Would any of you agree with Ukyo Katayama?
Somewhat. He did very well in 1994 with the surprising Tyrrell-Yamaha package, even topping practice times on one or two occasions, but then he developed back cancer and didn't go public with it until after he retired from F1 three seasons later. The back cancer made Grand Prix racing uncomfortable for him and the Grand Prix commitments delayed his cancer treatment. He could have shown more flashes of brilliance he had shown in 1994, had he not been suffering from cancer.
However. He was in his late 20s at this point. It held him back in his 1995 and 1996 seasons, by which point Tyrrell slipped to the last two rows of the grid anyway. When he moved to Minardi in 1997 and announced his retirement from F1 and disclosed his cancer, he was nearly 31 and unlikely to have done any better than say, Herbert or Panis in an upper midfield Ligier or Sauber.
So while it is unfortunate that he suffered cancer when he was at his F1 peak and started to prove his worth, and
might have scored more points with a more competitive car, he was unlikely to have ever graduated to the top third of the grid and probably raced where he was always going to.
Ultimately, it depends what you define as a 'lost' talent. Many of the drivers people suggest are drivers who actually had careers in F1 as opposed to drivers who never made it to F1 but could or should have. I myself suggested Fernando Alonso but the difference there is that Alonso's talent is demonstratively obvious given what he has done in the crap cars he's been in since 2008 onwards. All the midfield runners like Frentzen, Katayama and so on, while not without merit and mitigating circumstances for being unfulfilled F1 talent, are speculative at best in terms of being a devastating 'lost' talent like Francois Cevert or an incredulous missed opportunity like Fernando Alonso.
