Grand Prix Rejects

dr-baker wrote: ↑23 Nov 2023, 08:41 Interestingly Maria de Villota seems to missing from that list, even though her death can be attributed to her testing accident.

I noticed, but I always thought her case was debatable. She crashed, she was rebuilt, she told us she was taking up a new career as a safety adviser, she got married. For all intents and purposes, other than the eye patch, she was fixed and by every possible metric, had survived the crash. And then, suddenly, she hadn't. I see her case as being a bit like a boxer or a rugby player in the scrum who dies aged 40-something or 50-something from the sustained effects of head injuries, but can't possibly be classified as dying in the ring or on the field of play.

dinizintheoven wrote: ↑25 Nov 2023, 21:26

dr-baker wrote: ↑23 Nov 2023, 08:41 Interestingly Maria de Villota seems to missing from that list, even though her death can be attributed to her testing accident.

I noticed, but I always thought her case was debatable. She crashed, she was rebuilt, she told us she was taking up a new career as a safety adviser, she got married. For all intents and purposes, other than the eye patch, she was fixed and by every possible metric, had survived the crash. And then, suddenly, she hadn't. I see her case as being a bit like a boxer or a rugby player in the scrum who dies aged 40-something or 50-something from the sustained effects of head injuries, but can't possibly be classified as dying in the ring or on the field of play.

It's an interesting case. The other factor to consider is that she died just one year or so after her accident.

What about the AVUS? Behra died there in 1959- it wasn't in the Grand Prix itself, but as part of the meeting.

With the Abu Dhabi GP now finished, 2023 has become the first year where Lewis Hamilton did not drive a race-winning car. It's the end of a 16 year streak, which is a record he shares with Michael Schumacher.

tBone wrote: ↑27 Nov 2023, 10:13 With the Abu Dhabi GP now finished, 2023 has become the first year where Lewis Hamilton did not drive a race-winning car. It's the end of a 16 year streak, which is a record he shares with Michael Schumacher.

Lewis couldn't win a race in 2023 but I am expecting him to win at least a couple of races in 2024. He is still good enough to win F1 races and we saw that he did have some moments in the season where he could've won a couple of races in 2023 but came up short in the end.

He's hard to judge definitely. He had something this year that he hasn't had since probably 2017 or so, which is an end-of-season slump. Russell had his best weekend while Hamilton missed Q3 two weekends in a row. This is something Hamilton used to do pretty often around 2013-2017 or so and something he got pretty well criticised for.

So, while he did drop off slightly at the very end, I too agree that he will probably be very strong in 2023, but that Mercedes will be either the same or worse. There's lots of key staff on the way out, and my spidey-sense just tells me that it's going to be a post-Michael Benetton situation for many years.

From this thread...

Paul Hayes wrote: ↑12 Mar 2024, 20:48

Bleu wrote: ↑09 Mar 2024, 19:26

Paul Hayes wrote: ↑08 Mar 2024, 19:02 If Bearman goes on to have a long F1 career, his having overlapped with Alonso will be a good link for those "get from now to 1950 in the fewest possible career overlaps" games.

Now we can go with Maurice Trintignant - Chris Amon - Jacques Laffite - Gerhard Berger - Michael Schumacher - Alonso/Hamilton/Perez/Ricciardo/Hülkenberg
If Amon had continued for one more year we could make it in one less step with Patrese.

Bonus point to Alonso for the only "original" Schumacher career overlap, I feel!

So I thought of an even trickier proposition: find the shortest way of linking the first ever World Championship Grand Prix to the present by drivers who had an unbroken run of race starts - no DNSs, certainly no DN(P)Qs or withdrawals - the only necessary exception is the 1950-60 F1-counted Indy 500s. In this instance, Michael Schumacher's career is broken into four sections rather than two - with the two-race ban in 1994 and breaking a leg in 1999 being the two further gaps that need to be crossed.

I could have complicated it even further by making it mandatory to include all the attempts that regular F1 drivers of the 1950s ever made to attempt to qualify for the Indy 500, but only two ever tried - Alberto Ascari and Giuseppe Farina. Then, only Ascari actually made it into the race, and he didn't enter the F1 championship race before that, thus creating a discontinuity anyway. And then there's regular Indy 500 driver Rodger Ward, who made two attempts at the US Grand Prix, one of them in a barely-believable midget car, and neither of those attempts had any continuity with the regular F1 season.

I've done the challenge with 13 drivers, and if anyone can narrow it down to 12 I'll be amazed. I'll bet it won't stop some of you from trying. Ja katso:

1. Juan Manuel Fangio: 1950 R1/7 (Great Britain) to 1958 R1/11 (Argentina).
2. Harry Schell: 1956 R2/8 (Monaco) to 1960 R1/10 (Argentina).
3. Phil Hill: 1959 R6/10 (Germany) to 1961 R7/8 (Italy).
4. Graham Hill: 1960 R10/10 (USA) to 1970 R8/13 (Germany).
5. Jackie Stewart: 1968 R4/12 (Belgium) to 1972 R4/12 (Monaco).
6. Ronnie Peterson: 1971 R1/11 (South Africa) to 1978 R14/16 (Italy; fatal accident).
7. Carlos Reutemann: 1977 R11/17 (Argentina) to 1982 R2/16 (Brazil).
8. Alain Prost: 1981 R1/15 (US West) to 1991 R2/16 (Brazil).
9. Gerhard Berger: 1989 R4/16 (Mexico) to 1997 R6/15 (Spain).
10. Jean Alesi: 1994 R4/16 (Monaco) to 2001 R17/17 (Japan).
11. Michael Schumacher: 1999 R15/16 (Malaysia) to 2006 R18/18 (Brazil).
12. Nico Rosberg: 2006 R1/18 (Bahrain) to 2016 R21/21 (Abu Dhabi).
13. Max Verstappen: 2015 R1/19 (Australia) to present.

COVID in 2020-21 had no effect (in more ways than one), the chaotic 1994 Imola-induced not-so-merry-go-round wasn't such a problem, and even the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix that was boycotted by the FOCA-aligned teams still left some ever-present drivers from the FISA stable (I chose Alain Prost), but two races in particular put some major roadblocks in the way. The 2005 US Grand Prix and the 1960 Italian Grand Prix meant that there were only two drivers in each case who could span this gap. In 2005 it was Michael Schumacher or Rubens Barichello, the latter of whom had a DNS in 2002 that gave him a shorter run than might otherwise be considered, and in 1960, most of the field was one-off entries with only Phil Hill and Wolfgang von Trips completing the full 1960 season. Particularly painful is that on that fateful day at Indy, David Coulthard said on the radio that he wanted to race (most likely to a guaranteed third and first ever podium for Red Bull, tyre trouble be damned), and that was his only DNS. Then, the sequence could have been Berger-Coulthard-Rosberg and we'd be down to 12 drivers.

A further annoyance was that there were no drivers at all who managed to get from the last race of 1993 to Schumacher's late 1999 comeback in Malaysia without a DNS or an absence - Jean Alesi had the longest unbroken run in that period, and I'd also considered Damon Hill, Johnny Herbert, Eddie Irvine and Mika Häkkinen from the final races of 1993, but none of them made it to 1999 unscathed - much as I'd have liked to have had all three Hills on this board.

It may surprise some of you to find out that, of all the current drivers, Max Verstappen has the longest unbroken run of race starts, all the way back to his debut in 2015. That allowed him to cross over with Nico Rosberg, and it's easy to forget he had 11 seasons in F1... in which he also started every race. And, as Nico further crossed over with his legendary seven-time World Champion team-mate at Mercedes (no, not that one), that covers the whole of the 21st Century in only three drivers.

Maybe now there has to be a further version of this challenge: no disqualifications either.

Fangio didnt participate in 1952. You'd probably need to go via Farina first

Schumacher actually had 5 periods if we split before and after Magny-Cours 1996, where he DNSd from pole position.

Also, while Wikipedia (which is always right) says it's a retirement, I would count Prost's boycotting of the 1989 Australian Grand Prix as a DNS. Did he drive a single metre racing in anger that Sunday? The good thing, however, is that neither of those instances change the overall order - so my post is completely redundant

Rob Dylan wrote: ↑15 Mar 2024, 12:03 Schumacher actually had 5 periods if we split before and after Magny-Cours 1996, where he DNSd from pole position.

Also, while Wikipedia (which is always right) says it's a retirement, I would count Prost's boycotting of the 1989 Australian Grand Prix as a DNS. Did he drive a single metre racing in anger that Sunday? The good thing, however, is that neither of those instances change the overall order - so my post is completely redundant

Prost did complete one lap before pulling in the pits. So technically that counts as a DNF instead of DNS/WD.

World champions from 2006 to 2010 (5 year period) inclusive:
1. Alonso
2. Raikkonen
3. Hamilton
4. Button
5. Vettel

World champions from 2010 to 2023 (14 year period) inclusive:
1. Vettel
2. Hamilton
3. Rosberg
4. Verstappen

Regarding unbroken streak of GP starts I came up with this:
1. Giuseppe Farina to 1954 Belgium
2. Juan Manuel Fangio to 1958 Argentina
3. Stirling Moss to 1960 Netherlands
4. Wolfgang von Trips and Phil Hill to 1961 Italy
5. Graham Hill to 1969 USA
6. Jacky Ickx to 1973 Britain
7. Ronnie Peterson to 1978 Italy
8. Didier Pironi and Gilles Villeneuve to 1982 San Marino
9. Alain Prost to 1991 Brazil
10. Gerhard Berger to 1997 Spain
11. David Coulthard to 2005 Canada
12. Rubens Barrichello to 2011 Brazil
13. Daniel Ricciardo to 2022 Abu Dhabi

Of the drivers competing in 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, 12 have raced every race since then so it's difficult to say who goes farthest. Lando Norris is the youngest of them.

I have just looked up Fangio again... and, there it is, no participations in 1952. So, as Bleu has done, 14 drivers are required to get us in an unbroken line of starts from Silverstone 1950 to the present.

Meanwhile, in the current year's Driver's Championship standings, Lance "WORST DRIVER EVER!!!!!!" Stroll is ahead of His Holiness Lord Sir Lewis "BEST DRIVER EVER BETTER THAN FANGIO!!!!!!!!!!!" Hamilton, and after three races at that.

But more importantly, Carlos Sainz Vázquez de Castro Cenamor Rincón Rebollo Birto Moreno de Aranda de Anteruriaga Tiapera Deltún now has as many race wins as the great Johnny Herbert! I'll bet he celebrated that on the plane home with a few cervezas. Also, two World Champions - Mike Hawthorn and Phil Hill, and not-so-champions Peter Collins, Didier Pironi (who might have been had fate not intervened in 1982), Thierry Boutsen, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Giancarlo Fisichella.

Also, as of Sunday, every driver who has exactly two Grand Prix wins is dead, although Jean-Pierre Jabouille and Patrick Tambay have only recently left us.

Ollie Bearman was the first driver to start a GP in car #38 since Christian Danner in Canada in 1989.

Australia marked the first double points finish for Haas since Austria 2022.

Ah yes, the race where Mick Schumacher finally made it, only to do nothing at all after that

So apparently every team that has finished 1-2 in Melbourne has gone on to be WCC that year...some hope for Ferrari?

The recurrence of #18 in Bugatti's single World Championship appearance at the 1956 French GP.

Maurice Trintignant qualified in P18, was 18 seconds off the pace and retired after 18 laps, only his race number breaks the pattern as he was car #28.

I knew all of that before reading the Bugatti Team Profile.

Har1MAS1415 wrote: ↑11 Apr 2024, 21:50 The recurrence of #18 in Bugatti's single World Championship appearance at the 1956 French GP.

Maurice Trintignant qualified in P18, was 18 seconds off the pace and retired after 18 laps, only his race number breaks the pattern as he was car #28.

I knew all of that before reading the Bugatti Team Profile.

Also, Maurice Trintignant has 18 letters!

Har1MAS1415 wrote: ↑12 Apr 2024, 09:15

Har1MAS1415 wrote: ↑11 Apr 2024, 21:50 The recurrence of #18 in Bugatti's single World Championship appearance at the 1956 French GP.

Maurice Trintignant qualified in P18, was 18 seconds off the pace and retired after 18 laps, only his race number breaks the pattern as he was car #28.

I knew all of that before reading the Bugatti Team Profile.

Also, Maurice Trintignant has 18 letters!

Shades of: "My eyes are circles"

Row Man Gross-Gene wrote: ↑12 Apr 2024, 12:53

Har1MAS1415 wrote: ↑12 Apr 2024, 09:15

Har1MAS1415 wrote: ↑11 Apr 2024, 21:50 The recurrence of #18 in Bugatti's single World Championship appearance at the 1956 French GP.

Maurice Trintignant qualified in P18, was 18 seconds off the pace and retired after 18 laps, only his race number breaks the pattern as he was car #28.

I knew all of that before reading the Bugatti Team Profile.

Also, Maurice Trintignant has 18 letters!

Shades of: "My eyes are circles"

Just couldn't help noticing the extent of the coincidence.

It was interesting to hear in the commentary for today's Petit Prix that Lewis had never led a Petit Prix before.

Since Lewis Hamilton's last race win, 2 other British drivers won a race (Russell, Norris). Between Lewis Hamilton's first and last race win, only 1 other British driver won a race (Button).

Also, with Lando Norris' first win, I have cause for an update about one-hit wonders in the 2020s. Right now we're up to four - Gasly, Ocon, Russell, Norris - and it could have been six if Pérez and Sainz hadn't both gone on to more wins. Now we know the McLaren is up to the task, we might end this season with five one-hit wonders if Oscar "Not The Grouch" Piastri can get his first proper Grand Prix win and then neither McLaren driver wins again. We could be down to three if Norris wins again and Piastri doesn't (or wins twice), and I'm sure we'd all expected that the baby-faced Lynnite would have had more than one win by now, but he hasn't. I was in his home town yesterday*.

But that's not quite why I thought of the one-hit wonders. It was because there was something I'd forgotten three pages and three years ago about Alessandro Nannini's one and only victory. It was the last for a car without the overhead airbox that's been ubiquitous since 1991. This win - even though it was awarded after Senna had already stood on top of the podium and poured the champagne over his head the way he did and was then disqualified - was in the Benetton B189, which had twin airboxes either side of the engine cover and an exposed roll bar sticking out over the driver's head. From 1990 onwards, the only cars with this configuration were the Benetton B189B (used in the first two races of 1990), Coloni C3B (never qualified for a race), Forti FG01 (up to and including the 1995 Monaco GP), Lola T95/30 (never went past a few tests, let alone be entered in a Grand Prix), and the mildly debatable case of the Tyrrell 022 at the 1994 Canadian Grand Prix, where Tyrrell over-cautiously interpreted the new "cut a hole in the airbox" rule, possibly remembering what had happened to them a decade before (there's one picture on Forix with Mark Blundell driving).

The B189 was also the last car without an overhead airbox to score a podium, in the cut-short 1989 Australian Grand Prix immediately after Nannini's win, and the last to score a point in the B189B guise at the 1990 Brazilian Grand Prix, in Nelson "Motormouth" Piquet's hands. Mark Blundell took the Tyrrell 022 to third place the race before its shocking airbox chop, but could only manage 10th in Canada with Katayama retiring, which was about where the car belonged.

And there I was thinking that the 2014 regulations would have brought back the twin air intakes on the sidepods and the exposed roll bar that was so prevalent in the 1980s. Here we are ten years later... where it still seems like 2014 is a date that should be in the future.


* BONUS STAT: King's Lynn has produced more F1 drivers than the following countries that have had a presence in F1:
- Chile (Eliseo Salazar);
- China (Joe Guanyu, as the commentators call him);
- Czech Republic (Tomáš Enge);
- Hungary (HWNSNBM);
- Indonesia (Rio Haryanto);
- Luxembourg (Bertrand Gachot, irrespective of what flag he chose to compete under);
- Malaysia (Alex Yoong, though a few other hopefuls might have made it, but they didn't);
- Poland (Robert Kubica);
- Thailand (Prince Birabongse Bhanudej Bhanubandh; Alex Albon is only half-Thai and was born and raised in Britain, lest the media forget)
- debatably Morocco, because Robert la Caze was born in Paris and moved to Morocco "at a young age", and chose to represent his adopted country;
- not including Liechtenstein because Rikky von Opel was born in Noo Yoik City, raised in Switzerland, "wanted to hear the German national anthem if he won" (fat chance...) and had no connection to Liechtenstein at all.

dinizintheoven wrote: ↑09 May 2024, 12:08 Also, with Lando Norris' first win, I have cause for an update about one-hit wonders in the 2020s. Right now we're up to four - Gasly, Ocon, Russell, Norris - and it could have been six if Pérez and Sainz hadn't both gone on to more wins. Now we know the McLaren is up to the task, we might end this season with five one-hit wonders if Oscar "Not The Grouch" Piastri can get his first proper Grand Prix win and then neither McLaren driver wins again. We could be down to three if Norris wins again and Piastri doesn't (or wins twice), and I'm sure we'd all expected that the baby-faced Lynnite would have had more than one win by now, but he hasn't. I was in his home town yesterday*.

But that's not quite why I thought of the one-hit wonders. It was because there was something I'd forgotten three pages and three years ago about Alessandro Nannini's one and only victory. It was the last for a car without the overhead airbox that's been ubiquitous since 1991. This win - even though it was awarded after Senna had already stood on top of the podium and poured the champagne over his head the way he did and was then disqualified - was in the Benetton B189, which had twin airboxes either side of the engine cover and an exposed roll bar sticking out over the driver's head. From 1990 onwards, the only cars with this configuration were the Benetton B189B (used in the first two races of 1990), Coloni C3B (never qualified for a race), Forti FG01 (up to and including the 1995 Monaco GP), Lola T95/30 (never went past a few tests, let alone be entered in a Grand Prix), and the mildly debatable case of the Tyrrell 022 at the 1994 Canadian Grand Prix, where Tyrrell over-cautiously interpreted the new "cut a hole in the airbox" rule, possibly remembering what had happened to them a decade before (there's one picture on Forix with Mark Blundell driving).

The B189 was also the last car without an overhead airbox to score a podium, in the cut-short 1989 Australian Grand Prix immediately after Nannini's win, and the last to score a point in the B189B guise at the 1990 Brazilian Grand Prix, in Nelson "Motormouth" Piquet's hands. Mark Blundell took the Tyrrell 022 to third place the race before its shocking airbox chop, but could only manage 10th in Canada with Katayama retiring, which was about where the car belonged.

And there I was thinking that the 2014 regulations would have brought back the twin air intakes on the sidepods and the exposed roll bar that was so prevalent in the 1980s. Here we are ten years later... where it still seems like 2014 is a date that should be in the future.


* BONUS STAT: King's Lynn has produced more F1 drivers than the following countries that have had a presence in F1:
- Chile (Eliseo Salazar);
- China (Joe Guanyu, as the commentators call him);
- Czech Republic (Tomáš Enge);
- Hungary (HWNSNBM);
- Indonesia (Rio Haryanto);
- Luxembourg (Bertrand Gachot, irrespective of what flag he chose to compete under);
- Malaysia (Alex Yoong, though a few other hopefuls might have made it, but they didn't);
- Poland (Robert Kubica);
- Thailand (Prince Birabongse Bhanudej Bhanubandh; Alex Albon is only half-Thai and was born and raised in Britain, lest the media forget)
- debatably Morocco, because Robert la Caze was born in Paris and moved to Morocco "at a young age", and chose to represent his adopted country;
- not including Liechtenstein because Rikky von Opel was born in Noo Yoik City, raised in Switzerland, "wanted to hear the German national anthem if he won" (fat chance...) and had no connection to Liechtenstein at all.

What about the infamous Life L190?