F1 Entries/Rumours that never happenedFormula 1 

If rumours are to be believed, McLaren almost signed Rubens Barrichello twice:

In 1994 for 1995 with backing from Marlboro and the potential for further investment from Ford Brasil. McLaren went with Mercedes-Benz over Ford but this wasn't a factor in not signing Barrichello; politics basically forced McLaren to sign Nigel Mansell instead.

After Mercedes-Benz bought Brawn in late 2009 Barrichello was approached by McLaren for 2010 but having already verbally agreed to sign for Williams, Barrichello, not wanting to break a promise, turned them down and McLaren signed his teammate Jenson Button instead.
 
Hideki Noda twice missed out on a drive in 1995. He was supposed to take over from Domenico Schiattarella at Simtek but they went bust after 5 races then Forti wanted to hire him to replace Roberto Moreno towards the end of the season but he was denied a superlicence despite contesting the last 3 races of 1994 for Larrousse.

Speaking of Larrousse, they intended to continue into 1995 with Christophe Bouchut and Eric Helary, though several other drivers were linked to the team at the time.
 
Liquid
If rumours are to be believed, McLaren almost signed Rubens Barrichello twice:
Click to expand...
After listening to his Beyond The Grid episode, Barrichello was also close to signing with Benetton in 1996 alonside Jean Alesi. Benetton went with Gerhard Berger, essentially swapping the two for Michael Schumacher, because Berger brought a more lucrative alcohol sponsor; checking the B196 again, it looks like Kingfisher beer.
 
Toyota’s 2010 F1 effort, with Kamui Kobayashi and Sebastien Buemi as the drivers, with a car basically completed and all the promise from 2009 - Jarno Trulli could have won at Spa, was second at Suzuka, should have won in Bahrain - I always had a soft spot for Toyota in F1 and it didn’t take them that long to be competitive, seeing how brilliant they went on to be in LMP1 always makes me think they should have stuck around for longer given the competitiveness of their 2009 car. They were a slow burn but they were on the right track, I thought. Then the world economic crisis or whatever they dubbed it saw to them, BMW, Honda, even Renault.

In terms of drivers, I’d have loved to see Dario Franchitti get the Jaguar drive circa 2001.
 
m355y
Toyota’s 2010 F1 effort, with Kamui Kobayashi and Sebastien Buemi as the drivers, with a car basically completed and all the promise from 2009 - Jarno Trulli could have won at Spa, was second at Suzuka, should have won in Bahrain - I always had a soft spot for Toyota in F1 and it didn’t take them that long to be competitive, seeing how brilliant they went on to be in LMP1 always makes me think they should have stuck around for longer given the competitiveness of their 2009 car. They were a slow burn but they were on the right track, I thought. Then the world economic crisis or whatever they dubbed it saw to them, BMW, Honda, even Renault.

In terms of drivers, I’d have loved to see Dario Franchitti get the Jaguar drive circa 2001.
Click to expand...
Yes and Michael Andretti was supposed to drive for Ferrari in 1992.
 
m355y
Toyota’s F1 effort
Click to expand...
...is one of the biggest wastes of money in motorsports history. They cancelled a promising sports car project for it. And it's not like they half-arsed it; they did their due diligence, they had the finances needed and came away with absolutely nothing to show for it.
 
Liquid
...is one of the biggest wastes of money in motorsports history. They cancelled a promising sports car project for it. And it's not like they half-arsed it; they did their due diligence, they had the finances needed and came away with absolutely nothing to show for it.
Click to expand...
Shouldn't this really be in the "Failures of Motorsports..." thread?
 
Last edited:
Har1MAS1415
Shouldn't this really be in the "Failures of Motorsports..." thread?
Click to expand...

www.gtplanet.net

Failures of Motorsports - Car Designs, Team Mistakes and More

So really the failure was at all levels, not just because of one isolated incident. Of course, but had they caved sooner they wouldn't have had to spend so much time trying to get the car to a point where Alonso could comfortably handle it and could have devoted more to fixing their other...
www.gtplanet.net www.gtplanet.net
 
Liquid
...is one of the biggest wastes of money in motorsports history. They cancelled a promising sports car project for it. And it's not like they half-arsed it; they did their due diligence, they had the finances needed and came away with absolutely nothing to show for it.
Click to expand...
Also the 2001 car would have raced if V12 engines hadn't been banned.

(My 100th Post!)
 
Last edited:
I think one of Toyota’s biggest mistakes was that, even with all the money they had, they persevered with such average drivers. They ran Salo, McNish, Panis, then had Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli for three seasons then Trulli and Glock. 2005 and 2009, in those two years they came so close to victories with the drivers they had that I suspect those were really good cars that could really have started something.
 
Trulli and Ralf Schumacher was their strongest driver line up and it is worth pointing our that their best finish of 4th in the Constructors in 2005 was also the same year that Ferrari had an uncompetitive year for once and midfield rivals BAR were banned for two races that year, allowing for more point-scoring opportunities.

Incidentally, Salo said that the TF101 test car was the biggest piece of 🤬 that he'd ever driven; it was overweight and handled badly yet I think it looks absolutely incredible.

6gxq5fzecux31-1300-x-975-1210x642.jpg
 
Liquid
Trulli and Ralf Schumacher was their strongest driver line up and it is worth pointing our that their best finish of 4th in the Constructors in 2005 was also the same year that Ferrari had an uncompetitive year for once and midfield rivals BAR were banned for two races that year, allowing for more point-scoring opportunities.

Incidentally, Salo said that the TF101 test car was the biggest piece of 🤬 that he'd ever driven; it was overweight and handled badly yet I think it looks absolutely incredible.

6gxq5fzecux31-1300-x-975-1210x642.jpg
Click to expand...
It does look good I must say.
 
FEu6kUAWYAkSiT7.jpeg


Ayrton Senna came close to joining Ferrari before he died even if Ferrari was doing really bad at the time. Senna believed joining Ferrari would have been his final F1 drive before retiring.

As a Ferrari fan it hurts how the GOAT nearly came to Ferrari 😔
 
Liquid
Trulli and Ralf Schumacher was their strongest driver line up and it is worth pointing our that their best finish of 4th in the Constructors in 2005 was also the same year that Ferrari had an uncompetitive year for once and midfield rivals BAR were banned for two races that year, allowing for more point-scoring opportunities.

Incidentally, Salo said that the TF101 test car was the biggest piece of 🤬 that he'd ever driven; it was overweight and handled badly yet I think it looks absolutely incredible.

6gxq5fzecux31-1300-x-975-1210x642.jpg
Click to expand...
The 2001 test car was lovely, but apparently really awful. There’s an episode of the Bring Back V10s podcast (which I’d massively recommend to anyone unaware of it) about that test year and let’s just say there was a reason they rarely made its lap times public.

I wish they’d kept with that livery for 2002 though.

I’ve always had a weird soft spot for Toyota’s F1 effort. I know, objectively, they wasted a lot of money and never delivered what they should have, but I’d struggle to argue they were as big a failure as, say, Jaguar were. They at least came close. I remember Trulli was really competitive early in 2005 and took two second places, but also they took a fair few very low fuel qualifying laps to maybe make themselves look quicker than they were. Ralf Schumacher in Japan comes to mind. I never rated Ralf or Trulli by then. Both were well past their best, and even in their prime they weren’t world beaters.
 
m355y
Toyota’s 2010 F1 effort, with Kamui Kobayashi and Sebastien Buemi as the drivers, with a car basically completed and all the promise from 2009 - Jarno Trulli could have won at Spa, was second at Suzuka, should have won in Bahrain - I always had a soft spot for Toyota in F1 and it didn’t take them that long to be competitive, seeing how brilliant they went on to be in LMP1 always makes me think they should have stuck around for longer given the competitiveness of their 2009 car. They were a slow burn but they were on the right track, I thought. Then the world economic crisis or whatever they dubbed it saw to them, BMW, Honda, even Renault.

In terms of drivers, I’d have loved to see Dario Franchitti get the Jaguar drive circa 2001.
Click to expand...
Makes one wonder who would have taken Buemi's place at Toro Rosso alongside Jaime Alguersuari if Toyota had continued into 2010.
 
f1since81.wordpress.com

1992 Monaco Grand Prix

Monte Carlo Street Circuit 31 May 1992 In the weeks following Ferrari’s disappointing showing at Imola, the Italian motorsports press had been vocal in its criticism of Ivan Capelli, and ther…
f1since81.wordpress.com f1since81.wordpress.com
Look at the end of the first paragraph. The US-based Lola-Ford bit has got to be one of the wildest rumours in F1 history.
 

Latest Posts

Back