engines and Honda anounced they were taking over BAR for 2006, Jenson relised how bad a mistake his earlier signing was and decided to buy himself out of the willliams contract to stay with Honda. An �18 million mistake, that has to be the most expensive single mistake ever by an F1 driver.

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Prisoner Monkeys said 2 years, 3 months ago:

That’s not quite how it went down. Button’s contract with Williams required the team to deliver a high-quality car that he could win with. He felt that the change to Cosworth engines would jeopardise that (in the end, he was right – the FW28 was a real engine-breaker). He also had a previous contract with Williams to race in 2005, but BAR exercised their option to retain him and the matter went to the Contract Review Board, who agreed with BAR. Button believed that because he had been kept by BAR, the Williams contract no longer applied. In the end, he bought himself out of the contract to secure the Honda seat quickly.

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The Last Pope said 2 years, 3 months ago:

Ah ok. I was under the impression that he signed a second contract with Williams for 2006 straight after the first one to drive in 2005 & 06 was nullified by the review board. I figured he was desparate to get away from Dave Richards.

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sbl on tour said 2 years, 3 months ago:

how about herr schu to ferrari, stuffed everyone else, that one!

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Dan Thorn said 2 years, 3 months ago:

Button being beaten by Fisichella is not such a bad thing. Remember, in those Benetton years Fisi was considered an up and coming prospect who just needed a decent car.

You could site many of Fisi’s team moves as bad decisions – He left Jordan, just as they got good, and went to Benetton, who at the time were a front running team. They slipped down to one of the slowest teams, so Fisi went back to Jordan, who had just finished being good, while Benetton morphed into Renault and started moving back up the grid again.

Ok, so he eventually ended up back with Renault, but he then showed that he couldn’t really handle being in a top team.

Another bad move was Trulli to Toyota. Ok, so he didn’t exactly choose to leave Reanult and it wasn’t really his fault, but even by the time Flavio fired him he was beating Alonso. Had he stayed on there, I reckon he could have made 2005 a much tougher title for Alonso to win.

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Sutil-M said 2 years, 3 months ago:

Now getting closer to Bahrain i can see Hulkenberg moving to Force India will be a bad move.

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dennis said 2 years, 3 months ago:

As much as it looks like Hill moving to Arrows and Villeneuve going to BAR were stupid moves, I always think they were trying to do what Michael Schumacher did with Ferrari. After becoming world champion searching for a new challenge with a new (possibly underdog) team.

Especially BAR had the money to move things with the right people.

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Icthyes said 2 years, 3 months ago:

Alonso to McLaren? Surely the worst mistake in hindsight ever.

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Ned Flanders said 2 years, 3 months ago:

Wow, how did we all forget Senor Alonso??

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The Last Pope said 2 years, 3 months ago:

Alonso? 2007 was hardly a disaster for him, 4 wins, 12 podiums and 3rd in the championship. Sure everything was bad behind the scenes, but on the track were it counts, things were reletivly good for him and he was far more competative than he would have been had he stayed at Renault who were strugling to adapt to the bridestone tyres. I wouldn’t say this move was bad or stupid or even a mistake. It just didn’t go well off track.

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Prisoner Monkeys said 2 years, 3 months ago:

I wouldn’t say this move was bad or stupid or even a mistake. It just didn’t go well off track.

Oh, it was a mistake. One could argue that Alonso’s off-track antics cost McLaren a title or two.

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Red Andy said 2 years, 3 months ago:

Irvine to Jaguar has to be one. He could have stayed at Ferrari, but he wanted to be able to fight for the championship in years other than when Schumacher was sidelined. So he moved to Jaguar, who as Stewart had been a team making great progress (got their first – quite fortunate – win in 1999, but were certainly improving year-on-year). Sadly Jaguar’s involement spelled the end of any hope the team could have been competitive – the cars were unreliable and the team was thoroughly mismanaged by Laudmouth and others, culminating in him finally being sacked.

If he’d stayed at Ferrari he’d never have been world champion, but he might have won another race or two. And perhaps even picked up an elusive pole position!

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Icthyes said 2 years, 3 months ago:

Last Pope, it was a total disaster because he spent the next two years at Renault again, away from the sharp end. That’s two years to win the world championship he’s never going to get back again. It also seriously damaged his reputation outside of Spain, for one thing he would never have been involved in the race-fixing scandal.

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