123 replies to this topic

[D.M.N.]

There's possibly a handful of candidates I could give for this "award". From old clips I've watched, most of the crappy drivers were around in the 1980s and 1990s.

For me though, this driver has to be a main candidate for worst driver ever in F1.

Who do you think is the worst driver ever in F1?

[rookie]

Johnny Carwash (aka Givoanni Lavaggi)

[ensign14]

There are two candidates.

Ottorino Volonterio and Otto Stuppacher.

Even Chanoch Nissany was closer to qualifying pace than Stuppacher.

And Volonterio's best result came at the Nurburgring (hey, he had balls) - where he completed 75% of the race distance.

[Kop Alonso]

For me its Pascal Fabre in the AGS

[mclarensmps]

Taki Inoue takes it for me.

[Bloggsworth]

Undoubtedly me............... I don't even win in my dreams.

[pingu666]

did those marshels just lob him on the bonnet?

ralph firman looked real bad in his early races

[Ligier26]

Not sure if he was really 'the worst' or just completely inexperienced, but unknown Canadian Tom Jones would be a prime candidate; He was entered by a group of enthusiasts from Cleveland, Ohio to drive a Cooper in the 1967 Canadian GP, but in practice he was more than 20 secs slower than the next slowest driver and wasn't allowed to start.

[bogi]

On the first without thinking, Antonio Pizzonia.

[rookie]

Slightly OT, but all this thinking about worst drivers reminds usually involves the worst teams..

My votes for worst team in no particular order (they all made f1 a little worse in thier own way) -

Andrea Moda
Life
Mastercard Lola

[VoidNT]

Not the worst, but probably one of them, Bernie Ecclestone

[Rabbit123]

What is with these negative threads?

[Rabbit123]

Originally posted by rookie
Slightly OT, but all this thinking about worst drivers reminds usually involves the worst teams..

My votes for worst team in no particular order (they all made f1 a little worse in thier own way) -

Andrea Moda
Life
Mastercard Lola

Good chose of teams.

[Lifew12]

Originally posted by bogi
On the first without thinking, Antonio Pizzonia.

You pick a guy who managed points finishes over many who couldn't even qualify? What did he do, shag your sister?

[William Hunt]

Originally posted by Kop Alonso
For me its Pascal Fabre in the AGS

Pascal Fabre was not such a bad driver, he just had a slow car. He even was runner up in the French F3 championship and showed real pace in F3000 in 1986, scoring a win from pole in Silverstone, a 2nd spot in Vallelunga and 3rd in Enna. The F3000 field was very competitive in those days, he wasn't bad at all.

[4MEN]

Jean Denis Deletraz

[Sleep]

What is the point of this thread? Why do people sometimes feel it's necessary to degrade others? Why?

[Ferrim]

No one can beat Al Pease in this ranking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Pease

"He holds the unfortunate distinction of being the only competitor ever to be disqualified from a World Championship race, the 1969 Canadian Grand Prix, for being too slow."

[TickTickBooom]

Has to be Ide. Without a shadow of a doubt. Although I hear he's doing well as a DJ for his fellow colleagues.

[macoran]

Originally posted by Ferrim
No one can beat Al Pease in this ranking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Pease

"He holds the unfortunate distinction of being the only competitor ever to be disqualified from a World Championship race, the 1969 Canadian Grand Prix, for being too slow."

I was going through the thread and was thinking....it gotta be Pease, but you beat me.
Either it was him...or the Eagle was a loada crap.

He was lapped by...half a GP ???...or did he even finish a lap before the rest finished the race ?

[blackhand2010]

Originally posted by TickTickBooom
Has to be Ide. Without a shadow of a doubt. Although I hear he's doing well as a DJ for his fellow colleagues.

It's Yamamoto doing the DJ'ing, and I don't think Ide was that bad in comparison to some. Estaban Tuero, anyone?
But then, they all debuted in bad cars with little practice and/or european experience.

[ensign14]

Pease lost a lot of laps at his debut race when he had to run off to the pits to get a battery.

[TickTickBooom]

Originally posted by blackhand2010

It's Yamamoto doing the DJ'ing, and I don't think Ide was that bad in comparison to some. Estaban Tuero, anyone?
But then, they all debuted in bad cars with little practice and/or european experience.

Meh, you're right. I don't know where my head is today, but it's not on my shoulders.

/blondemoment

[potmotr]

Jean-Denis Délétraz hands down.
According to Nigel Roebuck, Délétraz made Lavaggi look "like Nuvolari".
Here is a great site featuring terrible Formula One drivers...
http://www.f1rejects.com/

[F575 GTC]

Originally posted by potmotr
Jean-Denis Délétraz hands down.
According to Nigel Roebuck, Délétraz made Lavaggi look "like Nuvolari".
Here is a great site featuring terrible Formula One drivers...
http://www.f1rejects.com/

J-DD isn't bad in GT racing though

F1...I don't know, Ide wasn't exactly brilliant but then neither was the car. Depends what you class as bad, doing crap in one of the top cars would be worse than doing poor in one of the tail end Skoda's.

[molive]

Originally posted by Lifew12


You pick a guy who managed points finishes over many who couldn't even qualify? What did he do, shag your sister?

[macoran]

Originally posted by ensign14
Pease lost a lot of laps at his debut race when he had to run off to the pits to get a battery.

It wasn't even his debut race I was thinking of !
Battery problem 1967 when he finished 43 laps behind the winner !
Considering everything his debut race (considering the battery problem) was the best of the two
(or three) GPs he participated in IIRC.

Canadian GP 1969: Ken Tyrrell protests Pease's presence on the track at lap approx lap 40 in
the race, Pease has just stormed !!! across start/finish to start his 23rd fastest (sic!!) lap.

At least he made the Canadian sportmen's Hall of Fame

[as65p]

The thing is, even the worst F1 driver of all times would likely trash anyone posting in this thread on any racetrack, in any car, any day.

Me included, of course.;)

[Apex]

Originally posted by macoran
Canadian GP 1969: Ken Tyrrell protests Pease's presence on the track at lap approx lap 40 in
the race, Pease has just stormed !!! across start/finish to start his 23rd fastest (sic!!) lap.

I think we have a winner. Head and shoulders below anyone else.

[LB]

on Tom Jones its worth looking at the reject site to see why he was 20 secs off the pace. http://www.f1rejects.../biography.html its also notable that Pease beat two other drivers in qualifying.

[JForce]

Tarso Marques

[pingu666]

didnt tarso have the most complete laps for 1-2 years?

[Slyder]

Lavaggi
Deletraz
Inoue
Later Jean Pierre Jarrier

[ensign14]

Jarier????????

[jcbc3]

The ignorance displayed here is stunning.

jarier

[glorius&victorius]

Nelson Piquet Jr

[jcbc3]

Originally posted by as65p
The thing is, even the worst F1 driver of all times would likely trash anyone posting in this thread on any racetrack, in any car, any day.

Me included, of course.;)

Never a truer word was written.

[Jerome]

Originally posted by F575 GTC


J-DD isn't bad in GT racing though

F1...I don't know, Ide wasn't exactly brilliant but then neither was the car. Depends what you class as bad, doing crap in one of the top cars would be worse than doing poor in one of the tail end Skoda's.

Correct. I think an interesting question would also be, for a thread: which drivers were absolutely crap in F1 and shone in other categories?

I think to judge someone's crapness in F1 one needs to judge:

1. Laptimes compared to teammates. (Delatraz then qualifies pretty well)
2. Number of crashes by dumb mistakes (Philippe Aillot, master of destruction)
3. Weird moves during racing (Emil de Vilota, Ide)
4. Idiotic racing lines (Ralph Firman)

Bad drivers need to combine two of the above 'qualities', I think. There have been drivers who were not particularly quick, but never crashed. And there were drivers that were quite quick, but crashed a lot because they always went faster than their maximum. Didn't Jim Clark once say outright to Masten Gregory: 'Please stop racing. You are going to kill yourself.' Or is that an urban legend?

[jcbc3]

Originally posted by Jerome


...And there were drivers that were quite quick, but crashed a lot because they always went faster than their maximum. Didn't Jim Clark once say outright to Masten Gregory: 'Please stop racing. You are going to kill yourself.' Or is that an urban legend?

Was always my impression of Gilles, but that is heresy of course.

[Dancing_Donkey]

Jean-Louis Schlesser.

Actually not a bad driver. But not in F1. Tried and failed to qualify in 1983. Then got a drive in 1988 Italian GP. And managed to crash into the leader, Senna, when being lapped two laps from the finish.

[Hippo]

from F1rejects:

Hans HEYER
Germany (77)
DNQ'd his only GP entry, but illegally started the race anyway!

[Lifew12]

Originally posted by Slyder
Lavaggi
Deletraz
Inoue
Later Jean Pierre Jarrier

I know it's been exclaimed that to propose Jarier shows incredible ignorance, but to claim him as later than the three named shows even more.

[ensign14]

I assumed it meant the later part of Jarier's career, but his last season was in a dog of a Ligier and he came within a collision of winning a Grand Prix in it. Certainly more impressive than Boesel. And the year before that Jumper actually scored actual real-life genuine 24 carat World Championship points in an Osella. (OK, only 14 started, but that thing was a literal death-trap and he still drove the balls off it.)

[anbeck]

Originally posted by pingu666
didnt tarso have the most complete laps for 1-2 years?

Tiago Monteiro?

[britishtrident]

I hate to say because some might think it is for not the right reasons but it has to be Davina Galica.

see http://www.historicr...&orderType=name

I have encountered really good women drivers in club racing and know some day a really good woman driver will make into F1 and win the WDC.

[ensign14]

Pfft. Galica was not the greatest, but she didn't have much hope in underbudgeted efforts. Giovanna Amati isn't fit to wax her skis.

[9 Degrees 12 Min]

Have we forgotten Ricardo Rosset?

Martin Brundle had a great response to Murray Walker's query whether Rosset was F1 quality. "It's a fairly short debate."

1998 was a particularly forgettable year for Ricardo. Demolished his racing car in practice for Monaco, received a warning from the stewards, and his enraged mechanics purportedly switched the first and last letters of his surname to form the word "tosser".

Even though the conditions were atrocious at Spa the same year, I'll never forget Rosset crashing at full speed into the 14-car pile-up. I still have that on VHS and Derek Daly is brutal in his assessment of Rosset's skills on the many replays of the crash.

[potmotr]

Actually, what about Giovanna Amati?

[glorius&victorius]

Originally posted by anbeck


Tiago Monteiro?

Tiago Monteiro brought the car home in most races

[anbeck]

Originally posted by glorius&victorius


Tiago Monteiro brought the car home in most races

Read it again: that's what I actually said.
Somebody said Tarso Marques is a failure, somebody else argued that it was him who held the record of most completed laps in a year.

But that guy was not Tarso Marques, but the much better Tiago Monteiro (easy to mix these guys up, I admit).