Motorsports unfulfilled talents

  • Thread starter Thread starter nitrorocks
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Ronnie Peterson I think was basically told that if he wanted to drive for Lotus he had to sign a contract and be a number 2 driver to Andretti often gettting second rate equipment and having to give up positions to his team mate. There was a Doco on TV here on him not long ago and from that and everything I have watched and read on him he seems to have been a match for almost anyone on his day and an extremely talented driver that a lot of people believe should have been a world champion.
 
I think Lotus took on Peterson after he'd had a few seasons of uncompetitive machinery; never mind some of that was because Team Lotus themselves were using the 72D well past its expiration date. Then the March, the P34, seemingly each a year past their prime. So they kind of made him their best number two driver...maybe "1A", if you will.
 
F1 fan
Fixed that for you. You forgot Andretti, who is an American racing legend.

Edit: and what a mammoth post Pupik.
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I didn't forget. I don't count Mario. He's Italian. So just like Davy Jones. Just because he is a citizen doesn't make him American. I'll never consider Mario as one. :lol:
 
nitrorocks
I didn't forget. I don't count Mario. He's Italian. So just like Davy Jones. Just because he is a citizen doesn't make him American. I'll never consider Mario as one. :lol:
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You're joking, right?

Andretti also took his citizenship test and oath in 1966.
 
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nitrorocks
I didn't forget. I don't count Mario. He's Italian. So just like Davy Jones. Just because he is a citizen doesn't make him American. I'll never consider Mario as one. :lol:
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Remember that time George Washington was born a British subject?

Come on, Andretti has lived in the US since he was 15. If he's a citizen of the US, then that classes him as an American. An Italian-born one, but an American citizen none-the-less.
 
MazdaPrice
Remember that time George Washington was born a British subject?

Come on, Andretti has lived in the US since he was 15. If he's a citizen of the US, then that classes him as an American. An Italian-born one, but an American citizen none-the-less.
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That's what I meant to say. 👍 he's not American born obviously.
 
This seems at odds with your words here...

nitrorocks
I didn't forget. I don't count Mario. He's Italian. So just like Davy Jones. Just because he is a citizen doesn't make him American. I'll never consider Mario as one. :lol:
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Luca Badoer: Unfufilled or just never good enough?
 
MazdaPrice
Luca Badoer: Unfufilled or just never good enough?
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Hmm, never was going to be WDC but he certainly could have achieved far more - his story is a classic tragic tale of bad luck really. I still feel sorry for the guy that he's seen as a joke when he was once a decent driver in his own right. I think if the stars had aligned he could have achieved a podium or something with a good team. Who knows if he could win a race but certainly he never got much of a chance to show anything at all.
Typical motorsport story really though - swap his name with so many talents out there. Its just his is probably the most famous failure of a career.
 
MazdaPrice
Luca Badoer: Unfufilled or just never good enough?
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What did he ever have to work with? A Lola-Ferrari (with a year-old engine) that Alboreto couldn't even qualify with, a Forti Corse that Roberto Moreno couldn't do much with, a couple of Minardi drives . His real shining moment was the 1999 European GP, where he was in 4th for many laps, until the engine quit. Probably one of the saddest non-tragic moments in F1...



Putting Badoer in a 2009 Ferrari was a nice gesture, but after 10 years away from F1 racing, it was going to be tough. While he was Ferrari's test driver, the rule changes that restricted how much testing could be done, which mean he had little seat time in an unfamiliar car. I can't imagine they would have kept him on for all those years had he actually been uncompetitive in all his testing duties, but I also think few expected him to qualify last in his two races by such a margin.

Although, he had fifty F1 races in which to prove himself, which is still a lot more than many drivers this thread ever received.

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Anthony Davidson and Ricardo Zonta?
Kind of the Roberto Moreno-s of the last 15 years in F1. Anyone else's thoughts?

In a similar vein, there's Vic Elford and Brian Redman, both immensely talented sports-car drivers form the 1960s and '70s, but neither had full-time rides in F1...and still impressed on the rare occasions they were asked to fill in. Those are two that might have ran with the establishment and re-written the history books.
 
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Pupik
In a similar vein, there's Vic Elford and Brian Redman, both immensely talented sports-car drivers form the 1960s and '70s, but neither had full-time rides in F1...and still impressed on the rare occasions they were asked to fill in. Those are two that might have ran with the establishment and re-written the history books.
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Totally agree with this. 👍

Anyone remember Bill Ivy?
 
Pupik
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I remember watching this race and crying inside along with him. I love(d) Minardi and the underdogs generally.

Pupik
Putting Badoer in a 2009 Ferrari was a nice gesture, but after 10 years away from F1 racing, it was going to be tough. While he was Ferrari's test driver, the rule changes that restricted how much testing could be done, which mean he had little seat time in an unfamiliar car. I can't imagine they would have kept him on for all those years had he actually been uncompetitive in all his testing duties, but I also think few expected him to qualify last in his two races by such a margin.
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Agree with you totally here. Considering 2009 was a bit of a write-off, Ferrari didn't have much to lose by honouring Badoer with the drive he should have gotten in 1999. But that's history. It's not like Fisichella did much better.

Pupik
Although, he had fifty F1 races in which to prove himself, which is still a lot more than many drivers this thread ever received.
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He did, but given the machinery he raced in, what more could he/we have expected? During his 1990s run, his most competative machinery were the Minardis, and that says a lot about the sort of cars he was racing in. The M195 and M01 were taught, handsome cars but were just down on power.

The thing about the points statistic is that it becomes totally worthless once you change a points system. It's unfair to judge how many or how few points a driver scored and then comparing that to racers who raced under a different points system. To me personally, the 'Most points scored by a driver' is a silly statistic overall because it's quite skewed. For each individual driver it's a useful statistic sure, but comparing it overall is pretty unrepresentative.

Badoer scored 25 points retrospectively under the current system. By comparison, Rubens Barrichello scored 1,885 points retrospectively. Hell, even Riccardo Rosset scored under the current system!

But yeah, the ignomany of 50 races and no points... considering that backmarker drivers are replaced yearly, it's unlikely that that record will be broken any time soon!

Re: Zonta/Davidson

Davidson never really had a proper chance, but I'm not sure about Zonta. He had a decent chance in the 2000 BAR 002, which was a marked improvement over the BAR 001, but for me he never really shone. Substitute drives for Jordan and Toyota didn't yield much neither.
 
nitrorocks
I didn't forget. I don't count Mario. He's Italian. So just like Davy Jones. Just because he is a citizen doesn't make him American. I'll never consider Mario as one. :lol:
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I have to say that I find this attitude a little offensive. A friend of mine was nearly born in the US. His mother decided to return to Canada a day earlier than she had planned. Hours after she crossed the border she went into labour unexpectedly. My friend was then born. He has spent his whole life in Canada, however, by your logic, if his mother stayed put, he would be an American citizen...

Sure, he would qualify as an American citizen as it would have been his birthright, but given how he grew up in Canada, he would also have the right to consider himself Canadian. Mario Andretti was 15 when he became an American citizen. He raced under the American flag, he considers himself American. He is an American. Whether you consider him to be American or not doesn't matter. He is an American citizen.
 
F1 fan
I have to say that I find this attitude a little offensive. A friend of mine was nearly born in the US. His mother decided to return to Canada a day earlier than she had planned. Hours after she crossed the border she went into labour unexpectedly. My friend was then born. He has spent his whole life in Canada, however, by your logic, if his mother stayed put, he would be an American citizen...

Sure, he would qualify as an American citizen as it would have been his birthright, but given how he grew up in Canada, he would also have the right to consider himself Canadian. Mario Andretti was 15 when he became an American citizen. He raced under the American flag, he considers himself American. He is an American. Whether you consider him to be American or not doesn't matter. He is an American citizen.
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Yes I know. I race with people from the UK, and there American citizens. Your. Basically a Canadian citizen right? One of my teachers is from Canada and he is going to be an American citizen someday.
 
nitrorocks
Yes I know. I race with people from the UK, and there* American citizens. Your*. Basically a Canadian citizen right? One of my teachers is from Canada and he is going to be an American citizen someday.
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*They're, *you're. And no, I don't think F1 fan is a Canadian citizen.

Look, you made a complete balls up of what you wanted to say. Mario Andretti is an Italian-born American citizen. Let's move on.

Any other thoughts on Badoer, Zonta or Davidson?
 
Davidson was good at Peugeot. If they didn't pull out, he probably could have won more. He will hopefully do better this year.
 
I tend to think these days that Anthony Davidson was good but not amazing, its difficult to judge but he did have some moments particularly in qualifying at Istanbul and running 3rd in Canada...both in Super Aguris. Probably would have achieved more in a better team but its hard to say whether he was a potential race winner or WDC. Matching and occasionally beating Sato doesn't really suggest so but then the Super Aguris were woefully under-funded, who's to say that Sato didn't benefit from better parts or strategies?

I think Sebastien Bourdais is a better driver but in sportscars terms they seem to be equal.
 
He helped Codemasters as an expert advisor, the same reason David Croft and Holly Samos (both from BBC Radio 5live at the time) appear as media reporters/interviewers in the game too.
 
Vegard
Henri Toivonen.

Richard Burns.

Marko Martin.
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This. I think Burns and Martin would have done well, though racing in the Loeb years would have been far from easy. Toivenen was a world champion in the making. The worst part being they were/are very humble and decent people.
 

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