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Lost talents


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#1 NanningF1fan

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Posted 27 May 2009 - 12:16

Recent threads on this forum about Chris Bristow and the Maurers of Stephan Bellof have set me thinking.

When I was a marshal one of my side lines was trying to spot young hotshoes before they became famous. Sometimes I was right but others never seemed to get the recognition they deserved.

Who do you think are the greatest lost talents of the last 30 years?

I'll throw one name into the ring to start with. Henrik Larsen. For the benefit of those who didn't see him he was a Dane who raced FF2000 and then Vauxhall Lotus for most of the 1980s. He never had a works drive and operated on a shoestring. But on his day he could beat anybody including Senna, Herbert, Hill, McNish, Hakkinen, Coulthard, Frentzen etc. Does anybody know what happended to him and why he never got a sniff of F1?

Who else should we consider? I mean saloon car and sports car drivers as well as single seater pilots.

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#2 Tim Murray

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Posted 27 May 2009 - 17:50

Greatest lost talents - personal opinions

#3 john t

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Posted 28 May 2009 - 00:16

More interesting here is your sideline as a talent scout. Who did you work for? I bet you have a greater insight than most of us here. Who was the best talent (in your opinion) who you recommended but never made it? Was Senna better than Burti? Was Stewart really greater than Moser? Tell us more.....

Edited by john t, 28 May 2009 - 00:21.


#4 NanningF1fan

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Posted 28 May 2009 - 01:34

More interesting here is your sideline as a talent scout. Who did you work for? I bet you have a greater insight than most of us here. Who was the best talent (in your opinion) who you recommended but never made it? Was Senna better than Burti? Was Stewart really greater than Moser? Tell us more.....

I wasn't getting paid or acting as official talent scout to anyone. It was just a game the marshals sometimes played among themselves during long days. Many marshals I knew believed that we were in a better position to judge talent than the F1 team managers because we saw the drivers going round corners and dicing whereas the bigwigs tended to watch from the pit wall and pay more attention to their computer screens.

One exception was Paul Stewart who did sometimes venture out onto muddy marshals posts to check somebody out. Of course having been a driver himself he could also judge the lines and read a race better than most. It is no coincidence that he signed up some promising youngsters before anyone else spotted them. David Coulthard in Vauxhall Lotus for example. But like many others he sometimes confused the advantages brought by a big budget with genuine talent. Derek Higgins springs to mind.

Was Senna better than Burti? In my opinion yes. Burti was good in a technical sense but lacked the flair and ultimate ambition that Senna had. Antonio Pizzonia was the same. Senna was also a racer. Burti and Pizzonia were fine when they were leading but not so impressive in the middle of the pack. This showed when they arrived in F1 in midfield teams.

One guy I thought would make it was Corrado Fabi. He was always quicker than his brother, Teo, who didn't do so badly. He was one of those drivers who was so smooth that they made it look effortless. he never troubled the marshals. In a qualifying session in F2 you hardly noticed him but he would put it pole whilst everybody else was sliding and spinning. But in the end he just lost interest. Does anybody know what he is doing now?

#5 ghinzani

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Posted 28 May 2009 - 09:08

One guy I thought would make it was Corrado Fabi. He was always quicker than his brother, Teo, who didn't do so badly. He was one of those drivers who was so smooth that they made it look effortless. he never troubled the marshals. In a qualifying session in F2 you hardly noticed him but he would put it pole whilst everybody else was sliding and spinning. But in the end he just lost interest. Does anybody know what he is doing now?


Went off to run the family talcum powder mine when his Dad died in 84 didnt he?

Edited by ghinzani, 28 May 2009 - 09:08.


#6 HistoryFan

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Posted 28 March 2015 - 22:36

But he returned for a F3000 drive at Genoa in 1987. Any backround for this story?

 

I heard that Corrado's father was also a racing driverrs. Has anyone details about that?