The best of teams, the worst of times: A GPR advent calendar

December 11th – 15th

Dec 11: Ligier – Philippe Alliot

Philippe Alliot was one of those drivers whose main asset was his nationality and associated sponsorship. After an unimpressive two-year F1 stint with RAM Racing, Philippe was plying his trade in F3000 in early 1986 when Jacques Laffite crushed his career and legs in a Brands Hatch wall. With Guy Ligier preferring a French driver, Alliot was given a quick phone-call, and made his Ligier début on his 32nd birthday.

Despite a successful start to the season, with two podiums and regular points finishes, the second half of 1986 was harsh on Ligier, which remained confined to the midfield at the mercy of relentless Renault engine failures. Alliot, to his credit, was close to his teammate René Arnoux more often than not, and outqualified him twice out of seven occasions. Both of them only scored once in that time, with Alliot scraping a point for sixth in Mexico.

Philippe subsequently moved to Larrousse for three years, developing a reputation for regular accidents. However, the retirement of Arnoux and a good 1989 for Alliot resulted in a return to Ligier for the 1990 season.

Partnered with Nicola Larini, Alliot proved quicker than his teammate nine times out of 16 in qualifying, a good performance by most metrics. However, the JS33B was harmed by a lack of development and wasn’t any good to begin with. Alliot also proved to be far worse in race trim.

Larini beat Alliot 7-2 in the races where both finished, and Alliot recorded the team’s only failure to qualify. His tendency to crash also reached a climax with two race-ending accidents in Spain in Portugal, the latter incurring the commentating wrath of James Hunt.

After a further Larrousse stint and a single race with McLaren, Alliot retired from F1 in 1994, and later enjoyed a moderately-successful GT career.

Honourable mentions: There were many! Jean-Pierres Jabouille and Jarier had a tough time with their compatriot team, as did François Hesnault and part-time DJ Franck Lagorce. Thierry Boutsen and Jacky Ickx made the move from Belgium to have their chips, while Aguri Suzuki’s part-time stint in 1995 wasn’t particularly great either.

Thomas De Bock

Dec 12: Lotus – Dave Walker

This series of pieces would not be complete without mention of the only driver to score no points while his teammate won the title.

David Walker’s presence in F1 itself was easily justified. After winning every British Formula 3 title in existence in 1971, Walker was one of the category’s most successful drivers, and after many years of being a journeyman in lower categories, it only seemed fair for Lotus to give him a drive in Formula 1.

Throughout 1971, Walker tested the turbine-powered 56B model, and was entered in the Dutch Grand Prix that year. Dave started his first practice session by crashing the Lotus 72 meant for his teammate Dave Charlton, and wet qualifying left him 22nd on the grid.

walker_1972_F1_germany25lotus72

However, the four-wheel-drive car did well during the wet race, and Walker was already tenth when he stupidly crashed on only lap 6. Walker later dubiously claimed he could have won the race.

After winning an F3 support race in front of Lotus’ sponsors John Player Special, Walker was reluctantly given the 1972 drive alongside team favourite Emerson Fittipaldi.

The Lotus 72 was still one of the best cars in the field, but while Fittipaldi won the title, Walker’s mishaps are best listed: three suspension failures, one gearbox failure, two engine failures, two oil or fuel-related problems, both brake and throttle failures and six crashes. He also twice pitted with suspected failures, only to be told the issues were oil slicks and an indicator needle having broken.

Overweight, hard on his machinery and unwilling to learn from his mistakes, Walker fell out with the team, and an F2 test with GRD was used as an excuse to cite breach of contract. After Watkins Glen, Dave was fired and drifted to F2. He retired in 1975.

Honourable mentions: Plenty of nominations from all walks of Lotus’s life. Alberto Larreta and John Miles wasted Lotus machinery in the 1960s, Brian Henton had a difficult trio of entries in the ’70s, Johnny Dumfries was Ayrton Senna’s subservient in the ’80s (when it was acceptable) and the duo of Michael Bartels and Philippe Adams came in the preceding years before the team’s death. Walker’s misoperation of the Lotus 72 was the most heinous.

Thomas De Bock

Dec 13: March – Jo Siffert

In the annals of upstart Formula One teams, March Engineering’s début certainly ranks among the most successful. The team’s first F1 offering, the 701, won three of its first four races and took the pole in five of its first six in the hands of works driver Chris Amon and Tyrrell’s Jackie Stewart.

While the car did not develop over the season and the Lotus 72 increasingly came to the fore, one who seemingly disappointed from the beginning was the second works driver, Jo Siffert.

In 1970, Siffert made the difficult decision to part ways with his friend Rob Walker in favour of a works March drive, which he achieved with funding from his sportscar benefactor Porsche. ‘Seppi’ was himself a Grand Prix winner and, with Stewart and Amon, March had a better driving line-up on paper than many new Formula One teams can usually expect. But Siffert was rarely anywhere close to his team-mates’ pace.

siffert

While Amon and Stewart were fighting for the pole in the early races, Siffert was having to settle for the middle of the starting grid. While he tended to make up the deficit in the race, Siffert was still rarely troubling the points places. There was, as ever, some bad luck involved: Siffert was one of the victims of the Spanish Grand Prix qualifying fiasco and on the two occasions (Monaco and Germany, for the record) where points were slowly rising on the horizon the 701’s unreliable construction put an early halt to his race.

The score between teammates at the end of the 1970 world championship: Amon twenty-three, Siffert nil, and the Kiwi had also been dealt a few retirements. This was Siffert’s first pointless season since his part-time 1962 début year. Both drivers moved on to new teams for the following season – Amon to Matra after a management dispute, Siffert to BRM, where he would revitalise his F1 career before meeting a tragic end in the post-season World Championship Victory Race at Brands Hatch.

Honourable mentions: Siffert was perhaps the biggest name on the list, although Alex Soler-Roig was particularly hopeless in his March stint in 1971. Namesake Alex Ribeiro also endured a less-than-successful time with March, and Paul Belmondo’s time with the team before the end of its life had nothing going for it.

Anthony Byrne

Dec 14: Maserati – Giorgio Scarlatti

It was customary in the 1950s for teams to enter more than two cars, and Maserati was one of the worst offenders. Emboldened by the success of the 250F, the team often entered four cars, with the fourth usually handed to a youngster or competent gentleman driver.

Yet, in 1957, Maserati was on its last legs. When Carlos Menditéguy prematurely ended his European season, it was Scarlatti who was hired to join Juan Manuel Fangio, Jean Behra and Harry Schell. Until then, Scarlatti had cultivated a reputation for a total lack of speed, and he did little to shake it off in 1957.

While his illustrious teammates would invariably qualify in the top 10 – Fangio often on pole position –  Scarlatti only ever entered that top 10 once, in Pescara. His race performances were similarly awful, though he at least reliably brought the car home.

B62Coc4IIAAPInT

Sixth place in Pescara ahead of only an underpowered Jack Brabham came first, and an uncharacteristically decent drive in Monza followed, where he spent a good few laps in fifth place, before Harry Schell relieved him and brought the 250F home in the same position. This was the last race for the works Maserati.

Scarlatti somehow managed to walk away from that year with a championship point, but in a year where his teammate Fangio won the world title, it did little for his reputation. Scarlatti raced on-and-off until 1961, never scoring another point. When partnered with Behra at the 1958 Targa Florio, the Frenchman complained that Scarlatti’s pace cost them the win. Fitting, really.

Thomas De Bock

Dec 15: McLaren – Nigel Mansell

After winning the 1992 title, Mansell stepped away from F1 for a hugely successful stint in the US. Rocking up on the other side of the Atlantic, Mansell won the 1993 IndyCar title at the first time of asking, but results were less forthcoming the following year.

Four races with Williams in the second half of 1994 brought the moustachioed Midlander back to F1, but was not retained for 1995 after the team decided to hand a full-time drive to rookie David Coulthard.

That brought Mansell to McLaren at the behest of Marlboro, who wanted a championship winner in the car. Unable to lure Alain Prost out of retirement, Mansell was hastily shoehorned into the lineup alongside rising star Mika Hakkinen. This left Ron Dennis with more literal shoehorning to do.

nigel_mansell__1995__by_f1_history-d6uh6x5

It’s well documented that Nigel Mansell could not fit in the McLaren MP4/10. Mark Blundell, who’d been ousted by Tyrrell over the off-season, covered his shifts in the first two races as McLaren set to work on building a tub big enough for Mansell’s frame and elbows-out driving style. They needn’t have bothered.

Finally sitting in his tailor-made McLaren in time for the San Marino Grand Prix, Mansell’s threadbare performance could only yield a 10th place finish. He demanded more time to get up to speed, expressing his displeasure with the handling of the car having struggled to thread his needle-nosed MP4/10 around the Imola circuit.

He lasted just one more weekend. After 18 laps in the Spanish Grand Prix, Mansell simply gave up and retired from the race. Days later, Mansell and McLaren mutually agreed to cut ties – “the most appropriate course of action”, according to Ron Dennis. Having built a reputation as a tough, gutsy racer, Mansell’s half-hearted ending was an incredible anti-climax.

Honourable mentions: Philippe Alliot’s one rubbish race for McLaren wasn’t quite enough to give him the nod over Mansell. Andrea de Adamich, Heikki Kovalainen, Michael Andretti and Jochen Mass also endured stints of varying hopelessness.

Jake Boxall-Legge

Author