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Talented F1 drivers not recognised


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#201 27gilles27

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Posted 15 June 2014 - 10:34

Good point about Mike Hailwood. When he got his hands on a McLaren in 1974, which was probably less competitive than the Marlboro cars, his performances were strong until the accident in Germany. I think he really didn't have the recognition he deserved, on four wheels.

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#202 Nemo1965

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Posted 15 June 2014 - 18:41

Good point about Mike Hailwood. When he got his hands on a McLaren in 1974, which was probably less competitive than the Marlboro cars, his performances were strong until the accident in Germany. I think he really didn't have the recognition he deserved, on four wheels.

 

Yes, his results in the Mclaren were quite good. And though I admire John Surtees as a driver, I've heard too many strange stories about his teammanager-skills (or lack there-of).



#203 27gilles27

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Posted 15 June 2014 - 20:05

Back to Jean Pierre Jarier. Super quick in good cars, 3 poles in his career but best results were just 3 3rd places. No success at Le Mans either. Was he his own worst enemy or was it just bad luck? Apart from those two South American races in the Shadow in 75 and Canada 78 he also looked a possible winner st Long Beach 83 in that difficult Ligier.

#204 Nemo1965

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Posted 15 June 2014 - 20:23

Back to Jean Pierre Jarier. Super quick in good cars, 3 poles in his career but best results were just 3 3rd places. No success at Le Mans either. Was he his own worst enemy or was it just bad luck? Apart from those two South American races in the Shadow in 75 and Canada 78 he also looked a possible winner st Long Beach 83 in that difficult Ligier.

 

I don't want to be harsh, but... I've seen pictures of Jarier at the time he threw away a possible victory in the Ligier (shod with the supreme Michelins that race-day). Let me put it this way: it is hard to stay focussed when your tummy is the way...



#205 27gilles27

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Posted 16 June 2014 - 02:27

Mmm... But he could be really quick. A lot of bad luck when in strong positions. I'd say even in 79 he had the advantage over Pironi and we know how quick he was. Wasn't Rosberg just as much to blame for that shunt?

#206 27gilles27

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Posted 16 June 2014 - 02:32

Difficult bloke, John Surtees. With his own team and before. He had a falling out with old man Ferrari after winning the championship for him and then most of the success dried up. Maybe could have had a lot more success on track otherwise.

#207 thiscocks

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Posted 16 June 2014 - 12:22

Mmm... But he could be really quick. A lot of bad luck when in strong positions. I'd say even in 79 he had the advantage over Pironi and we know how quick he was. Wasn't Rosberg just as much to blame for that shunt?

Id say Pironi just about had the advantage by the end of the year especially on race-pace, but in qualifying they were usually very close (Pironi ahead 8-5).

 

Agree Jarrier was bloody quick but could blow hot and cold, much like Hawthorn.



#208 Nemo1965

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Posted 16 June 2014 - 13:21

Id say Pironi just about had the advantage by the end of the year especially on race-pace, but in qualifying they were usually very close (Pironi ahead 8-5).

 

Agree Jarrier was bloody quick but could blow hot and cold, much like Hawthorn.

 

And I think, both with Jarier and Hawthorn, it was their physical conditioning that limited their achievements. Hawthorn had a kidney-disease, and probably would not have survived his retirement very long. Jarier (sigh) was overweight most of his career. That is why he sometimes threw away races, IMHO.  I know it is politically correct to say it, but... I think it is true.



#209 D28

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Posted 17 June 2014 - 14:56

Difficult bloke, John Surtees. With his own team and before. He had a falling out with old man Ferrari after winning the championship for him and then most of the success dried up. Maybe could have had a lot more success on track otherwise.

 

Yes unparalleled as a driver, he also had excellent set up skills. As good as these were however, he was no Brabham or even a McLaren. Those two made team management look easy and invited imitators, it was nothing of the sort.  



#210 reynard883

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Posted 17 June 2014 - 15:05

Martin Donnelly must be up there.



#211 Nemo1965

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Posted 17 June 2014 - 18:21

Martin Donnelly must be up there.

 

Yes, but were it his injuries that prevented him from having a career or the people that ran better teams and never chose him?



#212 27gilles27

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Posted 17 June 2014 - 23:24

He had just entered F1 and had his accident towards the end of his first season. He was very highly rated and had a multi year contract with Lotus. He and Warwick were very close on pace and Donnelly was heading for about 5th on the grid while on that fateful lap, in that lousy Lotus! He was too badly injured to ever race again.

#213 Jimisgod

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Posted 18 June 2014 - 07:55

Yes, that is interesting, because the subject of the interview with Huub Rothengatter was for a interview-series called 'Master Teachers'. The subject was always 'talent - what is it and how do you develop it?' So I asked Huub a lot of stuff about drivers that I always thought were very talented and never made it - Stefano Modena, Mauricio Gugelmin, Teo en Corrodo Fabi, Roberto Moreno, the brothers Ferte...'

His analysis was, in short: Modena, Gugelmin: perenial doubters. Fabi brothers: too rich to be really 'driven'. Roberto Moreno: much too nice, not enough of a bastard. The brothers Ferte: loved life, girls and wine too much.

Interesting no? All these drivers had enough talent, according to him, but not the right mindset to make it (though I have my doubts about Gugelmin. An acquaintance who was connected to the Leyton March team once said about Gugelmin, with scarcely hidden contempt: 'Gugelmin? Only in F1 because of his friend Senna.')

Regadering Cappeli being an overlooked talent: I've been mailing off and on with a guy who used to work for Tyrrel and Penske. In a conversation about Migeot, the engineer that designed the ill-fated1992 Ferrari, he said: 'Migeot is a very, very smart aerodynamicist, and many of the things he tried to do with the 1992 “twin floor” Ferrari I think were emulated and made successful twenty years later. To be honest, I think Capelli was flattered by the Newey cars he drove before going to Ferrari. Those Leyton Houses were beautifully detailed cars.'


Isn't it nice to see some genuinely enlightened opinions, and thank you for contributing.

I think it would be interesting to tally up all the 'nearly results' that were ruined by DNFs

#214 taran

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Posted 18 June 2014 - 11:38

Bernie gave Teo the drive but Teo had a sweet deal in CART with Forsythe that took precedence, so Corrado stepped in pro tem.  He was more likely to win the title there after all.  Pound to a penny Bernie did the deal with Teo after Teo broke the drivers' strike at Kyalami in 1982.  A gesture of recognition for betraying his fellow drivers.  Certainly based on his F1 record hitherto you wouldn't have picked Teo for the number 2 seat to the world champion; in 1982 Derek Warwick had chewed him up, shat him out and recycled him into agricultural fertiliser at Toleman.  OK, he'd done well in CART in 1983, but, criminy, this was the era in which Hector Rebaque won a CART race.

 

I think you are being rather unfair here. Fabi was much better than his record would indicate. His time at Toleman was undermined after Candy (which put him in the team) jumped to Tyrrell and the team subsequently focused on Warwick. And at the time, Toleman was incapable of running two equal cars (as are many smaller teams).

 

The next year, Fabi scored the pole at Indy, won 4 indy races and finished 2nd in the championship as a rookie...that created as much of an impression as Zanardi and Montoya would do in later years. And if you look at his performance at Brabham in 1984, he wasn't that far away from Piquet in the all-Piquet centric team. The dire reliability of the BMW in that year however prevented him from posting any decent results or his CV would have looked much better.

 

He also showed good speed next to Berger and Boutsen, both pretty decent drivers. Oh, and he beat Warwick to the sportscar title in 1991.... :kiss:


Edited by taran, 18 June 2014 - 11:42.


#215 Nemo1965

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Posted 18 June 2014 - 12:49

I think you are being rather unfair here. Fabi was much better than his record would indicate. His time at Toleman was undermined after Candy (which put him in the team) jumped to Tyrrell and the team subsequently focused on Warwick. And at the time, Toleman was incapable of running two equal cars (as are many smaller teams).

 

The next year, Fabi scored the pole at Indy, won 4 indy races and finished 2nd in the championship as a rookie...that created as much of an impression as Zanardi and Montoya would do in later years. And if you look at his performance at Brabham in 1984, he wasn't that far away from Piquet in the all-Piquet centric team. The dire reliability of the BMW in that year however prevented him from posting any decent results or his CV would have looked much better.

 

He also showed good speed next to Berger and Boutsen, both pretty decent drivers. Oh, and he beat Warwick to the sportscar title in 1991.... :kiss:

 

And as far as I know, Berger pretty much... leeched on Fabi's setups at Benetton. If I remember it well, Fabi was always well up during the sessions, driving many laps and setting up the car. And then Berger took the pole... And don't forget Fabi put the Benetton on pole in Germany when the team came back to F1 (in 1984 or 1985, something with tyres or something that prevented them from driving)



#216 taran

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Posted 18 June 2014 - 13:15

And as far as I know, Berger pretty much... leeched on Fabi's setups at Benetton. If I remember it well, Fabi was always well up during the sessions, driving many laps and setting up the car. And then Berger took the pole... And don't forget Fabi put the Benetton on pole in Germany when the team came back to F1 (in 1984 or 1985, something with tyres or something that prevented them from driving)

  :cool:

 

In 1984, Toleman built a nifty chassis but their Pirelli's weren't very good so the team dropped Pirelli and signed up with Michelin, leading to a good season. However, at the end of 1984, Michelin withdrew somewhat unexpectedly and Toleman couldn't get tyres from either Goodyear (who they had dumped for Pirelli in F2) or Pirelli. Their sponsor Benetton had to buy Spirit racing to get their hand on Pirelli tyres and then transferred them to Toleman.

 

Moral of this story.....don't piss off manufacturers for short term gains....Perhaps Red Bull needs to learn this lesson too.



#217 Nemo1965

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Posted 18 June 2014 - 15:20

  :cool:

 

In 1984, Toleman built a nifty chassis but their Pirelli's weren't very good so the team dropped Pirelli and signed up with Michelin, leading to a good season. However, at the end of 1984, Michelin withdrew somewhat unexpectedly and Toleman couldn't get tyres from either Goodyear (who they had dumped for Pirelli in F2) or Pirelli. Their sponsor Benetton had to buy Spirit racing to get their hand on Pirelli tyres and then transferred them to Toleman.

 

Moral of this story.....don't piss off manufacturers for short term gains....Perhaps Red Bull needs to learn this lesson too.

 

Ooh right, thanks. 

 

Memory...



#218 27gilles27

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 00:45

Isn't it nice to see some genuinely enlightened opinions, and thank you for contributing.

I think it would be interesting to tally up all the 'nearly results' that were ruined by DNFs



#219 27gilles27

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 00:47

Agreed, very interesting reading. I like your idea of a thread about strong results being snatched away by a dnf. How about it?

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#220 27gilles27

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 00:47

:cool:

In 1984, Toleman built a nifty chassis but their Pirelli's weren't very good so the team dropped Pirelli and signed up with Michelin, leading to a good season. However, at the end of 1984, Michelin withdrew somewhat unexpectedly and Toleman couldn't get tyres from either Goodyear (who they had dumped for Pirelli in F2) or Pirelli. Their sponsor Benetton had to buy Spirit racing to get their hand on Pirelli tyres and then transferred them to Toleman.

Moral of this story.....don't piss off manufacturers for short term gains....Perhaps Red Bull needs to learn this lesson too.



#221 27gilles27

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 00:52

Very good point. RB should get rid of their sense of entitlement and get on with the racing. I'm interested to see how their power unit plans develop. Do they really think they can come up with a new unit that will win from day one? Many have fallen very hard with such attempts...

#222 27gilles27

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 00:55

I think you are being rather unfair here. Fabi was much better than his record would indicate. His time at Toleman was undermined after Candy (which put him in the team) jumped to Tyrrell and the team subsequently focused on Warwick. And at the time, Toleman was incapable of running two equal cars (as are many smaller teams).

The next year, Fabi scored the pole at Indy, won 4 indy races and finished 2nd in the championship as a rookie...that created as much of an impression as Zanardi and Montoya would do in later years. And if you look at his performance at Brabham in 1984, he wasn't that far away from Piquet in the all-Piquet centric team. The dire reliability of the BMW in that year however prevented him from posting any decent results or his CV would have looked much better.

He also showed good speed next to Berger and Boutsen, both pretty decent drivers. Oh, and he beat Warwick to the sportscar title in 1991.... :kiss:



#223 27gilles27

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 00:58

Teo Fabi was much better than his results suggested, and versatile. A winner in CART, WEC and pole winner in F1. In F1 he looked inconsistent but look how he compared with Warwick at Jaguar. He was a more consistent finisher.

#224 27gilles27

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Posted 21 June 2014 - 01:00

Derek Warwick should have been a winner in F1. Joined Renault as their decline began and never had a competitive drive after that.