7 replies to this topic

[BorderReiver]

Hello Everyone

This feels a bit wierd, starting a thread in TNF about a driver I actually saw racing in F1. I feel like I'm getting old, so god knows how the rest of you crusties feel ;).

I've recently laid my hands on some highlights tapes of the early 90s F1 seasons, an era of the sport that really got me "in" to motor-racing. I started karting and regularly attending Grand Prix about that time (though my earliest F1 memory is probably from sometime around 1988).

Anyway, at the time the name Karl Wendlinger sort of flew underneath my radar, I was a Lotus fan (still am) with Tyrrell sympathies so I was busy shouting for all that lot and I never noticed the Austrian much.

However, going back to look at these tapes I've been amazed by him, hustling a woefully underfunded March up into the points positions on more occasions that should strictly have been possible before, more often than not, the bitter pill of mechanical failure. Highly, highly impressive and always seemingly very composed.

At the time the only thing I did notice Karl Wendlinger for was his nasty shunt at Monaco which I beleive put him in a coma in 1994. That must've dulled his edge somewhat because he sort of drifted out of F1 in 1995 after a few more appearences for Sauber.

So, how good was he shaping up to be in your opinion? From what I've been watching recently he seemed to be a very no nonsense, fast driver who extracted an awful lot from dubious machinery. But for Monaco '94 might we have seen a natural successor to Gerhard Berger, or maybe another Austrian World Champion?

[Ray Bell]

Just to clarify...

Karl Wendlinger's coma was induced, as is often the case these days, for medical reasons. It wasn't caused by his crash.

Look forward to still knowing you when you're also 'crusty'!

[2F-001]

I seem to recall that Karl W was, initially at least, the more highly-vaunted of that Frentzen-Wendlinger-Schumacher(M)-Kreutzpointner generation.

[MCS]

Originally posted by 2F-001
I seem to recall that Karl W was, initially at least, the more highly-vaunted of that Frentzen-Wendlinger-Schumacher(M)-Kreutzpointner generation.

Absolutely correct.

You have to wonder at what might have been had Wendlinger been afforded the chances that Schumacher had...

[Richard Jenkins]

Had the 1994 accident not both ruled him out of most of the season and dulled his senses a little, in both 1995 & 1996, he could easily have found himself at a very good team - certainly, say, he would probably have been ahead of old team mate Frentzen in the race for a Williams drive, had his success continued - maybe even ahead of Villeneuve. Possible race winner? Definitely. Potential World Champion? Perhaps, had luck played into his hands.

But lest we forget, leaving a safe drive for a big team doesn't always work out as Mr Zanardi & Mr Capelli will concur.

In some ways, I found Wendlinger's accident more upsetting than both Ratzenberger & Senna's. Possibly because it seemed, for the first time since the early '80's, we had the real prospect of half or a third of the grid not being alive come season's end. Fine, if you're used to it, not if you're about 16 or 17 or whatever age I was back then.

[jcbc3]

[rant]

Originally posted by 2F-001
I seem to recall that Karl W was, initially at least, the more highly-vaunted of that Frentzen-Wendlinger-Schumacher(M)-Kreutzpointner generation.

That titbit is always wheeled out to denigrate MS. Half the times it was Wendlinger that was the alledgedly fastest and half the time it was Frentzen.

It's like me saying that I play golf as well as Tiger Woods. It's true because I have made both eagles and birdies. The only difference between me and Tiger is that he does it more often.

Fact is that the people in-the-know chose Schumacher to be afforded the breaks.

[/rant]

As for the topic, Wendlinger was a very talented driver that could have emulated Berger in winning and handful or ten GP's. But, in my opinion, that is also all.

[2F-001]

Calm down jcbc3... that 'titbit' as you describe it was a sentiment widely, although not exclusively, expressed before Schumacher arrived in F1 (and note the word 'initially'). It was not used then - or, indeed, by me now - to denigrate Schumacher. It is difficult to imagine, even given 'the breaks' that Wendlinger, might have proved more successful than Michael. Yes, of course, some saw huge potential in MS, but previously others had thought Karl W might be the more immediate prospect. This is merely to express the promise he was considered to have in the context of the original question.
Also, nowhere do I see Richie or MCS, who backed-up my remarks, making any comparison to Schumacher - why do you feel the need the defend him so vigorously when nobody here is attacking him?

[FLB]

I've always thought that Wendlinger made the same mistake Stirling Moss made (although not in an actual race for SM). He came back too quickly IMHO. Brain injuries take a long time to heal. What little time he had in the Sauber in 1995 was enough to create the impression that he was damaged goods. He only really became successful in sports and GT cars in the late 1990s and early 2000s.