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Andretti was with Front Row in 2009.
Lost Motorsport Talents
- Thread starter J_Starscream
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Andretti was with Front Row in 2009.
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- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
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Hmm, he definitely raced for RPM in the 2009 Indy 500 and my record book shows him in that team for the full season. As you were
I'm afraid to tell you your record book is wrong.
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2009 Indy 500 was a partnership with Dreyer/Reinbold and Petty, '10-'11 were Petty/Andretti Autosport for Indy and '10 Kansas.Hmm, he definitely raced for RPM in the 2009 Indy 500 and my record book shows him in that team for the full season. As you were
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- WeaselKing707
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To be fair to Lowndes, F3000 was insanely competitive in that time frame with up to 40 cars trying to qualify for 26 grid slots in nearly every race.
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- RazorSharkz
Luca Badoer? I don't think he could have been a clnsistent race winner or champion, but the fact that he is most well known for having started the most races without scoring a point seems wrong for a former F3000 champion.
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If his two outings in 2009 are anything to judge by...
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True, but it was kind of embarrassing that he was driving car #1 ...
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- mustafur
The main reason why I didn't mention him was because he did soo poorly, same can be said about Skaife.
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Noticed someone mentioning Davidson earlier and I completely agree. A highly intelligent driver who never truly got to show his talents in F1.
Adding to the list;
Alex Zanardi. I've read his autobiography and from what I remember of that book he was just very unlucky in F1, especially in '99 when he came back to drive for Williams. He got destroyed by Schumacher Jr but there were various reasons.
Marc Gené, Alex Wurz and Luca Badoer got lost in testing land much longer than normal.
Kenny Brack was close on a few occasions testing for Arrows and Williams
but he, like Justin Wilson and Takuma Sato and many others, opted for the U.S. in the end.
Adding to the list;
Alex Zanardi. I've read his autobiography and from what I remember of that book he was just very unlucky in F1, especially in '99 when he came back to drive for Williams. He got destroyed by Schumacher Jr but there were various reasons.
Marc Gené, Alex Wurz and Luca Badoer got lost in testing land much longer than normal.
Kenny Brack was close on a few occasions testing for Arrows and Williams
but he, like Justin Wilson and Takuma Sato and many others, opted for the U.S. in the end.
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- pj-gm
- PJwasHere876
Can we count drivers whose potential was hampered by injury?
I believe that Johnny Herbert was incredibly fast and was perhaps destined for glory up to his huge F3000 crash that broke his ankles and would have straight up ended most people's careers. Obviously he was never the same again, though he was still decent.
I think something similar happened to Brundle in junior formulae, with a similar outcome.
Pironi was undoubtedly talented up to his crash that ended his career before he could win a title, not too long after his much more popular teammate ended his career in a different way.
Ronnie Peterson could have amounted to an awful lot if not for his crash, I could say the same for Jochen Rindt, he went out on the very top and made an insurmountable gap in the championship before dying at the wheel. That must take talent.
I believe that Johnny Herbert was incredibly fast and was perhaps destined for glory up to his huge F3000 crash that broke his ankles and would have straight up ended most people's careers. Obviously he was never the same again, though he was still decent.
I think something similar happened to Brundle in junior formulae, with a similar outcome.
Pironi was undoubtedly talented up to his crash that ended his career before he could win a title, not too long after his much more popular teammate ended his career in a different way.
Ronnie Peterson could have amounted to an awful lot if not for his crash, I could say the same for Jochen Rindt, he went out on the very top and made an insurmountable gap in the championship before dying at the wheel. That must take talent.
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I think Marin Brundle's career-changing accident happened when he was in F1 at the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix. He admitted that physically, he was never the same driver after that because a lot of the training exercises most F1 drivers did would inflame his ankles and feet, so he was never as fit as he would've liked to be. I'll add that it might've mentally affected him as well.
As a case of "What might have been", I'll shine a light on Paul Warwick. By all accounts he was supremely talented in spite of several setbacks in F3 and was stuck dominating a regional F3000 series when he tragically lost his life at 22.
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- GTP_sneakyboy62
Yeah he's a Mexican former F1 driver known to possess the record of youngest driver who took the podium in the Le Mans 24 race, and youngest driver to start from the front row of the race in F1, but died during the practice session of the Mexico grand-prix by a gruesome accident like many of the others had in the then time, and most recently and notably, a brutal accident of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna in 1994's San Marino Grand-prix. After having read a couple of articles on the F1 races in 50 ~60's, in those past years when he was still active it seemed like the race organizers had no choice but put an emphasis to use a driver who has got an extraordinary talent for whatever purpose, rather than the "safety" of those drivers that always took a back seat due to lack of technology and thus for the F1 machines being way too "prime" in today's standard.
You can put a blame on the then Ferrari team's decision to intentionally skip the grand-prix or the brains of the team didn't really deliberate about "safety" of that driver in his late teen's, but for whatever reason it's always to sad such talented people widely considered to be a "would-be" behemoth in the future.
J_Starscream
(Banned)
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- J_Starscream
Not only did he put it on the front row, he was also leading at the time before a failure ended his race right?Yeah he's a Mexican former F1 driver known to possess the record of youngest driver who took the podium in the Le Mans 24 race, and youngest driver to start from the front row of the race in F1, but died during the practice session of the Mexico grand-prix by a gruesome accident like many of the others had in the then time, and most recently and notably, a brutal accident of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna in 1994's San Marino Grand-prix. After having read a couple of articles on the F1 races in 50 ~60's, in those past years when he was still active it seemed like the race organizers had no choice but put an emphasis to use a driver who has got an extraordinary talent for whatever purpose, rather than the "safety" of those drivers that always took a back seat due to lack of technology and thus for the F1 machines being way too "prime" in today's standard.
You can put a blame on the then Ferrari team's decision to intentionally skip the grand-prix or the brains of the team didn't really deliberate about "safety" of that driver in his late teen's, but for whatever reason it's always to sad such talented people widely considered to be a "would-be" behemoth in the future.
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- Blackshinything
Not really lost but James Hunt could've done so much more, wasted potential, all for drinks and women...
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- GTP_sneakyboy62
Not only did he put it on the front row, he was also leading at the time before a failure ended his race right?
Yep that's right
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J_Starscream
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Would you agree if I said Lucas di Grassi never fulfilled his talent?
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Seeing him now in FE, yes I would. It's tough to really gauge drivers in teams like Virgin, Caterham, and HRT.
For all we know, maybe Karthikeyan was a go-
Oh I thought I could get through that without cracking up...
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I'm going to agree with Davidson, but in a slightly different context - I think he is an absolutely fantastic commentator, and criminally under-used by Sky (though I appreciate that he has WEC commitments, I find it endlessly frustrating that Paul di Resta insists on calling Daniel Ricciardo "Danirl Ricky Ardo"). I am also going to add Karun Chandhok for the same reason, though I don't know if he is employed elsewhere. Both of them are intelligent, articulate, very engaging and don't really succumb to the cult of personality that surrounds some drivers (for example, Nico Rosberg got pole in Melbourne, but Jolyon Palmer got more air time in his post-qualifying interview). Moreover, Davidson and Chandhok walk the line between formal and colloquial; sometimes Croft and Brundle sound like they are providing commentary for a formal dinner.
They're talented broadcasters, and really what the sport needs, but they're also under-used.
J_Starscream
(Banned)
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He was a front runner in F3 and in GP2, definitely earned his F1 seat - albeit with a pretty weak team - and now he's fast in WEC and almost dominating Formula E. The guy has some serious talent to be quick in such a variety of cars!Seeing him now in FE, yes I would. It's tough to really gauge drivers in teams like Virgin, Caterham, and HRT.
For all we know, maybe Karthikeyan was a go-
EDIT: He's won a race in every series he's completed a full year of (bar WEC in 2014 and 2015). 👍
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Davidson & Chandhok are indeed both highly professional and very intelligent.
I can recommend this interview with Chandhok performed by Mario Muth (many other great interviews on his channel).
And Karun is sometimes acting as a sidekick to Peter Windsor (quite famous F1 reporter)
on Windsor's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/peterwindsor/videos
