Regardless of what he has done in his career, Fernando Alonso has suffered the biggest misuse of talent in the history of Formula One.
"Misuse" wouldn't really be the word; had it not been for an impetuous start by Grosjean at Spa, Alonso would have probably won the 2012 title. I think he let the 2010 title slip away, but late-season Ferrari development was also not as strong as Red Bull's. Two titles puts him in pretty good company...for example, Emerson Fittipaldi won two titles and was second in '73. Ronnie Peterson was a stronger teammate than expected; had there been team orders at Lotus, one of them might have reeled in Jackie Stewart. McLaren development stalled a bit in '75 while Lauda and Ferrari were dominant. Then, he chooses to drive for his own team, and that was pretty much the end of his F1 competitiveness.
So that brings us to Peterson...what might have been? Hard to call him "lost", but really could have been a world champion. He was ready to sign for a McLaren which was headed for the doldrums, although they hit their form again in mid-1981 through '82.
Chris Amon signed for teams while in their zenith, but managed to drive for them while they were in their nadir.
What might of been of Lorenzo Bandini?
Pete Arundell had a great start to his career in 1964, after a meteoric rise in Formula Junior, he was Jim Clark's teammate, but suffered a injuries midway through the season in an off-weekend F2 race. He was never the same again.
What might Vic Elford, Brian Redman, Derek Bell, or even Gijs van Lennep done with more serious campaigns in F1? All were quite talented sports-car aces.
Tony Brise was driving for Graham Hill until that fateful day in November 1975.
Jean-Pierre Jarier never drove for a top team. A couple of podiums, but otherwise a bit of a super-sub.
Jean Alesi managed to wrestle the best out of promising machinery early on, but Ferrari was still a bit hapless in the mid-1990s.
Alessandro Nannini was on the rise until that stupid helicopter crash. He was challenging Senna wheel-to-wheel during a few races (Hockenheim, Hungary) in 1990.
Gabriele Tarquini drove some of the worst machinery in the paddock and qualified it well on some occasions. When your career consists of Coloni, AGS, Osella, and Fondmetal and you still manage a few qualifiers midway up the grid, that takes some skill; having tough out the hour-long Friday morning DNPQ battle royales probably weren't great on reliability, either. Eighth place with a Coloni at Montreal and 6th in an AGS on a bumpy power circuit like Mexico City couldn't have been easy.
Anthony Davidson. How to improve without a full-time drive?
Kamui Kobayashi...nobody picked this guy up?
And then there's the fellows who never tried their hand in F1...Walter Rohl, Klaus Ludwig, Kelvin Burt, Gil de Ferran, Tony Kanaan, probably another 20-30 others who might have had what it takes, but found their form in other series. F1 is but one peak in the motorsport mountain range, and sometimes your star just fades quickly.
Going down the grids, there's dozens of promising talent that deserved a second or even a third chance, but ever-smaller paddocks and less testing opportunities will only create more of these situations.
