Grand Prix Rejects

I'm not sure if it's true but supposedly Pironi could have returned to F1 based on his fitness alone. However, he would have had to return the insurance money he had received after he was forced to leave F1. At least that's what many claim... I always thought that insurance companies didn't want to...

well let's hope that Renault gives him a proper test in a 2017 spec car then, there is an opportunity at the tests in Hungaroring this summer. I hope I'm wrong but this reminds me a lot of the tests that Didier Pironi did for AGS at Paul Ricard and for Ligier at Dijon in 1986. There was similar hype...

Jean-Pierre just bought that F1 team because he loved fast cars, he owned many Ferrari's, Onyx was just a hobby for him but he had absolutely no knowledge of the racing scene and he knew even less about how to run a team. And the money from Moneytron was some kind of massive fraudulent pyramid schem...

I would call it a privilege if I could spend time with let's say Jackie Stewart, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis or Frank Williams to name some people. But JP Van Rossem? Not really. He has a lot of knowledge about macro economics and that makes him interesting to me but that's about it,...

In Christian's defence, he came very close to scoring points on several occasions in 1987 with twice 7th, once 8th and three times a 9th. Martin Brundle, who was the only Zakspeed driver to ever score points for them, still considers his points finish in the Zakspeed one of his finest achievements b...

the journalist who said it on twitter apparently was someone from L'équipe and it was famous F1 journalist Mark Hughes who then tweeted it. But Hughes' source was that Frenchman from l'équipe, I have no clue how he knew the times when the team did not release any times. Maybe he knows someone from t...

I wish we had more attrition in F1 nowadays, it created more uncertainty on the results, and I wish there was more tyre degredation this year and most of all a budget cap F1 is basically a race between 3 to 4 cars this year and well it was a race between 2 cars last season To be fair that describes...

Sirotkin is their reserve driver... for what reason would they say Kubica was faster than him if it was not the truth? Renault never said that Kubica was faster as Sirotkin, they never even released a single lap time from either Kubica or Sirotkin. It was a French journalist (he is the only 'source...

strange that Nigel Mansell was linked with a Jordan drive in 1997, can't remember that You read all that info about MasterCard Lola, and what you comment on is Mansell joining Jordan?! Hi, yes I did read all the MasterCard Lola info but there was a scan of an article titled 'Ferrari breaks with tra...

What a crying shame that Warwick didn't choose Williams in favour of Renault for 1985. But off course Renault was a factory team and Derek could not know that Williams was going to become so strong and that Renault would back out of F1 at the end of F1 (why did Renault actually leave?) I always rate...

I know Jean-Pierre Van Rossem personally... *jaw drops* his health is really bad these days, he suffered from depression the past two years. he gave private lessons (very cheap actually) of macro economics as a hobby a couple of years and I followed lessons from him, he's a nice man with still a bi...

Modena did test at the end of the season for Benetton though, I'm certain about that, he was hoping for a race seat but they chose Nannini instead and Benetton offered Stefano only a test & reserve contract for '88. Few people understood why such a talented driver chose Eurobrun but I think a lo...

No clue about Warwick turning down Williams for Renault, I do know that Lotus wanted Warwick for 1986 but Senna cast a veto and they took Dumfries instead, poor Johnny never got a fair chance at Lotus, off course Dumfries was not in the same league as Senna but they treated him as the 5th wheel on a...

@ Wallio: I don't remeber Zanardi testing for Sauber, when was that, do you have a link to an article about this particular test?

Recently I have been comparing team mates in the '80s with each other. What was really baffling was the massive difference between Laffite and Rosberg at Williams and I really mean massive, people who complain about Jolyon Palmer (who seems to completely have lost all confidence, I think it's mostly...

At the time when he was in F1 I never rated him highly, even though he had beaten the quicker Ralt's of Thackwell and Nielsen to the F3000 title in '85. But looking more closely at his pace in F1, sure he was not in the same league as Thierry Boutsen's immense talent, but he did score Arrows' single...

I wish we had more attrition in F1 nowadays, it created more uncertainty on the results, and I wish there was more tyre degredation this year and most of all a budget cap
F1 is basically a race between 3 to 4 cars this year and well it was a race between 2 cars last season

Yes thank you Bravo was exactly the team I was referring too, I knew that Jordi Gene was getting lined up for them, no clue who the other driver potentially could have become I see that your article mentions Nicola Larini, Ivan Arias, Jordi Gené and Luca Badoer and even Damon Hill as prospective dri...

It would have been interesting to see a rehabilitated Didier Pironi drive for AGS in 1987. Sadly he made the fateful decision to concentrate on powerboat racing. At the time, a year after his AGS test, Pironi was also rumoured to be on the shortlist of Lola-Calmels (Larrousse) but then he died in t...

lol Enzo Coloni: "Pedro Chaves is an excellent driver, he posseses some remarkable qualities." and then he says (quote): "It is not easy to find a driver like Pedro Chavez, believe me." Now I've always had the utmost respect for Enzo Coloni, he usually managed to sign extremely t...

I remember that a couple years after the Glas project there was also talk of a new Spanish F1 that never materialised (although Glas did become the Modena Lambo project off course) and I'm not talking about Campos / Hispania / HRT off course, it was in the 1990's. Does anyone remember this or the na...

Wasn't she the girlfriend of Elio de Angelis back in the '80s?
I'm not completely sure but I believe they had a relationship for a while

Amazing post I clearly remember about van de Poele lined up to drive at Spa and Watson going to test for them (he did test for Jordan in 1991 at one point I believe) Now in one of the scans, the one about a test session in Imola, I noticed Antonio Tamburini at the bottom of the timing sheet. It's a ...

I would put Charles Leclerc and Luca Ghiotto in the car, swap Honda for Mercedes engine and to please the engine supplier I would give George Russell a couple of tests

strange that Nigel Mansell was linked with a Jordan drive in 1997, can't remember that

This and the other post about Rial of the topic opener of this post is truly amazing, love reading about those transfer rumours and drivers testing in those articles
Would be great if other people could post similar scans like this poster did.

It's highly unlikely that a team would put a driver who has been out of F1 for six years because of an army injury back in their car. I also would take those 'rumours' that Kubica was quicker as Sirotkin with a serious pinch of salt since Renault did not release any (official) times at all. Also whe...