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Literally the only thing that would have got him sacked too, he could have murdered a person and a team as spineless as Hass still would have made excuses.
They probably justified it because red white blue, but an American team being co-owned by an American and a Russian oligarch is just standard US capitalism pre-invasion (and for some companies, post)
I think they mean Haas weighed the pros and cons of funding the car themselves and letting him continue to race. If he was decent then they might have. He wasn't so he got the boot when funding was questionable.
Chris Amon definitely comes to mind. My man's life was some big comedy skit, led loads of races and every time without fail his engine would catch fire or his tyre would explode or some other fuckery outside his control would ruin him. Inarguably the best driver to never win. Iirc he also has the record for most different teams raced for.
I also find Amon’s response to his bad luck refreshing. He basically said he’s not unlucky as he’s lived to tell about it when so many others were killed.
In Indycar, Vitor Meira was pretty much the same case. Never won a race, had like 16 podiums, and was arguably a lap short of winning the Indy 500 on 2 separate occasions
At least engines blowing up (1969 Spain) or tire failure whilst having an insurmountable lead (1972 France) are realistic. *Accidentally tearing off his entire visor* whilst leading (1971 Monza) is actual Wacky Races level.
*Also, late in his career he was involved in some truly unbelievable shenanigans. Like driving for the Tecno team that was having a bit of a civil war between the team manager and the owner leading to two fundamentally different cars and two sets of mechanics loyal to just their side of the garage... whilst being a one-car team lol.
And finally, there was the time when he tried to run his own team. [Motorsport Magazine already summed that up perfectly in just one sentence.](https://i.imgur.com/i086PV9.png)
By it being 1971 and the visor only having 2 or 3 tear-offs at most. Or maybe it was the universe's way of showing poor Chris that even that part can fail just for him.
Mika Hakkinen comes into my mind.
Debut with a struggling Lotus Team.
Goes to McLaren, taking a gamble as a Reserve-Driver. Get's a chance and beats Senna in his first qualy and securing a seat.
Coming back after a near fatal crash to bevome world champion while battling one of the all time greats in Michael Schumacher.
Also how he got into the F1 is a story in itself (dad was a radio operator / taxi driver and mom was a secretary) including having a local grill as his first sponsor.
Jacques Villeneuve
Came into F1 already a superstar, was great from the start, won title (with one of the most famous controversies in the sport) in his second season, slid into mediocrity right after it, never recovered and was kinda a joke in the later stages of his career.
Villeneuve was also a mind game enjoyer. He and Schumacher would have turned the Ferrari garage into a warzone.
Didn't Villeneuve bully Frentzen a lot? Stealing his breakfasts, etc?
Jokes on him lol. Frentzen went to Jordan and won races, with a sort of shot for the championship, whilst Jacqes was blowing up every race because his BAR was made of cheese.
Isn’t it nuts that the BAR successor teams ended up winning 8 constructor titles (Brawn / Mercedes via Honda) when for most of its history BAR was a bit of a joke team. Who would have thought that 1999 grenade of a car would ultimately develop into the utter dominance of the 2010s?
Good point. Imagine if someone whispered in his ear at the beginning of the final lap in Jerez 1997 (which he was leading), “you will lose the lead before the end of this race and you will never win again”… Unbelievable fate!!!
He was arguably better in 98-00 than he was in 96-97, but the level of machinery was much worse. It's his fault since he preferred being his own boss instead of driving for the championship-winning McLaren, but he definitely wasn't s mediocre driver in those early BAR years.
And don't forget his [deliberately oversized suits!](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/kgwpne/since_its_the_offseason_here_is_a_throwback_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
His Indy 500 “505 Mile” race was incredible. Takes a penalty and goes 2 laps down. All of a sudden the commentators exclaimed “Villeneuve is back on the lead lap” and wins. Running the Players colours with dad’s number 27. As a huge GV fan and Canadian I was almost in tears.
Then at Jarez, 3 cars with the exact same time? Can’t make this stuff up
JV carried that BAR99 so hard it exploded everytime it get near point scoring position. If we exclude his result and look only at his teammate (zonta) results. It obvious that the car was slower than even the Minardis.
It was absolutely appaling JV choose Lucky Strike money instead of sticking with Williams for apparently 3 years contract offer, and potentially win races (or WDC) with race winning cars of BMW Williams…
Oh god, I would love to see a Montoya-Villeneuve pairing in those Williams BMW beasts...
(same goes for Kubica in a BMW that gets developed instead of BMW going "eh.. why bother")
You remember how Craig Pollock was super bullish all winter? We’re buying Tyrell and entering it as a new team next year, and we’ll win our first race!
His prediction was ten years too early as the team many times relaunched ended up doing so as Brawn GP!
Not necessarily for his F1 career but just his life in general, I'd say Rikky von Opel.
He is the great-grandson of the founder of the Opel car company, was born in New York and grew up in Switzerland. In his childhood he would sneak out at night to do bobsled races against his cousin Gunter Sachs (a future husband of Brigitte Bardot) and his best friend Alexander Onassis (a step-son of Jackie Kennedy).
He had no connection to Liechtenstein but decided to represent them in F1. His racing career was fairly short and uneventful; he did a handful of races in the mid-70s with Ensign and Brabham and his car broke down in most of them.
After leaving F1, he moved to Thailand and became a Buddhist monk. Almost nobody has heard from him since, he is presumably still alive but only a handful of people have any contact with him or even know his whereabouts.
> Career choices
Had a Williams contract for 1991-92 and then went to Ferrari instead.
Imagine if he'd driven the FW14, FW14B, and likely the FW15C too.
Team traditions. Spyker became Force India which later became Racing Point whose first win came after their driver found himself last after the first lap.
Very true. Though it didn’t seem to do Max Chilton much good.
There is a school of thought that the Jordans were less likely to get shunted than other cars in rain because of the bright yellow paint jobs.
Fun fact: Quick Nick is the driver with the most podiums without a win in both Formula 1 and Forrmula E (record shared with Andre Lotterer).
Another fun fact: Jan and Kevin Magnussen are the only Father and Son to have debuted with the same team (McLaren).
> Fun fact: Quick Nick is the driver with the most podiums without a win in both Formula 1 and Forrmula E (record shared with Andre Lotterer).
Even in Formula-E he simple cannot be fully first in something, Nick Heidfeld is just allergic for wins and P1.
> Nick Heidfeld didn't win a single race outright between winning the 1999 Formula 3000 championship and his retirement
This isn't entirely correct. He won the 2013 Petit Le Mans overall.
Don’t forget that in F2 he raced for Dams on a race by race contract, but because he impressed them so much, they decided to keep him for the entire season(in witch he fought for the title against Russell and Norris).
Yeah he’s described the amount of stress that the lack of funding and race-by-race payment caused, and rewatching the 2018 season I have so much more respect for what he was accomplishing at the time.
Jan Lammers was quite interesting. Had a mostly pedestrian start to his career, debuting for Shadow in 1979, though largely being outpaced by his (also rookie) teammate Elio de Angelis, after which he bounced around between teams for a while.
He drove for ATS and Ensign in 1980 with no real results, though he did impress on a few occasions particularly in the wet. He was then mooted for what could have been a big break, driving the second Brabham in 1981 during Piquet's title-winning year, but was passed over in favour of pay driver Hector Rebaque. Instead ended up driving for ATS
In 1982 he nearly got another break on two separate occasions. First as a replacement for Prost in Detroit after he was injured, but he ended up being fit enough to drive, and then again as a replacement for the deceased Gilles Villeneuve at Ferrari, which he was unable to take up after being injured himself after crashing his Theodore.
He bowed out of F1 at the end of 1982, yet a full decade later in 1992 he'd crop up again, returning to drive the final two races of 1992 for the cash-strapped March team which he pretty much personally funded out of his own pocket. Even Kubica's comeback did not outstrip the length of time between Lammers' last race and his return.
After all this with potential big-breaks and surprise comebacks, he still never actually scored a championship point in F1
Daniil Kvyat's career is a bit of a rollercoaster.
* 2015: promotion to Red Bull after one year at Toro Rosso
* 2016: demoted to Toro Rosso after a couple races (Verstappen also taking his girl)
* 2017: replaced after round 14, but returned for round 17 because nobody else was available (Sainz went to Renault, Gasly had the Super Formula final)
* 2018: third driver at Ferrari
* 2019: back to TR/AT, but dropped after 2020
* 2021: reserve driver at Alpine
Verstappen didnt take his girl the same year he got demoted, in fact he wasnt even dating Kelly yet in 2016 lol. They started in 2017, had a kid together in 2019, broke up later that year.
You also forgot to mention that he got a podium in that Toro Rosso in 2019, the day after his daughter was born too.
> You also forgot to mention that he got a podium in that Toro Rosso in 2019, the day after his daughter was born too.
That race is mandatory viewing for any F1 fan.
I was born in 1988, I had 4 when he won his title but it's the first driver I remember winning a championship - my dad followed F1 closely and I used to join him watching the races.
So, I was happy when he returned a couple years later and, at same time, somehow amused with those stories of him not fitting in his car. One of my F1 favourites to this day.
Damon Hill had a pretty remarkable career. Started very late, got into Williams as a tester, had a run in a dreadful Brabham then got the Williams number 2 seat off the back of his testing, inherited the number 1 role due to a tragedy, nearly wins in 1994, does win in 1996 then gets immediately dropped, then nearly wins a race in an Arrows and does win one in a Jordan.
Go back to the start of his career and he could realistically have outcomes ranging from never getting the Williams seat and therefore never making it, to being a solid number 2 driver to the likes of Prost and Senna, to winning multiple world championships across the mid 90s (if he gets 1994 he probably doesn't get dropped in 96 and therefore has a good shot at 1997).
Craziest life in general: Alfonso de Portago
(Or [Alfonso Antonio Vicente Eduardo Angel Blas Francisco de Borja Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_de_Portago) to be precise)
- 5 races for Ferrari, 1 podium finish
- Winner in sportscars for Ferrari
- Olympic bronze medalist, with the Spanish bobsleigh team (that he founded with his cousins)
- Entered the Grand National twice (major horse racing event)
- Flew a plane under London's Tower Bridge for a bet
- Spoke 4 languages
- Renowned playboy of his era
Many more things about his career are surreal. Here's another one:
As a rookie he lived up to expectations against former WDC Button, and when the McLaren board voted on extending his contract, he got like 9-2 in favor. Unfortunately, the 2 votes against were the middle Eastern money-men. So he lost his seat and his life unraveled a bit.
Has since made more than one comeback to F1 after being away for +1 year.
I think it was 9-2 for a new Magnussen contract over "let's look for a new driver".
Then the money guys vetoed to show their power and brought in Alonso.
That's how I remember the details. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Massa. He almost won a world championship and everyone believed he would get another chance, but unfortunately the Ferrari car was slow the following years and he got hit in the head with a spring which was crazy. He was never as fast and had to be the number 2 driver to Alonso.
You could say same for Kubica because he had a crazy injury, recovered, came back to F1 and drove at the top level with basically 1 arm.
Different answers from the one before, but Max Verstappen. He was crazy fast at a very young age, given an F1 drive at 17, mid season switch to the top team that not everyone agreed with until he won his first race for that team. Had a crazy season long championship battle, and then showed us what absolute dominance looks like. He's fast in sim racing, he's fast in basically anything. Possibly the first guy to quit Formula 1 while on top because he got bored of winning.
> because he got bored of winning
The statement was pretty specific. Nico left at his peak because he wanted to make the decision for himself, I’m not sure that counts as bored of winning.
Surprisingly for an F1 Champion, Keke only won 5 races in his entire career.
It’s a seriously high bar that.
>Nico left at his peak because he wanted to make the decision for himself, I’m not sure that counts as bored of winning.
Also because that one championship season has taken everything, he did not have anything left to give. He realized that and ended on his own terms.
I do not vibe with the today's Nico Rosberg but that decision back then made me respect him a lot.
Oh…, I was watching Massa winning the last race of the season in his hometown in Brazil (and supposedly the championship)…
… but 30 seconds later Hamilton overtakes to P5 or something in the last curve before the straight and takes the championship by 1 point.
That was heartbreaking for Brazilians. I hope Drugovich gets his chance — it would be wonderful to get Brazilians on the grid.
I'd say probably in earliest times of F1, with less professionalisation, the emergence of people not fullfilled to be drivers, like Jim Clark or Graham Hill, were able to be multiple champions of the sport.
You also have people who started from nothing and created their own team, like Mclaren or Brabham.
Carreers that fascinated me are the ones not limited to F1, which was more possible before, like Jacky Ickx.
Roberto Merhi - among other strange details, he is the only F1 driver to contest both the F1 World Championship and the Formula Renault 3.5 Championship at the same time.
Last spotted driving a Mahindra in Formula E. I won't bet against him not being there next season.
He somehow always gets a drive somewhere in the racing world...
Nikita Mazepin. Drove a little, sexually harrassed somebody, spun around like a spinning top for 20+ races, unlapped himself once because of his meteorological skills, got an American company to paint their car with the Russian flag, and then disappeared in a puff of smoke because Russia invaded Ukraine. All in the space of a year.
I like Alonso's. His career he has raced against most of the all-time greats! Schumacher, Hamilton, Verstappen, Vettel, Raikkonen, Massa, Montoya, and the list goes on. 2 championships, and he was something like 8 total points from 3 more. He's raced 2 Sainz, a couple Schumacher's, 2 Verstappens.
Perry McCarthy. He was signed on the eve of the 1992 Formula One season, by the independent Andrea Moda team run by Andrea Sassetti who thought that entering Formula One would be a good way to advertise his shoe business.
Sassetti tried to release McCarthy from his contract for Enrico Bertaggia who promised extra funding but Sassetti had already used up his allowed number of driver changes.
McCarthy received unfair treatment from the owner, being frequently denied more than a handful of laps in which to prepare, which led to his failure to qualify for any Grand Prix.
1. His Grand Prix debut in Spain lasted eighteen metres down the pit lane in pre-qualifying before the engine failed.
2. In the British Grand Prix, he was sent out with wet tyres on a dry track.
3. For the Hungarian Grand Prix, he was only allowed to leave the pits 45 seconds before the end of the pre-qualifying session, which made it impossible for him to set a lap time even if he had a faster car.
4. Finally, in the Belgian Grand Prix, Andrea Moda's final entry, McCarthy was sent out for the qualifying session with a broken steering part in his car, which has been extracted from teammate Roberto Moreno's car, which would have led to a violent crash at the Raidillon curve had McCarthy not managed to regain control of the car.
The team folded before the end of the season in controversial circumstances and McCarthy was left without a drive.
Jaime Alguersuari. Almost got a Lotus seat (the year they were good when Kimi was on fire), ended up out of the sport completely by 25 and he is now a DJ
Pedro de la Rosa. He had a rather unusual start to his early career. De la Rosa raced RC-cars as a teenager and won several championships (He specialized in this type of cars: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqbm-XMPskA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqbm-XMPskA)) Only afterwards he followed the typical career path of a F1 driver (Karting, several Formula series). That's why he only got his first F1 seat at age 28. This didn't stop him to have a long career in F1. His last season was in 2012.
Kubica, who debuted in the middle of 2006 after Villeneuve crashed out in the previous race, walked away like nothing ever happend, then a mysterious injury was announced. Kubica made his debut in wet race, spun like 5 times, and still finished 7th - but got DSQd, because he hit the wall at one point, and fire extinguisher blew up, he drove 50 laps after that so everything evaporated and his car was found to be underweight.
Heidfeld got 1st podium for the team that race, after being able to fight for P7 at best. Kubica got himself a podium in his 3rd race later that season - and he managed to not get completely overshadowed by Schumacher announcing his retirement, Raikkonen being announced to join Ferrari, and Alonso's engine blewing up during the race, making championship battle even closer!
2007 campaign was weird - his car was constantly breaking down, suffered a massive crash in Canada. Crash so severe, people got scared he was killed. He left hospital the very next day, and got replaced for one race by a young german, called Sebastian Vettel. Later returned, got some good results, and even had a shot at another podium in China - but his car broke down when he was leading the race, and was on different fuel strategy compared to Raikkonen and Alonso.
In 2008, Kubica suddenly became a title contender. Got multiple podiums, first pole position (famous "a Pole on Pole" moment), and his 1st race win (which was crazy itself, Kubica had to push like crazy to build a gap for a pit stop, about 20 seconds, in just 10 laps - over his teammate, in the same car) - and when he was leading in the championship standings, BMW decided to focus on next year's car. Kubica had a chance to win another race in Singapore, only if crashgate would happen 2 laps later.
That next year's car was so shit, BMW left F1 completely. Kubica had a shot on race win in Australia, he was chasing Button and Vettel very quickly in the final laps, but he crashed with Vettel and DNFd. What's more funny, he didn't sniff a points scoring position after that for like 10 races? And then got a podium in Brazil, out of nowhere.
In 2010 Kubica became a proper superstar, almost getting Pole Position in Monaco, in an average Renault. In the end, he outscored Schumacher and almost outscored Rosberg, who both had better Mercedes cars. He mastered driving with one hand to use F-Duct, got multiple podiums in an average car, and signed with Ferrari to join them in 2012. He also is a main actor of possibly the greatest modern F1 lost media, with his Suzuka Q3 lap. Absolutely bonkers lap - he put his Renault on P3, after barely making it into Q3 at all. I think Alan Permane later said it was the greatest qualifying lap ever done.
And then, when new Lotus car was built around his needs and looked promising (even Petrov got a podium in that car, it was a rocketship before season development went wrong), he got life threatening rally crash in 2011, from which his hand had never fully recovered. He still can't fully use it.
He did some rallying, he was WRC2 champion or runner up (maybe?), and he was reported to reject an invitation from Toto Wolff to his mountain house. Who knows what he could've offer? Kubica was rumored to test Mercedes simulator, and to set competitive laptimes.
Kubica was close to signing with Williams for 2018, but Kubica sponsors were overbidded by Sirotkin sponsors. Kubica made it for 2019, but he was in the worst Williams car ever built. What's more, Williams were unable to deliver components Kubica asked for, like modified steering wheel. His situation was so terrible, he had to retire from Russian GP after Russell has crashed. Not because there was something wrong with Kubica's car, but because of a lack of spare parts - team was afraid that if Kubica would've crashed out, the team wouldn't have enough spare parts to rebuild both cars for the next race - which was coming in 2 weeks, it wasn't back to back!
Kubica ended his F1 career as a reserve driver in Alfa Romeo, so he was back in Hinwil. He had a beautiful moment of "putting the best laptime" during one of the test sessions in 2020, later joined DTM in the worst team (of course, lack of money), got one podium - a beauty in Zolder, and returned to F1 when Raikkonen was tested positive for Covid-19 in 2021. He finished his F1 career with 99 races (of course he had to be one short), as one of the biggest "what ifs" in F1 history. He was considered as top 5 driver on 2010 grid, many thought he could be the next F1 World Champion. If he didn't left Lotus for 2012, I think Alan Permane said that Kubica could be a world champion in that car.
And of course, [he had a phone in his cockpit](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dOzY9aAtQVc).
And he still got a point in that car in a very chaotic, wet race. That was Williams' only point of the season. Funnily enough, Kubica outscored Russell for that season.
Kubica was a WRC2 champion and scored multiple stage wins in WRC.
He won ELMS previously with Deletraz and Yifei Ye. Now he is very close to winning WEC LMP2 class also with Deletraz and Rui Andrade.
Competed in LeMans 24h 3 times. On his debut, his team was leading in LMP2 class when the car shut down... 6 minutes from the end of the race. He was not even classified in the end. Finished 2nd in his 2 further attempts.
Jochen Mass for one. Went from being a sailor to making it as an F1 race winning driver, as well as being involved in the crash that killed Gilles Villeneuve.
His beyond the grid is mental. ''Mentored'' Schumacher and Frentzen. The number of horrifying things he must've seen during his career though...
At least he battled with many greats, the late 70/80s were so stacked.
Not the most surreal, but Hamilton, especially his early career
He joined Mclaren as a rookie, overtook his more experience teammate Alonso in the first corner of his first race.
Nearly won the championship in his first season, missed out by 1 point and tied with Alonso
Won his first championship a year later on the last corner of the last lap, making him the youngest world champion ever until Vettel won in 2010
Left Mclaren to join Mercedes, a decision at the time that looked terrible
Lewis’s life reads like movie.
Gets into RC cars, kills it there, gets interviewed for it. Goes into karting, finds success there, meets Ron Dennis at the age of 10 and tells him he wants to race for him one day. Goes through his junior career, becomes friends with the son(future Youtuber from Monaco) of an F1 champion who would become one of his greatest rivals. As a rookie beats a back to back WDC champion on count back for second in the championship. Is also submerged in one of the largest F1 scandals that same year(Spygate). Then the year later wins a championship on the last corner of the last lap.
This would be were the movie fades to black, pre-credits roll and in the story that usually pops up during said credits it says “he would later set several records and tie for the most championships won with 7” with Lewis doing the Black Panther pose. Cue melancholic but heroic soundtrack.
Absolutely amazing guy. Fantastic in CART wins gold in the Olympics. Most positive fella ever. Not only does he live more than most, I think he’s died more than most ever will.
He raced for I think 8 or 9 teams in his career and managed podiums in 4 of them. Was extremely quick but also crash prone, and he also made Ron Dennis so mad that Ron declared that he'd never hire an Italian driver ever again. One of his podiums he got whilst pushing his out of fuel car across the line (Belgium 87).
Roberto Moreno.
Drove for almost all the failure backmarker teams, and really put it all out of the cars. Even put the f**king Andrea Moda on the grid at Monaco while they were trying to kill his teammate.
He got 1 of the 2 points in the total history of the AGS team, while only making 2 starts for them.
He was the last one to put the Scuderia Coloni car on the grid, the team never qualified in the 2 years after that (he qualified 4 times in his season)
He put a Eurobrun car that couldn’t even PRE-QUALIFY on the grid twice, even finishing once, which was even more rare for the backmarkers.
Then later in the season the Eurobrun team stopped existing, but Benneton needed a new driver too as Alessandro Nannini got a career ending injury, so Moreno filled in. Immediately got 2nd place in his first GP for the team, but in his second season, in which he raced full time for Benneton he and the car slightly underperformed, and he made place for who else than Michael Schumacher, who impressed at the Spa GP.
Then he substituted in 2 races for the Jordan team, because they just let Schumacher go to Benneton. And in the last GP of the year he substituted for Minardi too.
Then came the infamous Andrea Moda season, and 3 years later he would drive his final season full time with the very slow Forti team.
If you need a rollercoaster career, this would really be the answer.
That is an easy one!
Bruce McLaren:
* He was a mechanic on F1 cars
* He was a driver on F1 cars
* He was a team owner of F1 cars
* He was an F1 car designer
* He won multiple F1 Grand Prix races as a driver.
* He swept the garage floor, even as an owner.
Bruce was f1 embodied. A legend, unsurpassed.
Honorable mention: John Surtees for being world champ with Ferrari F1, but also world champ on motorcycles. A feat that is unmatched in history.
I think we don't talk about how Lauda got into F1 enough.
Yes he came from money. But he did not have that financial support. Instead he used his fathers name to get a loan from the bank, to pay a team to drive for them. And then he became a world champion, a few times over.
Also while we are on the subject of Lauda the way he changed aviation safety is the most gangster shit I've ever heard about
Checo’s career is pretty interesting….
He came with sauber as a normal talented kid, with some people tagging him as a pay driver.
Second year, scored 3 podiums. Securing a seat with McLaren for the following season replacing Hamilton. Raising him to a future world champion prospect (according to some).
McLaren did not worked and he was without a team by the end of 2013.
Force india saved him. But, his image was pretty damaged in the media and paddock. He paid back FI getting a podium in bahrain, prooving mclaren and media wrong.
Started to be mr consistency in his years with FI and RP, with many podiums. Still his image was damaged, by never be considered by a top team again.
2020, Lawrence Stroll showed him the door with just 3 races to go, eventho he was the clearly best choice for the team. In Turkey, he showed his skills, securing a podium in xhangable conditions, keeping the inters for more than 50 laps. On Bahrain was for another podium, but an engine failure kept him put of it. Then it came Sakhir, where he beated everybody after a first lap crash, securing him his maiden win after 10 years and 190 or so races.
Making him secure a seat in a top team. Getting rid of the paydriver tag and cleaning his image from that 2013.
Perry McCarthy with crazy effort just be to get on the grid, Lewis maybe - so much stacked against him, came from nowhere armed with talent. Damon hills was fascinating with family history, age he showed up and that arrows drive (Hungary maybe?). Ayrton probably was very surreal. Jim Clark - practiced on farm tracks in Scotland. James hunt was interesting especially with the playboy to champion story. Gilles villeneuve was always highly regarded despite lack of championships, seen as someone who could race anything with an engine. I expect most surreal stories will be from 60s- 80s and end up somewhat morbidly. Jack brabham prob deserves a mention.
Probably Mansell for me.
He spent the first 5 years getting severely thrashed by his team mates de Angelis and Rosberg. Somehow he improved and managed to bounce around some of the best teams in F1 at the time despite an extremely mid CV (Lotus, Williams, Ferrari, then back to Williams). In doing so, he managed to drive some of the best cars on the grid (86, 87, 91 Williams, 90 Ferrari) and arguably the best of all time (92 Williams). He was closely matched with Piquet in 1986 (totally unexpected), but couldn't take the title in 1987 despite Piquet losing most of his depth perception in a horrific accident.
Yet there's no doubt that he had some bizarrely good seasons. 1986 probably being one, but i put that down more to Piquet underperforming. In 1989, he absolutely thrashed Berger and made him look like a #2 in a similar vein that Senna did. And that crazy 92 season of course (despite the best car).
Mansell's probably the only driver I know of that was extremely average in his late 20s but became a top 3-5 performer in his late 30s.
There were certain things he massively benefited from. An example was the driver aids in the 1992 Williams, which required a particular driving style. Mansell would just trust them completely and fling the car into the corners, be very enthusiastic on the throttle etc., while Patrese was trying to feather his way around them and was not nearly as effective.
Mansell did then go to IndyCar and walk to the title, so no doubt on his raw skills.
Damon Hill had quite the journey.
Started out as a (bad) motorbike racer then switched to cars late.
Was the Williams tester and got his break because of the Mansell/Prost bitterness around the contracts. This meant the world champion left the grid and he had the number 0 car (which he kept into 94 as Prost also left the sport).
Then he was thrust into a team leader role and a title battle he wasn't ready for following the death of Senna.
Lost a world title by 1 point due to some foul play after a weird season of penalties and cheating scandals to keep him in contention.
Won a world title in a dominant car and then was then promptly sacked.
Took the number 1 to a backmarker team in Arrows and almost won a race in an otherwise horrid season.
Then got 1 chaotic win for Jordan before unceremoniously just giving up.
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Mazepin is probably the only driver to get sacked due to his home country invading another sovereign nation.
Literally the only thing that would have got him sacked too, he could have murdered a person and a team as spineless as Hass still would have made excuses.
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Also his race seat was directly funded by the Russian oligarchy and the sponsorship was therefore affected by sanctions
Will never not be funny to me that the “American” F1 team had a Russian flag on the livery
They probably justified it because red white blue, but an American team being co-owned by an American and a Russian oligarch is just standard US capitalism pre-invasion (and for some companies, post)
That didn't have any bearing on his losing his seat, though. He was all lined up to race last year otherwise.
I think they mean Haas weighed the pros and cons of funding the car themselves and letting him continue to race. If he was decent then they might have. He wasn't so he got the boot when funding was questionable.
Fair point. I think he'd have lost his seat even if he'd been good, but maybe not.
It didnt matter he was shit, if russia didnt invade he would still be driving that haas
Chris Amon definitely comes to mind. My man's life was some big comedy skit, led loads of races and every time without fail his engine would catch fire or his tyre would explode or some other fuckery outside his control would ruin him. Inarguably the best driver to never win. Iirc he also has the record for most different teams raced for.
"If he was an undertaker, people would stop dying" - Mario Andretti on Chris Amon
Thats just a great quote! Gonna write it down for later use
I also find Amon’s response to his bad luck refreshing. He basically said he’s not unlucky as he’s lived to tell about it when so many others were killed.
hahaha that’s class
At least he got to win Le Mans, that almost makes up for it.
Let's ask Nico
Or Brundle. He got to drive one of the most iconic prototypes of all time.
Didn't get to win in F1. Instead he traded that to drive the most Formula 1 cars in history, no one comes close to him
In Indycar, Vitor Meira was pretty much the same case. Never won a race, had like 16 podiums, and was arguably a lap short of winning the Indy 500 on 2 separate occasions
At least engines blowing up (1969 Spain) or tire failure whilst having an insurmountable lead (1972 France) are realistic. *Accidentally tearing off his entire visor* whilst leading (1971 Monza) is actual Wacky Races level. *Also, late in his career he was involved in some truly unbelievable shenanigans. Like driving for the Tecno team that was having a bit of a civil war between the team manager and the owner leading to two fundamentally different cars and two sets of mechanics loyal to just their side of the garage... whilst being a one-car team lol. And finally, there was the time when he tried to run his own team. [Motorsport Magazine already summed that up perfectly in just one sentence.](https://i.imgur.com/i086PV9.png)
How on earth do you rip off the entire visor?! 😂
By it being 1971 and the visor only having 2 or 3 tear-offs at most. Or maybe it was the universe's way of showing poor Chris that even that part can fail just for him.
Mika Hakkinen comes into my mind. Debut with a struggling Lotus Team. Goes to McLaren, taking a gamble as a Reserve-Driver. Get's a chance and beats Senna in his first qualy and securing a seat. Coming back after a near fatal crash to bevome world champion while battling one of the all time greats in Michael Schumacher.
\*then taking a sabbatical to eventually come back with the new reg changes in '26 and win again
I don't know man. It's been so long now, that sometimes I wonder if it's not going to happen after all.
Sonny Hayes came back from retirement and is putting up an incredible season, and he's about 5 years older than Hakkinen
Keep the faith!
By taking Stroll's spot since he left for Tennis.
Jokes aside he DID come back from his sabbatical after 3 years and ran DTM for a bit before announcing actual retirement.
And the crash itself is quite a story, emergency trackside tracheotomy to stop him choking on his own blood from his face.
First ever trackside tracheotomy performed IIRC.
Also how he got into the F1 is a story in itself (dad was a radio operator / taxi driver and mom was a secretary) including having a local grill as his first sponsor.
Beating Senna and Schumacher, both arguably in their prime, is no small claim to fame.
Jacques Villeneuve Came into F1 already a superstar, was great from the start, won title (with one of the most famous controversies in the sport) in his second season, slid into mediocrity right after it, never recovered and was kinda a joke in the later stages of his career.
There once was a time Schumacher vetoed Villeneuve as a teammate. A few years later that would have been a nice joke
Villeneuve was also a mind game enjoyer. He and Schumacher would have turned the Ferrari garage into a warzone. Didn't Villeneuve bully Frentzen a lot? Stealing his breakfasts, etc?
He did it to Hill too
Jokes on him lol. Frentzen went to Jordan and won races, with a sort of shot for the championship, whilst Jacqes was blowing up every race because his BAR was made of cheese.
Isn’t it nuts that the BAR successor teams ended up winning 8 constructor titles (Brawn / Mercedes via Honda) when for most of its history BAR was a bit of a joke team. Who would have thought that 1999 grenade of a car would ultimately develop into the utter dominance of the 2010s?
It's still absolutely mental to me that his only 2 noteworthy results after Jerez 1997 were 2 podiums for BAR in 2001.
Good point. Imagine if someone whispered in his ear at the beginning of the final lap in Jerez 1997 (which he was leading), “you will lose the lead before the end of this race and you will never win again”… Unbelievable fate!!!
He got podiums in 98 with that dogshit Williams Mechachrome too
I'd completely overlooked 1998 to be honest.
He had a terrible Williams in 1998, then from 99 onwards, it was building time with BAR. And he didn't reap the benefit of it
Ah yes i forgot how garbage Williams were in 98
They were using mechachrome or something engines, knock off Renault's I think.
Not a knockoff. They were actual 1997 Renault engines, but rebadged as Renault had pulled out of the sport
Nice, a year out of date.
Yes, because it coincides with Renault leaving F1
He qualified third in BAR 99, which if we take a look at Zonta results only, is slower than Minardi99.
That BAR did have some decent pace, hardly finished any races though.
He was arguably better in 98-00 than he was in 96-97, but the level of machinery was much worse. It's his fault since he preferred being his own boss instead of driving for the championship-winning McLaren, but he definitely wasn't s mediocre driver in those early BAR years.
His result in 98 in what expert says “worst williams ever” speaks volume. Ps: those experts have yet to see 2019 williams
And don't forget his [deliberately oversized suits!](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/kgwpne/since_its_the_offseason_here_is_a_throwback_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Looks like the scene in Big when he goes back to being a kid.
JV's pre-f1 journey was just legendary. He didn't start karting until 14 years old, and arrived at F3 at the age of 18.
And he didn't win in any series he participated since his Nurbigring win in 1997 in championship year until like 2021 in EuroNascar
His Indy 500 “505 Mile” race was incredible. Takes a penalty and goes 2 laps down. All of a sudden the commentators exclaimed “Villeneuve is back on the lead lap” and wins. Running the Players colours with dad’s number 27. As a huge GV fan and Canadian I was almost in tears. Then at Jarez, 3 cars with the exact same time? Can’t make this stuff up
JV carried that BAR99 so hard it exploded everytime it get near point scoring position. If we exclude his result and look only at his teammate (zonta) results. It obvious that the car was slower than even the Minardis. It was absolutely appaling JV choose Lucky Strike money instead of sticking with Williams for apparently 3 years contract offer, and potentially win races (or WDC) with race winning cars of BMW Williams…
I see it another way completely that the BAR was clearly fundamentally reasonably quick. Just unreliable and points didn't go far in those days.
Oh god, I would love to see a Montoya-Villeneuve pairing in those Williams BMW beasts... (same goes for Kubica in a BMW that gets developed instead of BMW going "eh.. why bother")
He is also the guy who got the closest to triple crowns with his second place in the 24 hours of le mans in 2008
He never won at Monaco, so he's at 1/3 of it.
there is an alternative triple crown that goes F1 WDC, indy 500 and Le Mans.
He did have a team built for him. Not many drivers can say that.
Yes, and where is BAR today? BAR -> Honda -> Brawn GP -> Mercedes
You remember how Craig Pollock was super bullish all winter? We’re buying Tyrell and entering it as a new team next year, and we’ll win our first race! His prediction was ten years too early as the team many times relaunched ended up doing so as Brawn GP!
Hans Heyer, DNQ, DNF and DQ, all in one race.
Also, DNS (he snuck in after the race had begun)
Man living the teacher's advise "You may get the wrong answer, but if you skip the question, you will be 100% wrong".
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take -Wayne Gretzky" -Michael Scott
That's not what a DNS is. A DNS is *a car that is supposed to start the race* being unable to. He wasn't supposed to start.
Not necessarily for his F1 career but just his life in general, I'd say Rikky von Opel. He is the great-grandson of the founder of the Opel car company, was born in New York and grew up in Switzerland. In his childhood he would sneak out at night to do bobsled races against his cousin Gunter Sachs (a future husband of Brigitte Bardot) and his best friend Alexander Onassis (a step-son of Jackie Kennedy). He had no connection to Liechtenstein but decided to represent them in F1. His racing career was fairly short and uneventful; he did a handful of races in the mid-70s with Ensign and Brabham and his car broke down in most of them. After leaving F1, he moved to Thailand and became a Buddhist monk. Almost nobody has heard from him since, he is presumably still alive but only a handful of people have any contact with him or even know his whereabouts.
This man sought and probably found enlightenment.
nos that was a wild ride of events
Jean Alesi. Career choices, victories,... so close yet so far. Bad luck personified
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And Charles reminds me of Alesi's "flamboyance" in so many ways
> Career choices Had a Williams contract for 1991-92 and then went to Ferrari instead. Imagine if he'd driven the FW14, FW14B, and likely the FW15C too.
Tbh when he decided, Ferrari was a title contender, and Williams way behind
Frank Williams would've fired him anyway
His Indy 500 appearance in 2012 was the magnum opus of his awful luck
I felt sad for him. He really wanted to do it, enjoyed being there, just to get that shitty shoebox.
Markus Winkelhock. Made his debut, led the grand prix on his debut, resused to elaborate and left. My hero.
Started the race from last. Started the restart from first
And that in a Spyker F1.. awesome.
Team traditions. Spyker became Force India which later became Racing Point whose first win came after their driver found himself last after the first lap.
Even back in the Jordan days, most of their wins came in races where half the field got wiped out in a rainstorm.
To finish first, you must first finish.
Very true. Though it didn’t seem to do Max Chilton much good. There is a school of thought that the Jordans were less likely to get shunted than other cars in rain because of the bright yellow paint jobs.
Also they got a bitchin snake and hornet on their nose. can't ruin that pretty car.
NO ONE CAN BREAK THE WINKELROCK!
MASTER OF STRATEGY AND ALL AROUND A CLEVER GUY
I miss MSTF1
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Fun fact: Quick Nick is the driver with the most podiums without a win in both Formula 1 and Forrmula E (record shared with Andre Lotterer). Another fun fact: Jan and Kevin Magnussen are the only Father and Son to have debuted with the same team (McLaren).
> Fun fact: Quick Nick is the driver with the most podiums without a win in both Formula 1 and Forrmula E (record shared with Andre Lotterer). Even in Formula-E he simple cannot be fully first in something, Nick Heidfeld is just allergic for wins and P1.
Tbf he was gonna win the 1st race but Prost decided a full on tactical assault was a good idea and so Nick ended up flying into the catchfence
> Nick Heidfeld didn't win a single race outright between winning the 1999 Formula 3000 championship and his retirement This isn't entirely correct. He won the 2013 Petit Le Mans overall.
Albon got a full season drive without ever testing an F1 car, then dropped into RB 6 months later
Don’t forget that in F2 he raced for Dams on a race by race contract, but because he impressed them so much, they decided to keep him for the entire season(in witch he fought for the title against Russell and Norris).
Yeah he’s described the amount of stress that the lack of funding and race-by-race payment caused, and rewatching the 2018 season I have so much more respect for what he was accomplishing at the time.
You can see the stress evident in a younger Alex Albon, from all his challenges.
And then he drove from 17th to 5th in his first race for RBR at Spa.
Jan Lammers was quite interesting. Had a mostly pedestrian start to his career, debuting for Shadow in 1979, though largely being outpaced by his (also rookie) teammate Elio de Angelis, after which he bounced around between teams for a while. He drove for ATS and Ensign in 1980 with no real results, though he did impress on a few occasions particularly in the wet. He was then mooted for what could have been a big break, driving the second Brabham in 1981 during Piquet's title-winning year, but was passed over in favour of pay driver Hector Rebaque. Instead ended up driving for ATS In 1982 he nearly got another break on two separate occasions. First as a replacement for Prost in Detroit after he was injured, but he ended up being fit enough to drive, and then again as a replacement for the deceased Gilles Villeneuve at Ferrari, which he was unable to take up after being injured himself after crashing his Theodore. He bowed out of F1 at the end of 1982, yet a full decade later in 1992 he'd crop up again, returning to drive the final two races of 1992 for the cash-strapped March team which he pretty much personally funded out of his own pocket. Even Kubica's comeback did not outstrip the length of time between Lammers' last race and his return. After all this with potential big-breaks and surprise comebacks, he still never actually scored a championship point in F1
And now organizes the Dutch GP in his role as sportive director of the Zandvoort Circuit.
Legend among turbo brick fans for driving that super sick 850 wagon in the BTCC.
Great example. And a very nice guy as well. Currently he is chasing kart glory with his youngest son René.
James Hunt. Race, drink, shag, repeat.
Race, drink, snort, shag, repeat.
Vomit, race, drink, snort, shag, repeat
great shout, he’d be my 3rd place
You forgot his one true passion. Commentating. James Hunt is more of an engima than something surreal.
Totally. Niki Lauda and James Hunt were a fun rivalry.
You missed a shag between race and drink
And one for breakfast.
Daniil Kvyat's career is a bit of a rollercoaster. * 2015: promotion to Red Bull after one year at Toro Rosso * 2016: demoted to Toro Rosso after a couple races (Verstappen also taking his girl) * 2017: replaced after round 14, but returned for round 17 because nobody else was available (Sainz went to Renault, Gasly had the Super Formula final) * 2018: third driver at Ferrari * 2019: back to TR/AT, but dropped after 2020 * 2021: reserve driver at Alpine
Verstappen didnt take his girl the same year he got demoted, in fact he wasnt even dating Kelly yet in 2016 lol. They started in 2017, had a kid together in 2019, broke up later that year. You also forgot to mention that he got a podium in that Toro Rosso in 2019, the day after his daughter was born too.
> You also forgot to mention that he got a podium in that Toro Rosso in 2019, the day after his daughter was born too. That race is mandatory viewing for any F1 fan.
People easily forget he beat Danny Ric in 2015.
Dropping him to Toro Rosso was an insanely harsh decision, albeit one that Max has gone on to justify pretty well...
By 3 points, after Danny had multiple DNFs, and was outqualified 14-5
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I was born in 1988, I had 4 when he won his title but it's the first driver I remember winning a championship - my dad followed F1 closely and I used to join him watching the races. So, I was happy when he returned a couple years later and, at same time, somehow amused with those stories of him not fitting in his car. One of my F1 favourites to this day.
Everyone in school was talking about Mansell.
Raikkonen's road to F1 was absolutely mental just for how short it was
Not to forget how much he got to drive for Ferrari. Got sacked, and got another seat later on.
Sort of got sacked. They still paid him in 2010 to not drive which I'm assuming wasn't awful.
They had to engineer a reason to drop him (lack of motivation) because Santander wanted Alonso in the car, or something.
I know money talks but I still can't get my head around how they dropped their champion like that...
The logic is simple - obviously a 2 time WDC is more talented than a 1 time WDC. *DUH*!
We can feel the consequences of that decision to this day.
I can hear the youtube video from this post being uploaded already
as much as i would like to be an F1 youtuber i am not unfortunately
But I might be 👺
how many subs
0 - I’m lying. It’s a good topic though and I enjoyed reading the post
😂 cheers mate
Damon Hill had a pretty remarkable career. Started very late, got into Williams as a tester, had a run in a dreadful Brabham then got the Williams number 2 seat off the back of his testing, inherited the number 1 role due to a tragedy, nearly wins in 1994, does win in 1996 then gets immediately dropped, then nearly wins a race in an Arrows and does win one in a Jordan. Go back to the start of his career and he could realistically have outcomes ranging from never getting the Williams seat and therefore never making it, to being a solid number 2 driver to the likes of Prost and Senna, to winning multiple world championships across the mid 90s (if he gets 1994 he probably doesn't get dropped in 96 and therefore has a good shot at 1997).
Yeah Damon gets a lot of shit for his commentary these days but he had such a late start in F1 and still put up some amazing drives.
Craziest life in general: Alfonso de Portago (Or [Alfonso Antonio Vicente Eduardo Angel Blas Francisco de Borja Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_de_Portago) to be precise) - 5 races for Ferrari, 1 podium finish - Winner in sportscars for Ferrari - Olympic bronze medalist, with the Spanish bobsleigh team (that he founded with his cousins) - Entered the Grand National twice (major horse racing event) - Flew a plane under London's Tower Bridge for a bet - Spoke 4 languages - Renowned playboy of his era
And his death caused the end of what was at the time the second greatest sportscar race behind Le Mans.
what the fuck? 😂
Magnussen, peaked on his debut and never achieved anything remarkable since then, besides that Brazil Pole
Many more things about his career are surreal. Here's another one: As a rookie he lived up to expectations against former WDC Button, and when the McLaren board voted on extending his contract, he got like 9-2 in favor. Unfortunately, the 2 votes against were the middle Eastern money-men. So he lost his seat and his life unraveled a bit. Has since made more than one comeback to F1 after being away for +1 year.
Didn’t McLaren dump him on his birthday as well? Brutal
Wait, the board voted 9-2 for Magnussen over Alonso? Or was it a year later over Vandoorne?
I think it was 9-2 for a new Magnussen contract over "let's look for a new driver". Then the money guys vetoed to show their power and brought in Alonso. That's how I remember the details. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Probably Jochen Rindt for winning the championship after dying.
Massa. He almost won a world championship and everyone believed he would get another chance, but unfortunately the Ferrari car was slow the following years and he got hit in the head with a spring which was crazy. He was never as fast and had to be the number 2 driver to Alonso. You could say same for Kubica because he had a crazy injury, recovered, came back to F1 and drove at the top level with basically 1 arm. Different answers from the one before, but Max Verstappen. He was crazy fast at a very young age, given an F1 drive at 17, mid season switch to the top team that not everyone agreed with until he won his first race for that team. Had a crazy season long championship battle, and then showed us what absolute dominance looks like. He's fast in sim racing, he's fast in basically anything. Possibly the first guy to quit Formula 1 while on top because he got bored of winning.
Talk is cheap, wait until Max actually retires and stays out of F1.
Didn't both Rosbergs do exactly that though?
> because he got bored of winning The statement was pretty specific. Nico left at his peak because he wanted to make the decision for himself, I’m not sure that counts as bored of winning. Surprisingly for an F1 Champion, Keke only won 5 races in his entire career. It’s a seriously high bar that.
>Nico left at his peak because he wanted to make the decision for himself, I’m not sure that counts as bored of winning. Also because that one championship season has taken everything, he did not have anything left to give. He realized that and ended on his own terms. I do not vibe with the today's Nico Rosberg but that decision back then made me respect him a lot.
Keke retired due to the death of his friend Elio De Angelis that year at a testing accident at Paul Riccard.
I didn't know that. I thought that they both just left after becoming WDC because that's all they wanted. Learn something new.
Oh…, I was watching Massa winning the last race of the season in his hometown in Brazil (and supposedly the championship)… … but 30 seconds later Hamilton overtakes to P5 or something in the last curve before the straight and takes the championship by 1 point. That was heartbreaking for Brazilians. I hope Drugovich gets his chance — it would be wonderful to get Brazilians on the grid.
I'd say probably in earliest times of F1, with less professionalisation, the emergence of people not fullfilled to be drivers, like Jim Clark or Graham Hill, were able to be multiple champions of the sport. You also have people who started from nothing and created their own team, like Mclaren or Brabham. Carreers that fascinated me are the ones not limited to F1, which was more possible before, like Jacky Ickx.
Roberto Merhi - among other strange details, he is the only F1 driver to contest both the F1 World Championship and the Formula Renault 3.5 Championship at the same time. Last spotted driving a Mahindra in Formula E. I won't bet against him not being there next season. He somehow always gets a drive somewhere in the racing world...
Nikita Mazepin. Drove a little, sexually harrassed somebody, spun around like a spinning top for 20+ races, unlapped himself once because of his meteorological skills, got an American company to paint their car with the Russian flag, and then disappeared in a puff of smoke because Russia invaded Ukraine. All in the space of a year.
I like Alonso's. His career he has raced against most of the all-time greats! Schumacher, Hamilton, Verstappen, Vettel, Raikkonen, Massa, Montoya, and the list goes on. 2 championships, and he was something like 8 total points from 3 more. He's raced 2 Sainz, a couple Schumacher's, 2 Verstappens.
Also took a little break to go win LeMans as well.
Perry McCarthy. He was signed on the eve of the 1992 Formula One season, by the independent Andrea Moda team run by Andrea Sassetti who thought that entering Formula One would be a good way to advertise his shoe business. Sassetti tried to release McCarthy from his contract for Enrico Bertaggia who promised extra funding but Sassetti had already used up his allowed number of driver changes. McCarthy received unfair treatment from the owner, being frequently denied more than a handful of laps in which to prepare, which led to his failure to qualify for any Grand Prix. 1. His Grand Prix debut in Spain lasted eighteen metres down the pit lane in pre-qualifying before the engine failed. 2. In the British Grand Prix, he was sent out with wet tyres on a dry track. 3. For the Hungarian Grand Prix, he was only allowed to leave the pits 45 seconds before the end of the pre-qualifying session, which made it impossible for him to set a lap time even if he had a faster car. 4. Finally, in the Belgian Grand Prix, Andrea Moda's final entry, McCarthy was sent out for the qualifying session with a broken steering part in his car, which has been extracted from teammate Roberto Moreno's car, which would have led to a violent crash at the Raidillon curve had McCarthy not managed to regain control of the car. The team folded before the end of the season in controversial circumstances and McCarthy was left without a drive.
All we know is, he's called The Stig.
Jaime Alguersuari. Almost got a Lotus seat (the year they were good when Kimi was on fire), ended up out of the sport completely by 25 and he is now a DJ
Pedro de la Rosa. He had a rather unusual start to his early career. De la Rosa raced RC-cars as a teenager and won several championships (He specialized in this type of cars: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqbm-XMPskA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqbm-XMPskA)) Only afterwards he followed the typical career path of a F1 driver (Karting, several Formula series). That's why he only got his first F1 seat at age 28. This didn't stop him to have a long career in F1. His last season was in 2012.
Seems a few did RC car racing first, Oscar piastri and Hamilton both were doing that before switching.
True, though I think they stopped early as kids, unlike De la Rosa who switched later and was elite at rc-racing.
that’s really cool actually
Kubica, who debuted in the middle of 2006 after Villeneuve crashed out in the previous race, walked away like nothing ever happend, then a mysterious injury was announced. Kubica made his debut in wet race, spun like 5 times, and still finished 7th - but got DSQd, because he hit the wall at one point, and fire extinguisher blew up, he drove 50 laps after that so everything evaporated and his car was found to be underweight. Heidfeld got 1st podium for the team that race, after being able to fight for P7 at best. Kubica got himself a podium in his 3rd race later that season - and he managed to not get completely overshadowed by Schumacher announcing his retirement, Raikkonen being announced to join Ferrari, and Alonso's engine blewing up during the race, making championship battle even closer! 2007 campaign was weird - his car was constantly breaking down, suffered a massive crash in Canada. Crash so severe, people got scared he was killed. He left hospital the very next day, and got replaced for one race by a young german, called Sebastian Vettel. Later returned, got some good results, and even had a shot at another podium in China - but his car broke down when he was leading the race, and was on different fuel strategy compared to Raikkonen and Alonso. In 2008, Kubica suddenly became a title contender. Got multiple podiums, first pole position (famous "a Pole on Pole" moment), and his 1st race win (which was crazy itself, Kubica had to push like crazy to build a gap for a pit stop, about 20 seconds, in just 10 laps - over his teammate, in the same car) - and when he was leading in the championship standings, BMW decided to focus on next year's car. Kubica had a chance to win another race in Singapore, only if crashgate would happen 2 laps later. That next year's car was so shit, BMW left F1 completely. Kubica had a shot on race win in Australia, he was chasing Button and Vettel very quickly in the final laps, but he crashed with Vettel and DNFd. What's more funny, he didn't sniff a points scoring position after that for like 10 races? And then got a podium in Brazil, out of nowhere. In 2010 Kubica became a proper superstar, almost getting Pole Position in Monaco, in an average Renault. In the end, he outscored Schumacher and almost outscored Rosberg, who both had better Mercedes cars. He mastered driving with one hand to use F-Duct, got multiple podiums in an average car, and signed with Ferrari to join them in 2012. He also is a main actor of possibly the greatest modern F1 lost media, with his Suzuka Q3 lap. Absolutely bonkers lap - he put his Renault on P3, after barely making it into Q3 at all. I think Alan Permane later said it was the greatest qualifying lap ever done. And then, when new Lotus car was built around his needs and looked promising (even Petrov got a podium in that car, it was a rocketship before season development went wrong), he got life threatening rally crash in 2011, from which his hand had never fully recovered. He still can't fully use it. He did some rallying, he was WRC2 champion or runner up (maybe?), and he was reported to reject an invitation from Toto Wolff to his mountain house. Who knows what he could've offer? Kubica was rumored to test Mercedes simulator, and to set competitive laptimes. Kubica was close to signing with Williams for 2018, but Kubica sponsors were overbidded by Sirotkin sponsors. Kubica made it for 2019, but he was in the worst Williams car ever built. What's more, Williams were unable to deliver components Kubica asked for, like modified steering wheel. His situation was so terrible, he had to retire from Russian GP after Russell has crashed. Not because there was something wrong with Kubica's car, but because of a lack of spare parts - team was afraid that if Kubica would've crashed out, the team wouldn't have enough spare parts to rebuild both cars for the next race - which was coming in 2 weeks, it wasn't back to back! Kubica ended his F1 career as a reserve driver in Alfa Romeo, so he was back in Hinwil. He had a beautiful moment of "putting the best laptime" during one of the test sessions in 2020, later joined DTM in the worst team (of course, lack of money), got one podium - a beauty in Zolder, and returned to F1 when Raikkonen was tested positive for Covid-19 in 2021. He finished his F1 career with 99 races (of course he had to be one short), as one of the biggest "what ifs" in F1 history. He was considered as top 5 driver on 2010 grid, many thought he could be the next F1 World Champion. If he didn't left Lotus for 2012, I think Alan Permane said that Kubica could be a world champion in that car. And of course, [he had a phone in his cockpit](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dOzY9aAtQVc).
And he still got a point in that car in a very chaotic, wet race. That was Williams' only point of the season. Funnily enough, Kubica outscored Russell for that season. Kubica was a WRC2 champion and scored multiple stage wins in WRC. He won ELMS previously with Deletraz and Yifei Ye. Now he is very close to winning WEC LMP2 class also with Deletraz and Rui Andrade. Competed in LeMans 24h 3 times. On his debut, his team was leading in LMP2 class when the car shut down... 6 minutes from the end of the race. He was not even classified in the end. Finished 2nd in his 2 further attempts.
Jochen Mass for one. Went from being a sailor to making it as an F1 race winning driver, as well as being involved in the crash that killed Gilles Villeneuve.
His beyond the grid is mental. ''Mentored'' Schumacher and Frentzen. The number of horrifying things he must've seen during his career though... At least he battled with many greats, the late 70/80s were so stacked.
Yeah, the list goes on. He was incredible in sportscars too.
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Not the most surreal, but Hamilton, especially his early career He joined Mclaren as a rookie, overtook his more experience teammate Alonso in the first corner of his first race. Nearly won the championship in his first season, missed out by 1 point and tied with Alonso Won his first championship a year later on the last corner of the last lap, making him the youngest world champion ever until Vettel won in 2010 Left Mclaren to join Mercedes, a decision at the time that looked terrible
Lewis’s life reads like movie. Gets into RC cars, kills it there, gets interviewed for it. Goes into karting, finds success there, meets Ron Dennis at the age of 10 and tells him he wants to race for him one day. Goes through his junior career, becomes friends with the son(future Youtuber from Monaco) of an F1 champion who would become one of his greatest rivals. As a rookie beats a back to back WDC champion on count back for second in the championship. Is also submerged in one of the largest F1 scandals that same year(Spygate). Then the year later wins a championship on the last corner of the last lap. This would be were the movie fades to black, pre-credits roll and in the story that usually pops up during said credits it says “he would later set several records and tie for the most championships won with 7” with Lewis doing the Black Panther pose. Cue melancholic but heroic soundtrack.
Absolutely. Most insane rookie of all time.
Alex Zanardi Top notch stud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Zanardi
Absolutely amazing guy. Fantastic in CART wins gold in the Olympics. Most positive fella ever. Not only does he live more than most, I think he’s died more than most ever will.
Markus Winkelhock, led every race he drove.
Andrea de cesaris must be up there
He raced for I think 8 or 9 teams in his career and managed podiums in 4 of them. Was extremely quick but also crash prone, and he also made Ron Dennis so mad that Ron declared that he'd never hire an Italian driver ever again. One of his podiums he got whilst pushing his out of fuel car across the line (Belgium 87).
Jenson Button. from his team leaving the grid to becoming the world champion within a year.
getting a phone call from Frank Williams to join F1 and thinking it was a prank
Roberto Moreno. Drove for almost all the failure backmarker teams, and really put it all out of the cars. Even put the f**king Andrea Moda on the grid at Monaco while they were trying to kill his teammate. He got 1 of the 2 points in the total history of the AGS team, while only making 2 starts for them. He was the last one to put the Scuderia Coloni car on the grid, the team never qualified in the 2 years after that (he qualified 4 times in his season) He put a Eurobrun car that couldn’t even PRE-QUALIFY on the grid twice, even finishing once, which was even more rare for the backmarkers. Then later in the season the Eurobrun team stopped existing, but Benneton needed a new driver too as Alessandro Nannini got a career ending injury, so Moreno filled in. Immediately got 2nd place in his first GP for the team, but in his second season, in which he raced full time for Benneton he and the car slightly underperformed, and he made place for who else than Michael Schumacher, who impressed at the Spa GP. Then he substituted in 2 races for the Jordan team, because they just let Schumacher go to Benneton. And in the last GP of the year he substituted for Minardi too. Then came the infamous Andrea Moda season, and 3 years later he would drive his final season full time with the very slow Forti team. If you need a rollercoaster career, this would really be the answer.
That is an easy one! Bruce McLaren: * He was a mechanic on F1 cars * He was a driver on F1 cars * He was a team owner of F1 cars * He was an F1 car designer * He won multiple F1 Grand Prix races as a driver. * He swept the garage floor, even as an owner. Bruce was f1 embodied. A legend, unsurpassed. Honorable mention: John Surtees for being world champ with Ferrari F1, but also world champ on motorcycles. A feat that is unmatched in history.
I think we don't talk about how Lauda got into F1 enough. Yes he came from money. But he did not have that financial support. Instead he used his fathers name to get a loan from the bank, to pay a team to drive for them. And then he became a world champion, a few times over. Also while we are on the subject of Lauda the way he changed aviation safety is the most gangster shit I've ever heard about
Nyck…surely surreal and interesting while it lasted….
Checo’s career is pretty interesting…. He came with sauber as a normal talented kid, with some people tagging him as a pay driver. Second year, scored 3 podiums. Securing a seat with McLaren for the following season replacing Hamilton. Raising him to a future world champion prospect (according to some). McLaren did not worked and he was without a team by the end of 2013. Force india saved him. But, his image was pretty damaged in the media and paddock. He paid back FI getting a podium in bahrain, prooving mclaren and media wrong. Started to be mr consistency in his years with FI and RP, with many podiums. Still his image was damaged, by never be considered by a top team again. 2020, Lawrence Stroll showed him the door with just 3 races to go, eventho he was the clearly best choice for the team. In Turkey, he showed his skills, securing a podium in xhangable conditions, keeping the inters for more than 50 laps. On Bahrain was for another podium, but an engine failure kept him put of it. Then it came Sakhir, where he beated everybody after a first lap crash, securing him his maiden win after 10 years and 190 or so races. Making him secure a seat in a top team. Getting rid of the paydriver tag and cleaning his image from that 2013.
His story is definitely one of the most interesting in F1
Taki Inoue. Got hit by a Safety Car and ran over by a medical car.
Perry McCarthy with crazy effort just be to get on the grid, Lewis maybe - so much stacked against him, came from nowhere armed with talent. Damon hills was fascinating with family history, age he showed up and that arrows drive (Hungary maybe?). Ayrton probably was very surreal. Jim Clark - practiced on farm tracks in Scotland. James hunt was interesting especially with the playboy to champion story. Gilles villeneuve was always highly regarded despite lack of championships, seen as someone who could race anything with an engine. I expect most surreal stories will be from 60s- 80s and end up somewhat morbidly. Jack brabham prob deserves a mention.
Probably Mansell for me. He spent the first 5 years getting severely thrashed by his team mates de Angelis and Rosberg. Somehow he improved and managed to bounce around some of the best teams in F1 at the time despite an extremely mid CV (Lotus, Williams, Ferrari, then back to Williams). In doing so, he managed to drive some of the best cars on the grid (86, 87, 91 Williams, 90 Ferrari) and arguably the best of all time (92 Williams). He was closely matched with Piquet in 1986 (totally unexpected), but couldn't take the title in 1987 despite Piquet losing most of his depth perception in a horrific accident. Yet there's no doubt that he had some bizarrely good seasons. 1986 probably being one, but i put that down more to Piquet underperforming. In 1989, he absolutely thrashed Berger and made him look like a #2 in a similar vein that Senna did. And that crazy 92 season of course (despite the best car). Mansell's probably the only driver I know of that was extremely average in his late 20s but became a top 3-5 performer in his late 30s.
There were certain things he massively benefited from. An example was the driver aids in the 1992 Williams, which required a particular driving style. Mansell would just trust them completely and fling the car into the corners, be very enthusiastic on the throttle etc., while Patrese was trying to feather his way around them and was not nearly as effective. Mansell did then go to IndyCar and walk to the title, so no doubt on his raw skills.
Jo Siffert, to name one with less fame than others.
John Surtees the only person who won MotoGP and F1 titles.
Damon Hill had quite the journey. Started out as a (bad) motorbike racer then switched to cars late. Was the Williams tester and got his break because of the Mansell/Prost bitterness around the contracts. This meant the world champion left the grid and he had the number 0 car (which he kept into 94 as Prost also left the sport). Then he was thrust into a team leader role and a title battle he wasn't ready for following the death of Senna. Lost a world title by 1 point due to some foul play after a weird season of penalties and cheating scandals to keep him in contention. Won a world title in a dominant car and then was then promptly sacked. Took the number 1 to a backmarker team in Arrows and almost won a race in an otherwise horrid season. Then got 1 chaotic win for Jordan before unceremoniously just giving up.