This Day in Reject History

shinji · Post by **shinji** » 06 Mar 2015, 15:20

Don't recall this existing before, though I'm sure it has and didn't take off. Might give the ol' JDD forum a bit of a boost!

March 6th

2005 - the glorious Grand Prix débuts of Christijan Albers and Patrick Friesacher at Melbourne. The former retired after 16 laps while the latter chuntered on to a solid last place finish, 4 laps down.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 07 Mar 2015, 00:23

Love the concept behind this thread, and seeing as we're about twenty minutes into the day (in this timezone anyway):

March 7th

1970 - John Miles took the first step towards unrejectification with a 5th place finish in the season-opening South African Grand Prix. He was destined to remain in reject status however, despite having what would turn out to be a championship-winning car. George Eaton began his only full season of F1 by qualifying the BRM last on the grid. His race was ended by an engine failure. Peter de Klerk made his last appearance with a drive to last place in a two-year-old Brabham. Fellow South African Dave Charlton had qualified well, putting his Lotus ahead of the works car of Miles on the grid, but suffered an engine failure in the dying stages. De Tomaso's return to F1 in a partnership with Frank Williams was cut short when Piers Courage crashed out at half-distance.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 07 Mar 2015, 07:11

7th March

1997 - ...was the Friday of that year's Australian Grand Prix, the first of only two days that Mastercard Lola was seen running at a Grand Prix event.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 08 Mar 2015, 14:13

8th March

1997 - MasterCard Lola failed to qualify for the Australian Grand Prix by a huge margin - Vincenzo Sospiri was a whole five seconds slower than the Arrows of Pedro Diniz, who had also fallen foul of the 107% rule. Ricardo Rosset was a further second off his Italian teammate.

shinji · Post by **shinji** » 08 Mar 2015, 16:16

March 8th

1968 - Michael Bartels, the second best German called Michael to make his début in 1991, is born.

shinji · Post by **shinji** » 09 Mar 2015, 10:15

March 9th

1997 - the Grand Prix début of a certain NAKANO SHINJI

novitopoli · Post by **novitopoli** » 09 Mar 2015, 23:27

Simtek wrote:8th March

1997 - MasterCard Lola failed to qualify for the Australian Grand Prix by a huge margin - Vincenzo Sospiri was a whole five seconds slower than the Arrows of Pedro Diniz, who had also fallen foul of the 107% rule. Ricardo Rosset was a further second off his Italian teammate.

If there ever was to be a holiday called "Rejects Day", I reckon this could be a great anniversary to draw inspiration from.

March 10th

1991 - The Modena team debuted scoring a surprising 7th place in the USA Grand Prix with Nicola Larini. Looked like a promising start for Lamborghini as a constructor - that result would sadly remain unbeaten.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 11 Mar 2015, 00:49

11th March

1990 - After nearly a full season struggling in a EuroBrun (and for one race, a Rial) Gregor Foitek finally made the grid for his first Grand Prix start in Phoenix, even if he was over two seconds slower than his teammate Stefano Modena in qualifying.

Also, I realised that we missed the chance to mark the 25th anniversary of Gary Brabham and Life's debut on the 8th.

shinji · Post by **shinji** » 11 Mar 2015, 15:53

Simtek wrote:
Also, I realised that we missed the chance to mark the 25th anniversary of Gary Brabham and Life's debut on the 8th.

We'll catch them at Imola, the crowning glory.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 12 Mar 2015, 00:47

shinji wrote:
Simtek wrote:
Also, I realised that we missed the chance to mark the 25th anniversary of Gary Brabham and Life's debut on the 8th.

We'll catch them at Imola, the crowning glory.

*marks 10th May on calendar*

12th March

2000 - The Grand Prix debut of Argentina's last representative in F1, Gastón "The Flying Mullet" Mazzacane. Despite having completed relatively few laps in testing he was able to keep his Minardi M02 on the road for 40 laps before the gearbox broke.

shinji · Post by **shinji** » 13 Mar 2015, 14:23

Taking the time out of my busy essay writing to satiate the overwhelming demand for this to continue

March 13th

1913 - Joe Kelly, one of two Dubliners to reach F1 along with Derek Daly, is born. He raced in the 1950 and 1951 British Grands Prix, failing to be classified in either one. I don't know if he retired in both, but in 1950 he was 13 laps down and in '51 he was 15 laps down. Good man yerself Joe.

1983 - Everyone's second favourite Venezuelan F1 driver, Johnny Cecotto, makes his début at Jacarepaguá. He finished 13th, 3 laps down. Piercarlo Ghinzani, in his first race weekend, had failed to qualify the previous day.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 14 Mar 2015, 00:24

March 14th

2010 - Three new teams - Lotus, HRT and Virgin - made their F1 debut. Out of the six cars entered only one, the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen, would see the chequered flag. Today Virgin, now known as Manor, is the only one of the three that still exists.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 15 Mar 2015, 05:10

March 15th

1981 - An action-packed US Grand Prix West at Long Beach was held 34 years ago today. Chico Serra debuted for the Fittipaldi team, finishing an impressive 7th place. Also making his first start was Beppe Gabbiani in the Osella, having previously made failed attempts to qualify for Surtees in 1978. It would prove to be one of only three starts the Italian would make in F1 and he would not see the chequered flag in any of them. Héctor Rebaque began his only full season at Brabham the way he started on his first start for the team the year before: six rows behind his teammate. He crashed out during the race. Jan Lammers got taken out by Bruno Giacomelli as the Italian made a botched attempt to pass both him and Jacques Laffite on lap 41. Theodore scored their first of two points as a constructor, courtesy of Patrick Tambay.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 16 Mar 2015, 00:55

March 16th

2008 - This year's race may have had few finishers (and starters), but 7 years ago, only six cars crossed the finish line in the 2008 season opener, last of which was Kazuki Nakajima, scoring points in only his second race. Sébastien Bourdais was also classified 7th on his debut.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 17 Mar 2015, 02:56

March 17th

1932 - Korean War veteran and one-off F1 driver Fred Gamble was born in Pittsburgh. His Camoradi International team was offered $1000 to enter the 1960 Italian Grand Prix, which was short of entries thanks to the British teams' boycott of the race. The team entered a Behra-Porsche and were sure that it could complete the 500 km race without stopping for fuel. Gamble then ran out of fuel. But, showing the Al Pease spirit, he ran back to the pits, got a jerrycan of petrol, ran back to the car to refuel it and went on to finish an admirable 10th (and last), 9 laps down.

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 18 Mar 2015, 13:20

...but before everyone says "that would be worth a point now!", 9 laps down in a 50 lap race is a big, fat NC and no points...

FullMetalJack · Post by **FullMetalJack** » 18 Mar 2015, 14:17

dinizintheoven wrote:...but before everyone says "that would be worth a point now!", 9 laps down in a 50 lap race is a big, fat NC and no points...

Yup. If NC's counted as points, Guy Ligier wouldn't be a reject.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 18 Mar 2015, 20:54

Was kind of hoping somebody would fill in today in my absence. Oh, well.

March 18th

2001 - The only finish of Gastón Mazzacane's short stint at Prost, a fine 12th place, in a Malaysian Grand Prix that saw several drivers spin out, including Arrows' Enrique Bernoldi. Propping up the field in the end was 14th placed Tarso Marques, who was 6 tenths quicker than his future championship-winning and time-travelling teammate Fernando Alonso in qualifying. Clearly, there was more to the Brazilian than most people took for granted.

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 19 Mar 2015, 11:18

And back to the points analogy: under the 2003-09 points system, both Marques and Alonso would still have had a blank scoresheet. However, change it to the current system and Marques scored four points, Alonso one...

Alonso didn't manage a DNQ, though. Until this season. Maybe.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 19 Mar 2015, 18:16

March 19th

1943 - Vern Schuppan, F1's only South Australian, was born. Vern was quite an accomplished racing driver, his CV including 1971 British Formula Atlantic champion, two Macau Grand Prix wins, Indy 500 Rookie of the Year in 1976 and overall victory in the 1983 24 Hours of Le Mans in the Rothmans Porsche 956. He unfortunately never achieved this level of success in Formula One however, driving machinery that was stuck in the midfield at best. Out of 13 entries Schuppan achieved 9 starts and a best result of 7th in the 1977 German Grand Prix.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 20 Mar 2015, 17:57

March 20th

1972 - Former Lotus and Minardi driver Pedro Lamy was born. He did well in his debut season of F3000, finishing runner-up to Olivier Panis, winning the prestigious Pau Grand Prix in the process. Towards the end of the year he made his F1 debut for Lotus, replacing the injured Alex Zanardi. He was to be kept by the team for the full 1994 season, but this campaign was cut short by a testing accident at Silverstone in which he broke both legs and wrists. He would return to F1, however, with Minardi at the 1995 Hungarian Grand Prix, replacing the experienced Pierluigi Martini. Lamy scored the only point of his career in the season-ending Australian Grand Prix, despite this happening. He remained at the team for 1996, but after an unsuccessful season in an outdated car, Lamy moved on to sportscars, where he still races today, achieving a class victory at Le Mans in 2012.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 21 Mar 2015, 14:37

March 21st

1992 - In Mexico City Eric van de Poele and Giovanna Amati marked the first occasion that Brabham got a double-DNQ. The BT60B was well off the pace and the Brabham of old was well and truly gone at this stage. Forum hero van de Poele was a second off Érik Comas' 26th-placed Ligier, while Amati was just under three seconds off van de Poele.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 22 Mar 2015, 14:20

March 22nd

1992 - Andrea Chiesa made his first Grand Prix start on his second attempt with Fondmetal in Mexico. He was a second slower than his more experienced teammate Gabriele Tarquini in qualifying, who qualified an excellent 14th in the GR01 chassis, which was effectively just an updated version of the previous year's Fomet-1. Chiesa still made it onto the grid in 23rd, starting ahead of fellow rookie Ukyo Katayama, Michele Alboreto and Érik Comas. He spun off 37 laps into the race. Eight laps later his teammate would run into problems with his clutch. As in South Africa, neither Fondmetal made the distance, which would become a recurring theme throughout their troubled 1992 season.

shinji · Post by **shinji** » 23 Mar 2015, 13:34

March 23rd

1990 - Jaime Alguersuari is born. As we all know, the Spaniard was the youngest driver in F1 history until a certain Max obliterated that record last week. Poor Jaime was chewed up and spit out by the Red Bull driver factory and now plies his trade in the Formula E midfield. It remains to be seen whether his successor as youngest driver will follow this sad path.

2003 - an all-time Reject Moment, as Giancarlo Fisichella takes up the wrong grid slot at Sepang for the second time in three years.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 24 Mar 2015, 11:48

March 24th

1923 - Reject driver and constructor Brian Naylor was born in Salford. Naylor was one of the few drivers in F1 history to build and race his own car. However, Brian's efforts were less of a Brabham or a McLaren and more of a De Tomaso or an Amon. After two years of competing in F2 events Brian decided to make the step up to F1 in 1959 with his own car that was heavily influenced by Cooper's rear-engine design. Would it be as competitive as the T51? Not even close. The best results the JBW Type 1 would achieve in its two years of competition were two 11th places at the International Trophy and the Silver City Trophy in 1960. For 1961 Naylor redesigned the car around Coventry Climax's engine for the new 1.5-litre regulations. The best result this car would achieve was 9th in the Oulton Park Gold Cup. Naylor retired at the end of the season, due to increasingly poor health. He died in 1989.

watka · Post by **watka** » 25 Mar 2015, 13:48

March 25th

1938 - 3 time GP starter and F1 reject Frederico José Carlos Themudo d’Orey was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Commonly known as "Fritz" d'Orey, his nickname came from his German heritage as his grandfather was German. Fritz's early racing career featured the Mecanica Continental Championship in which he raced an unusual Corvette engined Ferrari! He won both the Sao Paulo and Brazilian editions of the championship in 1958.

Having impressed with his performances, he was recruited by the recently retired Juan Manuel Fangio to race for the Scuderia Centro Sud (a sort of South American drivers academy) team in Formula One, using Maserati 250F's. His first Grand Prix entry with in the 1959 French GP at Reims. Given the lack of pace in his three year old car, he performed well to finish in 10th, albeit 10 laps down. His second GP, the British GP at Aintree, did not end so well as he crashed out on lap 57 of 75. For his final GP entry, he switched to the Camoradi USA team to race a Tec-Mec Maserati at the USGP at Sebring. After taking 2nd place in the supporting Formula Junior race, he retired after 7 laps of the Grand Prix with an oil leak.

D'Orey retired from racing in 1960 at the age of just 22 after a sportscars crash at Le Mans.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 26 Mar 2015, 17:08

March 26th

1995 - It was twenty years ago today when Andrea Montermini finally got the Pacific to the end of the Brazilian Grand Prix on his first start in 9th, the first race finish for the team after a difficult 1994 season that saw nothing but retirements and DNQs. Their fellow 1994 débutants Simtek didn't have such a positive start to the season, with both cars retiring in the first twenty laps. Luca Badoer made his return to Formula One with Minardi after spending 1994 as their test driver. He was only six hundreths of a second off the experienced Pierluigi Martini in qualifying. Sadly, Luca retired with a gearbox problem. Taki Inoue had an eventful first race with the Footwork Arrows squad. He spun during the race and got push-started by the marshals. This would have earned him a disqualification, but his car caught fire before the black flag could be waved. And of course this race marked the debut of the Italian Forti team. With a yellow Parmalat-sponsored car driven by the rookie Pedro Diniz and everybody's favourite non-reject Roberto Moreno, they split the Simteks in qualifying. Moreno unfortunately spun off, but Diniz managed to last long enough to finish 10th, 7 laps down.

pi314159 · Post by **pi314159** » 27 Mar 2015, 17:16

March 27:

1965 - Gregor Foitek is born. Mostly known today for his reputation for big crashes, he came close to scoring a point at Monaco in 1990, before Eric Bernard took him out of the race. He drove for EuroBrun, Rial, Brabham and Onyx during his two year career. His career ended when his father Karl decided that the Onyx car had become too dangerous and withdrew his funding.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 29 Mar 2015, 01:40

Thank HWNSNBM for the Americas. Otherwise I'd look even more stupid for forgetting:

March 28th

1993 - Alex Zanardi scored the only point of his F1 career in the Brazilian Grand Prix for Lotus. During the race a car in front of him kicked up a stone, which hit Alex's left shoulder, injuring it. For the last twenty or so laps he drove one-handed, with the hand not on the wheel supporting his neck, which made this drive all the more impressive.

And while we're here:

March 29th

1961 - Gary Brabham, elder brother of fellow reject David, and of course the son of the great Sir Jack Brabham, was born in Wimbledon 54 years ago today. Like most sons of racing drivers in his generation, he was discouraged from pursuing a career in such a dangerous sport, and he himself was content with the prospect of life as a New South Wales farmer, but it was only a matter of time before the racing bug infected him and took up motorsport at the age of 21, finishing 3rd in his first race, despite driving a nine-year old car, before going on to break the lap record at Sandown in it. He went on to race in Britain, finishing runner-up in the F3 series in 1988 and winning the inaugural British F3000 series in 1989. He had an option to move on to Japanese F3000, but at the time he saw it as a career graveyard and instead took up the offer to drive for a fledgling F1 outfit: Life Racing Engines. He was over half a minute off the pace in pre-qualifying on his debut in Phoenix and his car came to a halt after 400 metres in Interlagos. It was later found in the latter case that the mechanics had not put oil into the engine. Gary had begun to realise just how much of a farce this season was going to be and quit. He then went on to compete for Middlebridge in F3000 before making a career in sportscars.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 31 Mar 2015, 00:06

March 30th

1980 - In Long Beach Ricardo Zunino ended a streak of race finishes (outside the points) with a first corner incident that took out both himself and Mario Andretti. Jochen Mass and Jean-Pierre Jarier were also involved but continued. Jan Lammers also went out on the first lap with a transmission. These two incidents coupled with the failures to qualify of Dave Kennedy, Geoff Lees and Stephen South meant that no reject driver got past the first lap of the race.

March 31st

1956 - Kevin Cogan was born. He unfortunately never started a race in his two attempts to qualify. One for RAM in Montreal in 1980, and the other for Tyrrell for the opening round of 1981 in Long Beach, after which he was dropped in favour of Ricardo Zunino, going on to race ndyCars with more success.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 31 Mar 2015, 23:28

April 1st

1971 - Former Minardi and Prost driver Shinji Nakano was born. He made his F1 debut at Prost, who were in need of some Japanese presence (and therefore excitement), according to their engine suppliers Mugen-Honda. He almost unrejectified himself in his first season, with two 6th places along with two 7ths, including one on his debut in Melbourne. Luckily, he didn't, otherwise I would have had to do a bit more research for this post, and the man who started this thread would have had to get a different username (probably). With Prost getting Peugeot engines for 1998 (bad move), they saw no further need for a Japanese driver in their team, and dumped Shinji in favour of Jarno Trulli. Luckily, the racing driver's son from Osaka was picked up by Giancarlo Minardi to partner Esteban Tuero. He came close to unrejectification again as he briefly ran inside the points in Canada, but finished 7th. For 1999 he was a test driver for Jordan before leaving F1 to drive in CART and more recently, sportscars.

EDIT: This was posted on Minardi's Twitter:

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 01 Apr 2015, 09:01

This stuff you guys come up with :shock:

If GP Rejects ever gets the driver profile thing going again then stuff like this should be included written by you lot. In fact, could this stuff be stored and then featured on the main page automatically? So when people visit one of the first things they see are your date specific posts?

Press_Play2002 · Post by **Press_Play2002** » 01 Apr 2015, 10:58

CoopsII wrote:This stuff you guys come up with If GP Rejects ever gets the driver profile thing going again then stuff like this should be included written by you lot. In fact, could this stuff be stored and then featured on the main page automatically? So when people visit one of the first things they see are your date specific posts?

That's actually a good idea Coops, the posts that feature on the front page could be listed on either a "On This Day..." section or a "Reject-able Facts" section located just below the ROTR section.

novitopoli · Post by **novitopoli** » 01 Apr 2015, 23:15

April 2nd

2006 - Yuji Ide manages to finish the Australian GP in 13th (and by far last) place, 3 laps down race winner Fernando Alonso and 1 lap down his teammate Takuma Sato, who had finished second to last driving the other Super Aguri. That was his first - and only, as his Super License was revoked after yet another DNF at the following GP - race finish.
Fun fact: Ide could qualify mainly thanks to the 107% rule not being enforced during the mid 2000's. He was almost 11 seconds off the pole, and would have almost broken the 113% rule.

shinji · Post by **shinji** » 03 Apr 2015, 13:20

April 3rd

1988 - the Eurobrun team participate in their first Grand Prix at Jacarepaguá. In the ER188 Stefano Modena and Oscar Larrauri qualify in 24th and 26th position respectively. This sadly wasn't a omen of things to come, however, as it proved one of only nine occasions in which both Eurobruns made it to the grid. In the race itself Larrauri didn't manage to complete the first lap, having encountered electrical difficulties, while Modena made it to lap 20 before his trusty old Ford DFV gave up the ghost. It was Larrauri's first Grand Prix, as it was for fellow reject Luis Pérez-Sala in the Minardi, who is down as having retired due to an ominously vague 'chassis' failure. Julian Bailey and Bernd Schneider had failed to qualify in their first attempts.

shinji · Post by **shinji** » 04 Apr 2015, 11:33

April 4th

2004 - HWNSNBM retires after 44 laps with an engine failure in the inaugural Bahrain Grand Prix.

1959 - by no means a reject by the metric of either results or longevity but imbued with the reject spirit we all love, Andrea de Cesaris is born in Rome. de Cesaris managed to compete in the highest amount of Grands Prix - 214 - without achieving a race win. Lighting up the cockpits of teams as varied as McLaren, Minardi, Jordan and Rial, de Cesaris retired, at my count, 144 times out of his 208 race starts. He sadly passed away last October in a road accident, his death overshadowed by the accident of Jules Bianchi at Suzuka the same day.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 04 Apr 2015, 11:47

4th April

1992 - On the Saturday of the Brazilian Grand Prix, the last qualifying session in which a woman took part (to date) failed to qualify. Giovanna Amati was to be replaced in the next round by a future world champion at the team that formerly won the constructors' championship. He too would fail to qualify in his first 3+ races for the team.

watka · Post by **watka** » 04 Apr 2015, 23:21

dr-baker wrote:4th April

1992 - On the Saturday of the Brazilian Grand Prix, the last qualifying session in which a woman took part (to date) failed to qualify. Giovanna Amati was to be replaced in the next round by a future world champion at the team that formerly won the constructors' championship. He too would fail to qualify in his first 3+ races for the team.

Trust you to chip in with that...

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 05 Apr 2015, 14:32

April 5th

1992 - In the Brazilian Grand Prix, Gabriele Tarquini managed to set the third fastest lap of the race in his Fondmetal - behind only the dominant Williams cars. He retired with engine trouble less than ten laps from the end.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 06 Apr 2015, 18:10

April 6th

2003 - A memorable Brazilian Grand Prix took place on this day 12 years ago. Surely a contender for one of the most rejectful Grands Prix ever held, with multiple cars going off at Curva do Sol (which gave the corner a Reject of the Race award), and a podium with only two drivers standing on it, only for it to be later found that they were in the wrong order, giving Jordan their last Grand Prix victory. None of the rejects fared well in the conditions. Wilson became the first victim of the Turn 3 river, while Firman's suspension broke, causing him to lose control and crash into the back of Panis' Toyota, and Pizzonia followed Montoya's line a bit too closely through Curva do Sol, as they both aquaplaned and crashed.