Grand Prix Rejects

Inspired by a few recent posts within the Ponderbox thread, I thought it might be fun trying to debate what the worse driver lineups were for each F1 team (past or present). I’m going to kick off with the fairly easy example of Red Bull’s driver lineup at the last three races of 2006 of Coulthard & Doornbos (remember him? I don’t ).

Vincenzo Sosperi and Riccardo Rossett in Melbourne 1997 perhaps?

Sauber: Diniz/Salo in 2000. Probably says more about the the teams excellent choice of drivers over the years that two entirely competent, if unspectacular, drivers are probably their worst lineup.

Rosset and Takagi at Tyrrell 1998 is one of the most rejectful lineups in modern F1. Rosset with his 5 DNQs made Takagi look like a future world champion.

The worse at Jordan/Midland/Spyker/Force India has to be Tiago Monteiro and Narain Karthykeyan.

HRT's Yamamoto/Chandhok lineup at Silverstone 2010.

Minardi's 2005 line-up was very forgettable. Quite frankly, I'd completely forgotten that Doornbos and Patrick Friesacher had ever been in F1. The less said about that muppet Albers, the better.

Generally speaking, Minardi always seemed to have strong line-ups until their final 3 seasons.

Most of my F1 knowledge is from the 21st century so my line ups will be from there mostly.

Current Teams:

Red Bull - David Coulthard / Robert Doornbos End of 2005 (Liuzzi and Klien are both better than Doornbos.)

Ferrari - Kimi Raikkonen / Luca Badoer Spa-Valencia 2009 (Horrible Ferrari, Raikkonen not at his most motivated and Ferrari wanted him out, Badoer was out of his depth.) EDIT Irvine/Salo in 99 is also a pretty rubbish line up.

McLaren - Mark Blundell /Jan Magnussen 1995 Pacific GP (As mentioned in Ponderbox thread)

Lotus/Enstone a) Technically this Lotus team began in 2012 and therefore the weakest line up is Raikkonen/ D'ambrosio for Monza.
However as the Renault team in 2011 Vitaly Petrov and Bruno Senna seems a weak team.

Mercedes - Nico Rosberg/ Michael Schumacher (Not counting the 50's it is a rather easy call)

Sauber - Johnny Herbert/ Noberto Fontana (Really hard one to call as Sauber famously have had a solid line up all along their history, their 97 pairings were probably the worst even though Herbert is not a bad driver by any stretch, at least not during the mid 90's.)

Force India - Adrian Sutil/ Vitantonio Liuzzi, Monza 2009 to Abu Dahbi 2010 (Another hard choice, but of all of Sutil's team mates I would rate Liuzzi as the worst.)

Williams - Damon Hill/ David Coulthard 1994-95 (This is a very hard decision and frankly I just want to see the rage. I can't make myself Nominate Pastor and although Nakajima was useless in 09 Rosberg was one of the stars of the season.)

Toro Rosso - Vitantonio Liuzzi/ Scott Speed 06-07 (Finally an easy nomination, I would put these two as the worst Toro Rosso drivers in their history. The other generations of the team are all faster.

Caterham - Charles Pic/ Giedo van der Garde 2013 (Early days yet but this is one of the most uninspiring line ups in F1 history, I really dislike Caterham.)

Marrusia - Timo Glock/ Charles Pic (A harsh nomination as both Marussia line ups 2012 and 2013 are better than the two Virgin Gp line ups and going by only 1 race I put Bianchi as more valuable than Glock and Pic combined. If it had been Chilton/Razia it would have been an easy nomination)

Also Montermini and Deletraz at Pacific and Larrauri/Foitek at EuroBrun deserve a mention, I think.

Hideki Noda and Jean Denis Deletraz rocking up for Larousse in Oz 94 was a sight to behold.

And (I think) they still did better than the tin-can Pacifics...

Shadaza wrote:Ferrari - Kimi Raikkonen / Luca Badoer Spa-Valencia 2009 (Horrible Ferrari, Raikkonen not at his most motivated and Ferrari wanted him out, Badoer was out of his depth.)

Part of me wants to say that Fisichella/Raikkonen was actually a worse lineup, as Raikkonen, if i remember correctly, was actually quite good in the two races when Badoer was in the car...

Williams is really hard, so I'll go for the single car lineup of Patrick Neve in '77

For Ferrari, I'm thinking their worst lineups are as follows:

Ickx/Merzario
Irvine/Salo
Arnoux/Tambay

McLaren:

Magnussen/Blundell (of course)
Alliot/Brundle (don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Martin Brundle fan...but come on! It's freaking Alliot!)
Watson/De Cesaris

And for some others, there was Papis/Inoue at Footwork in '95, Foitek/Raphanel at Rial in '89 and of course, Amati/van de Poele at Brabham in '92.

Shadaza wrote:Sauber - Johnny Herbert/ Noberto Fontana (Really hard one to call as Sauber famously have had a solid line up all along their history, their 97 pairings were probably the worst even though Herbert is not a bad driver by any stretch, at least not during the mid 90's.)

Diniz/Salo in 2000 trumps that. Hell, even Heidfeld/Verstappen in 2003 is worse IMO

takagi_for_the_win wrote:

Shadaza wrote:Sauber - Johnny Herbert/ Noberto Fontana (Really hard one to call as Sauber famously have had a solid line up all along their history, their 97 pairings were probably the worst even though Herbert is not a bad driver by any stretch, at least not during the mid 90's.)

Diniz/Salo in 2000 trumps that. Hell, even Heidfeld/Verstappen in 2003 is worse IMO

It was Heidfeld/Frentzen

pi314159 wrote:

takagi_for_the_win wrote:

Shadaza wrote:Sauber - Johnny Herbert/ Noberto Fontana (Really hard one to call as Sauber famously have had a solid line up all along their history, their 97 pairings were probably the worst even though Herbert is not a bad driver by any stretch, at least not during the mid 90's.)

Diniz/Salo in 2000 trumps that. Hell, even Heidfeld/Verstappen in 2003 is worse IMO

It was Heidfeld/Frentzen

Ooops, brain fart on my part

Okay, so here's a hard one: Lotus, as they often put a really good driver with a very clear number two, which rules out some of their worst drivers, as they had great teammates. My two suggestions would probably be Zanardi/Bernard in 1994 or Wisell/Walker in 1971.

takagi_for_the_win wrote:

pi314159 wrote:

takagi_for_the_win wrote:Diniz/Salo in 2000 trumps that. Hell, even Heidfeld/Verstappen in 2003 is worse IMO

It was Heidfeld/Frentzen

Ooops, brain fart on my part

Why does everyone hate my two favourite drivers ever?

Heidfeld/Frentzen was the best racing partnership ever...oh, this isn't unpopular opinions.

Ataxia [BacLettNinj] wrote:Why does everyone hate my two favourite drivers ever?

Heidfeld/Frentzen was the best racing partnership ever...oh, this isn't unpopular opinions.

Not an unpopular opinion with me...

FloProAct wrote:

Ataxia [BacLettNinj] wrote:Why does everyone hate my two favourite drivers ever?

Heidfeld/Frentzen was the best racing partnership ever...oh, this isn't unpopular opinions.

Not an unpopular opinion with me...

I can dig that too. Heidfeld was a driver who never had the fortune to be in the right team when at his peak. Frentzen was not the right fit at Williams, but showed at Jordan that he could produce world-class drives.

For Footwork, Papis/Inoue was a pretty bad lineup.

DanielPT wrote:The worse at Jordan/Midland/Spyker/Force India has to be Tiago Monteiro and Narain Karthikeyan.

They still managed to finish 3rd and 4th in USA 2005 - midfielders!

It perhaps speaks volumes about Team Lotus driver history that they never once entered a F1 World Championship race without at least one driver who at some point of their career got a Podium...the modern incarnations continue the tradition btw.

giraurd wrote:It perhaps speaks volumes about Team Lotus driver history that they never once entered a F1 World Championship race without at least one driver who at some point of their career got a Podium...the modern incarnations continue the tradition btw.

What about Zanardi?

true, Zanardi didn't - but Bernard, Herbert and Salo all did...

dr-baker wrote:

DanielPT wrote:The worse at Jordan/Midland/Spyker/Force India has to be Tiago Monteiro and Narain Karthikeyan.

They still managed to finish 3rd and 4th in USA 2005 - midfielders!

Well, I always erase those results from my mind to keep discussions pratical.

Red Bull: agree with DC/Doornbos. In the team's previous incarnations then it's probably Jag's Herbert and Burti at Austria 2000. Otherwise they've had at least one "No Real Champions" champion in their line up (Barrichello, Irvine, Webber, DC).

Ferrari: How about Alesi and Capelli? Or Alesi/Berger with Larini?

Mclaren: John Watson/Stephen South anyone???

Lotus: in the team's previous incarnations, Fabi/Ghinzani (Toleman), Nannini/Pirro (Benetton), Senna/Petrov (Renault)

Mercedes: have to go with previous incarnations again - Takagi and Rosset at Tyrrell in 1998. Or Jonathan Palmer and Julian Bailey in 1988. For BAR/Honda, that's difficuly as they had Villeneuve or Button for all their seasons, so probably it's 1999/200 with Zonta or 2005 with sato being AWOL all the time.

Sauber: How about Wendlinger and Lehto in the team's first season? That rivals Salo and Diniz I guess.

Force India: agree about Liuzzi paired with Sutil. For "proper" Jordan I'd say Modena and Gugelmin in 1992.

Williams: 2012 surely?

Toro Rosso: Liuzzi and Speed. Bourdais and Buemi. As Minardi, Campos and Perez-Sala.

Caterham: current

Marussia: 2010 - Bianchi may well turn out to be better than Glock and I though Di Grassi was the worst of his teammates.

I'll have a go at some former teams:

Toyota: Panis when he was past it with Da Matta

Prost: Nakano and Trulli in 1997 I guess.

Ligier: Jarier and Boesel in 1983 surely!

Arrows: Papis and Inoue!!!!

Brabham: Van De Poele and Amati.

Soopa Aguri: Sato and Ide. Even if none of Sato's other teammates were that great!!

James1978 wrote:Ioopa Aguri: Sato and Ide. Even if none of Sato's other teammates were that great!!

Davidson >>>>> Montagny >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yamamoto >>>>>> Ide

James1978 wrote:Sauber: How about Wendlinger and Lehto in the team's first season? That rivals Salo and Diniz I guess.

I disagree. Both Wendlinger and Lehto, in my opinion, could have had very good careers if it wasn't for their respective injuries...

Ferrari in 1986 with Alboreto and Johansson is pretty mediocre.

FloProAct wrote:

James1978 wrote:Sauber: How about Wendlinger and Lehto in the team's first season? That rivals Salo and Diniz I guess.

I disagree. Both Wendlinger and Lehto, in my opinion, could have had very good careers if it wasn't for their respective injuries...

Very true.

CoopsII wrote:Hideki Noda and Jean Denis Deletraz rocking up for Larousse in Oz 94 was a sight to behold.

I bet it was . Also reckon that the other F1 drivers at Oz 94, had good reason to fear that Larousse’s combo (what with thoughts like... Oh my god! How many times are we going to have to lap these guys then?)

Funnily enough, Benetton seemed to have their weakest ever driver line-up at a time when they were close to winning their 1st ever WCC...at Monza 1994. Yes, when you need to replace M Schumi and take the fight to Williams in the Constructors championship, J J Lehto (post accident) & Jos Verstappen are the men for the job . To be fair to Benetton, they didn't really have an awful lot of choice on the matter though.

If we were to consider drivers actual ability at the time, then might Benetton’s early 1989 driver line-up come second? When you had Johnny Herbert still recovering from his horrific 1988 shunt & Nannini. So although Nannini was a race winner that year & Johnny wasn’t bad during his peak (probably around mid 90’s). In 1989, I reckon Herbert was below his peak enough, to have dragged this combo into Benetton’s 2nd all time weakest driver line up (I believe Johnny himself has subsequently admitted that he came into F1 a bit too soon after his 1988 accident).

Osella is a team that has had quite a few unimpressive driver combinations.
A few examples: Guerra-Gabbiani, Francia-Gabbiani, Ghinzani-Gabbiani, Jarier-Paletti,Ghinzani-Rothengatter, Ghinzani-Danner, Ghinzani-Berg, Caffi-Forini, Ghinzani-Fabi, Jarier-Gabbiani and then you had some reasonable combinations like Ghinzani-Larini, Caffi-Tarquini, Ghinzani-Caffi, Ghinzani-Gartner.

I still think Pirro in the later part of 89 was worse than post-injury Herbert.

ibsey wrote:

CoopsII wrote:Hideki Noda and Jean Denis Deletraz rocking up for Larousse in Oz 94 was a sight to behold.

I bet it was . Also reckon that the other F1 drivers at Oz 94, had good reason to fear that Larousse’s combo (what with thoughts like... Oh my god! How many times are we going to have to lap these guys then?)

Similar if Phoenix had made it on to the grid in 2002. Weren't they supposed to be having Gaston Mazzacane and Tarso Marques driving? Bet that would have had Ferrari, McLaren and Williams absolutely bricking it.

This wrote:Osella is a team that has had quite a few unimpressive driver combinations.
A few examples: Guerra-Gabbiani, Francia-Gabbiani, Ghinzani-Gabbiani, Jarier-Paletti,Ghinzani-Rothengatter, Ghinzani-Danner, Ghinzani-Berg, Caffi-Forini, Ghinzani-Fabi, Jarier-Gabbiani and then you had some reasonable combinations like Ghinzani-Larini, Caffi-Tarquini, Ghinzani-Caffi, Ghinzani-Gartner.

I was also looking at their driver combinations earlier today (great minds think alike & all that). However I couldn’t yet decide which one I thought was the worse one. Actually I was intending to do a bit more research on it (when time allows possibly over the next few days) before posting, as you say they seem to have a few, so you are almost spoilt for choice. However at first glance I’m tempted to pick Giorgio Francia & Beppe Gabbiani at the 1981 French GP. Purely for Francia’s lack of F1 experience & Gabbiani’s impressive record of DNQ that year. Which kind of makes you wonder what he and the Osella team got up to on all those Sunday’s when they hadn’t qualified for a GP?

James1978 wrote:I still think Pirro in the later part of 89 was worse than post-injury Herbert.

This is my kind of discussion...which driver is worse.

I had previously selected Herbert over Pirro, after just looking at the stats for that season. Which shows that Herbert achieved a 14th place finish at Monaco & 15th place at Mexico before going on to DNQ at Canada. Which is obviously worse than Pirro’s worse result that season of 11th place at France. However this is all without the benefit of having watch the races recently (so not knowing if either driver suffer any problems which caused their worse result).

However thinking about it in greater detail, most if not all of those tracks where Herbert did perform badly were heavy breaking circuits, so Herbert’s still injured legs probably was the reason he did especially badly at those tracks. Then there is that performance in Brazil (not such a demanding braking circuit) to consider, where Johnny finished 4th. So whilst Herbert, certainly had the worse results out of the two. It’s probably fair to say that Pirro was more consistently putting in a bad performance.

EDIT; Whereas Herbert form seemed more patchy (depending on how demanding the track was on braking). Also it seems to me that Phoenix aside (which was a lucky 5th place for Herbert, helped by the retirements of others), Johnny's performances were steady getting worse & worse as the season drew on. Possibly because he had to face all of the demands of being an F1 driver (i.e. fitness training), on top of any work he had to do on his legs. In any case, I personally feel that the Herbert that failed to qualify at Canada was worse than anything Pirro did during 1989. Or put it like this, if Pirro was driving in Canada for Benetton, I personally feel he would have qualified for that race.

At the end of the day I don’t think there was an awful lot between them. Perhaps it just comes down to personal preference. For instance worse result vs consistently being bad. At least we can agree on the year.

RAM: Rupert Keegan and Kevin Cogan
Cogan was so bad that he was gone for the US GP in 1980 for RAM. Cogan never made it to the F1 grid on Sunday. Did much better in IndyCar, but even then Cogan was prone to crashing early in the race and blunders like the poor restart of the battle of F1 Rejects in Cogan vs. Rahal in the 1986 Indy 500.

March: Ian Sheckter and Alex Ribeiro in 1977 .And if you count all the privately run Marches, it only gets worse.

This wrote:March: Ian Sheckter and Alex Ribeiro in 1977 .And if you count all the privately run Marches, it only gets worse.

Past-it Jan Lammers and Emanuele Naspetti at the end of 1992 seriously rivals that me thinks.

James1978 wrote:

This wrote:March: Ian Sheckter and Alex Ribeiro in 1977 .And if you count all the privately run Marches, it only gets worse.

Past-it Jan Lammers and Emanuele Naspetti at the end of 1992 seriously rivals that me thinks.

Hm, i think 1977 was worse, some of their line ups:
Rebeiro-I Scheckter-Henton-Lunger-Hayje-Nève-Merzario
Rebeiro-I Scheckter-De Dryver-Hayje-Nève-Merzario
Rebeiro-I Scheckter-Hayje-Kozarowitzky-Nève
Rebeiro-I Scheckter-Henton-Sutcliffe-Kozarowitzky-Nève-Merzario
Rebeiro-I Scheckter-Hayje-Bleekemolen-Nève-Merzario

reject gold, me thinks!