13 replies to this topic

[HistoryFan]

Hello!

I hope we can collect a lot of drivers who tested for some teams in F2-EM, F3000 International and GP2, but did not drive any races.

I hope to get a lot of interesing test drives, especially I'm interested in F1 drivers who tested for some F2 or F3000 teams but did not races for them. So we have in a older thread that James Hunt tested for Pacific in the early 90s. And didn't Michael Schumacher some tests for Vortex? Please post some...

I have the list since 2007:

Mikhail Aleshin: DAMS (2007)
Jaime Alguersuari: iSport (2008)
Nathan Antunes: Super Nova (2007)
Vladimir Arabadzhiev: Durango (2007), BCN (2007)
Bertrand Baguette: Trident (2008)
Marco Bonanomi: Piquet (2007)
Will Brat: DPR (2008)
Recardo Bruins: Arden (2007)
Sébastien Buemi: Trident (2007), DAMS (2007)
Adam Carroll: iSport (2007), Piquet (2007)
Karun Chandhok: Arden (2007), Fisichella (2008)
Dani Clos: BCN (2007)
Mike Conway: Arden (2007), ART (2007), iSport (2008)
Fabrizio Crestani: DPR (2008)
Jérôme D’Ambrosio: Campos (2007), Arden (2007)
Michael Dalle Stelle: Durango (2008)
Christian Ebbesvik: Racing Engineering (2007), Arden (2008), Fisichella (2008)
Marco Engel: Fisichella (2007)
Hamad Al Fardan: Trident (2009)
Luca Filippi: DPR (2007)
Natacha Gachnang: Fisichella (2008)
Borja Garcia: BCN (2007), Arden (2007), iSport (2007)
Michael Herck: Trident (2007)
Carlos Iaconelli: Trident (2008)
James Jakes: DPR (2009)
Oliver Jarvis: DPR (2007)
Stephen Jelley: Super Nova (2007)
Julien Jousse: Fisichella (2008), Trident (2008)
Jonathen Kennard: iSport (2007)
Adam Khan: Arden (2007)
Kamui Kobayashi: ART (2007)
Nicolas Lapierre: iSport (2007)
Fabio Leimer: Trident (2008)
Pastor Maldonado: iSport (2008)
Manuel Samos Merino: Campos (2007)
Celso Miguez: 2007 (BCN), Super Nova (2007)
Patrice Monopoulos: DAMS (2007)
Edoardo Mortara: Trident (2008)
Kazuki Nakajima: ART (2007)
Alexandre Negrao: ART (2007)
Paolo Nocera: Super Nova (2007), DPR (2007), Racing Engineering (2007)
Diego Nunes: Addax (2008), Arden (2008)
Alejandro Nunez: BCN (2007)
Fabio Onidi: Super Nova (2008)
Nelson Panciatici: Arden (2008), Trident (2008)
Alvaro Parente: Arden (2008), Racing Engineering (2008)
Sten Pentus: DPR (2008), Racing Engineering (2008)
Sergio Perez: Piquet (2008)
Vitaly Petrov: Racing Engineering (2008)
Charles Pic: ART (2008), iSort (2008), Piquet (2008), Super Nova (2008)
Giacomo Piccini: Durango (2007)
Clivio Piccione: Fisichella (2007)
Luiz Razia: Arden (2008), ART (2008)
Davide Rigon: Addax (2008)
Frederico Rossi: DPR (2007)
German Sancez: Campos (2007)
Bruno Senna: Campos (2007)
Andy Soucek: Fisichella (2008)
Koudai Tsukakoshi: Addax (2008), Piquet (2008)
Ho-Pin Tung: Campos (2007)
Oliver Turvey: iSport (2008)
Carlo Van Dam: Fisichella (2008)
Chris Van der Drift: BCN (2007), Trident (2007/2008)
Guido Van der Garde: Arden (2007), DAMS (2007)
Renger Van der Zander: Arden (2007)
Alberto Valerio: Super Nova (2007), Arden (2008), Trident (2007/2008)
Adrian Valles: iSport (2007)
Davide Valsecchi: 2007 (Trident). ART (2007), iSport (2007)
Nico Verdonck: 2007 (DPR)
Adrian Zaugg: 2007 (DAMS), 2007 (BCN)
Andreas Zuber: Campos (2007), Racing Engineering (2008), Super Nova (2008)

[F3000man]

F3000:

Brazilian Alex Dias Ribeiro was supposed to race at the first International Formula 3000 championship, in 1985, for Lamberto Leoni's PMC team.

Jenson Button tested for Supernova and Fortec in late 1999.

Petrobras Junior did, in late 2000, a kind of festival gathering the best current brazilian drivers in the junior motorsport. Antonio Pizzonia, Ricardo Sperafico, Rodrigo Sperafico, Aldo Piedade, Vitor Meira, João Paulo de Oliveira, Mario Haberfeld and other names. Pizzonia and Sperafico were the winners and raced for them in 2001 and 2002.

Minardi was supposed to run a car in 1985 for Alessandro Nannini. But they decided, at the last moment, to concentrate efforts on the Formula 1 team.

Ekstrom Racing made an entry for the first race of 1986 season, at Silverstone, with swiss George Paulin (husband of team owner Cecilia Ekstrom), but it lacked some money. The same happened to Venturi, who tried to run Alex Caffi in this race.

I remember that I used to follow the F3000 silly season and pre-season in that F3000.com. If you find it in web.archive.org, you will see a lot of results from winter tests of the last years of competition.

[F3000man]

Bruno Giacomelli almost made an one-off appearance in 1987 replacing a driver (I don't remember well, maybe Jacques Villeneuve Sir after his sole racing in Spa). Emanuele Pirro was also considered.

Buddy Rice tested for Supernova in early 2000. He was still considered a very promising driver, expected to be the first american driver in F1 since Michael Andretti.

The bad-organized BCN used to hire drivers to fire them just some days after. They did it with Gaston Mazzacane and Marcel Costa in 2003 and Abel Fajas in 2004.

[HistoryFan]

Thank you very much!
Some of them are very interesting!

[HistoryFan]

I heard that Pastor Maldonado did an F3000 test in 2004. For which team? Was it for International F3000 or for European F3000 where he drove a few races for Sighinolfi in 2005?

[tyrrellp346wheels]

Stirling Moss was invited to test the new GP2 car a few years ago but turned it down so Damon Hill was brought in

[HistoryFan]

I heard that Pastor Maldonado did an F3000 test in 2004. For which team? Was it for International F3000 or for European F3000 where he drove a few races for Sighinolfi in 2005?

No one?

[Ross Stonefeld]

No offense, but this is one of the more meaningless collections of data I've seen. So many people test sub-F1 cars that will never race them that the statistics might as well be "everyone with a competition license"

[Thundersports]

Someone in 1991 had a F3000 test on the Brands Indy circuit in about July that year; the intrigue is that it was so "secret" even staff were stopped from going to the pits area a plain white Lola T89/50 was used and I think GA Motorsport ran it. The driver wore a plain white helmet and wasn't very quick at all..........My hunch is that it was James Hunt as he was considering a comeback at the time.

[HistoryFan]

Hunt tested for Pacific in 1993 I think.

[verde]

No offense, but this is one of the more meaningless collections of data I've seen. So many people test sub-F1 cars that will never race them that the statistics might as well be "everyone with a competition license"

No offense, but as a matter of fact, a collection of data that regards motorsport is always meaningless.

I find it interesting, as it's not just a question of "have a competition license, a helmet and a bunch of dollars and be a F3000 driver during one day". There is a lot of good and lost information about tests in these championships. The James Hunt story is one of them.

By the way, I read that Hunt actually tested in Snetterton in 1989.

[Rob]

By the way, I read that Hunt actually tested in Snetterton in 1989.

Was that not an F1 test? I thought he drove a plain white Tyrrell. Am I thinking of something else?

[HistoryFan]

Yes the test was in 1989 and it was for Pacific with a F3000. We had a picture in an other thread.

[HistoryFan]

F3000:

The same happened to Venturi, who tried to run Alex Caffi in this race.
 

 

Are there more details about that? Is it the same Venturi who was shareholder 1992 at Larrousse in F1 and who is now racing Formula E?