Grand Prix Rejects

I just can't stop posting! Somebody stop me!
The Osella engine from 1988, essentially a re-badged Alfa Romeo turbo, supposedly further 'developed' by Osella.

The Brabham engine in 1987. Andrea De Cesaris only finished 1 race, the engine would blow up before he could crash This wasn't too bad. Brabham had 2 podiums, if I remember correctly. BMW just din't invest nearly enough into the development of the engine, after the unfortunate fiasco of 1986 and th...

What about the almost-certainly-would-have-been-rejects-if-they-had-actually-tried-to-race-them, like the Neotech V12, the MGN W12 and the Isuzu V12?

The Yamaha V8s and V12 were pretty rubbish. The V8 in the Zakspeed was shockingly bad, because the chassis was pretty decent. I remember Zakspeed running an all-white car with a DFR after the 1989 season at a test at Estoril (I was there!), with Bernd Schneider. It set some very decent times, so cle...

The turbo Zakspeed was pretty poor, even considering that Zakspeed already had 5 years of experience and development on the engine by the time they started competing in Formula 1 in 1984. The engine had been used in the Zakspeed Ford Capris and C100/4 in the DRM and WSCC. Ford BDT block in that engi...

The Lotus chassis clearly didn't help, because the Larrousses (alright, Lolas) from 1989 and 1990 were good cars and the team scored points in both years. The 1991 Ligier and the 1991 Lambo/Modena were (more than a bit) crap, so even a DFR wouldn't have helped much.

I've spoken to a bloke who worked for Lotus in 1990 and who got the job of mapping the Lamborghini V12 engine they were using that season. He said it wasn't too bad, considerably more powerful than the Cosworth, but heavier and with higher fuel consumption. The main problem with it was the complete ...

http://www.statsf1.com/default.aspx?fro ... a=D%26LG=5

Does anyone know anything about this aborted project? I take it it's the same Durango from F3000, GP2 and the FIA Sportscar Championship.

Red Bull tried to nominate him as third driver for Red Bull and Toro Rosso, but he hasn't done enough mileage to qualify for a superlicence.

Seeing the Jan Lammers Shadow livery, I'm reminded of a F1 car in the 70s that was sponsored by Penthouse, and it caused a stir for having a near-naked lady painted across it - I can't remember who drove it That would be the 1977 Hesketh, driven by Rupert Keegan, currently can be seen in the Thorou...

Wow! I had completely forgotten about this! 2003, right?
Wasn't he the third driver for Jaguar in 2004?

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the 1999 BAR "Zipper" livery: Lucky Strike on one side, 555 on the other, and what looked like a giant plastic zipper paintd yellow dividing the two of them. I have no idea how Villeneuve and Zonta managed to sleep at night while advertising two brands...

Far from me from leaping to the defence of Flavio Briatore, but the issue of the FOTA money is a bit more complicated. I'm not entirely certain so please feel free to correct me if you are otherwise certain, but Brawn GP was registered as a new team, not as a change of name from Honda. I'm sure I re...

I must admit that I quite liked the 1993 Scuderia Italia and the 1994 'Tourtel' Larrousse. The Larrousse was a beautifully designed car, but the Scuderia Italia Lola just looked like the F3000 car. I didn't like pretty much all of the BARs. The white with the red Lucky Strike roundels looked pretty ...

Dodgy business, that. Stefan Bellof lost his 3rd place in Monaco and Martin Brundle his 2nd place in Detroit. Tyrrell was the only team without a turbo engine and even with the short-stroke DFV that Cosworth specially developed for them, they were obviously miles away, so I guess they they tried to ...

Jaguar R1
Completely the wrong shade of green, for a supposed British Racing Green. The large white surfaces with the HSBC logos really clashed with the green, as well.

Renault R202
Too much baby blue.

Coloni FC188. Brick-like and the overall yellow colour didn't really help. Edit: my bad, this is most definitely a reject. Ferrari 643. Ugly square high sidepods and just generally ugly when compare to 640, 641 and 642, which I found very to be very stylish. Footwork FA12 Weird looking single pylon ...

The 2007 Honda. Looked good when the car was standing still, but was awful when in motion.

Definitely Flavio Briatore, with Lewis Hamilton a not-too-distant second.

I forgot a couple.
1996 Fortis, 2 diecasts each of the yellow and green liveried cars.
1995 and 1996 Minardis, both in kits.

Ironically, i don't have a model of the Formula 1 cars that I worked on, the 2002 Arrows A23 and the Super Aguri SA05.

PayasYouDNPQ, I love the Stefan Bellof Tyrrell, the 012! Stunning car! I've got 2 from '83, 3 from '84 and 2 modified '85 ones. I really, really, love that car, because it's the first Formula 1 car that I remember watching on TV, in the heady days of 1984, when I was 7.

Let's see. Non-rejects: '89 / '90 / '91 / '92 / '93 Scuderia Italia (all kits) '89 / '90 / '91 / '92 / '94 Larrousse (all kits) '88 / '89 / '90 / '91 Leyton House March (all kits) '88 / '89 / '90 / '91 / '92 / '93 / '94 / '95 / '96 / '97 / '98 Tyrrell (all kits) '89 / '90 / '91 Ligiers (all kits) '8...

ImissJORDAN, I think you have to understand the political context of those statements. It is in their interest to appear as the injured party and to protest as vehemently as possible about the ruling. Of course they're going to say whatever they can to justify their appeal of the steward's decision!...

I don't think there is any point in banning them for next season. Within the next month or two (if you're Force India ), every team on the grid will have one of their own, so there will no inherent advantage to be had. For next year it won't cost any more than normal to design and it doesn't affect...

Unsurprising, and I'm kind of glad, but I think that the FIA should ban them for next season, because frankly they go against the spirit of the rules and possibly detriment racing and close following. All credit to Brawn, Toyota and Williams however, because if there is a loophole, and it can be fe...

I've remembered another one. The great Mario Araujo Cabral, also known as 'Nicha' Cabral, my countryman and the first Portuguese driver to enter a Formula 1 race. All-round gentleman and a very complete racing driver. Hmmm... maybe I should contact a few people I know and see if I can arrange an int...

Emmanuel Collard.

I am a 1/43rd scale model builder and collector. For years now I've been building a collection around small teams from the late 80s to the late 90s (my favourite era of Formula 1). I've got Pacific, Simtek, AGS, Larrousse, Onyx and other small teams that aren't featured on this site (because they we...

I think the correct decision was made by the scrutineers at the races and that decision has been upheld. The idea that every car that is missing the 'double-decker' diffuser is underperforming is a joke. Red Bull seem to manage just fine. It's a sad day for this sport when one team protests another ...

I think any pole position achieved after the change of the qualifying regulations to this 'fuel that you race with' is a joke and shouldn't be counted towards statistics. It makes a mockery of the way pole positions used to be, which was the best and only time to see a car being driven to the full e...

Because I'm sad, I actually made a list of some drivers, back when the writers were still accepting submissions. Let's see: Zsolt Baumgartner Enrique Bernoldi Luciano Burti Martin Donnelly Robert Doornbos Tomas Enge Ralph Firman John Fitch Patrick Friesacher Naoki Hattori Nicolas Kiesa Pedro Lamy Vi...

I remember that in, I think, 1989, AGS run a 1988 car in some tests, modifed to run the MGN W12 engine. The Norma attempted to qualify for Le Mans (1990? 1991?) with the engine. The last AGS was a really nice looking car. It was first seen in Monza 1991 and I remember seeing it run (unsuccessfully) ...

Very interesting thread. I remember this well from the coverage at the time. Also, I worked for Arrows in 2002, from April until the bitter end. I remember discussing the whole Phoenix thing with the rest of the guys and they confirmed that none of them had worked on the adaptation of the Prost chas...