Your favourite reject team of all time?

FullMetalJack · Post by **FullMetalJack** » 11 Feb 2010, 21:28

This is going to be interesting. I'm going for Rial, they had everything, De Cesaris, a beautiful colour scheme and lots of DNQ's and DNPQ's.

What's yours?

thehemogoblin · Post by **thehemogoblin** » 11 Feb 2010, 21:34

Super Aguri and Onyx-- both would have made it... except for a lack of funds.

shinji · Post by **shinji** » 11 Feb 2010, 21:39

Clearly Soopah Aguri - they were the only reject team that I was around to witness in all their glory.

And boy, was there glory.

Barbazza · Post by **Barbazza** » 11 Feb 2010, 21:41

I'm currently re-watching the 84 season so I have to go for Spirit!!

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 11 Feb 2010, 21:46

I'm a 90's man so Simtek, Pacific and Lola. But Forti didn't do it so much for me - a perceived competitive threat to Simtek and Pacific at the time perhaps?

Pieman · Post by **Pieman** » 11 Feb 2010, 22:39

All the early and mid 90s ones, in particular Forti as they had such great-looking cars, Pacific from providing some spectacularly rejectful drivers and Lola because they were Rejectdom personified.

midgrid · Post by **midgrid** » 11 Feb 2010, 23:02

The mid-90s triumvirate of Forti, Pacific and Simtek.

Enforcer · Post by **Enforcer** » 11 Feb 2010, 23:25

Having GP2 gave me a certain affinity for the MTV logoed Simteks.

Used to change the driver names to Beavis and Butthead...

coops · Post by **coops** » 12 Feb 2010, 07:35

Pacific in their '95 Look-At-Us-We're-Lotus guise. Firstly, the car looked pretty nice. Secondly, their irrational belief that, now they had the Lotus brand on the side-pods, they were about to start challenging for wins. I found that quite endearing. And they gave the world Lavaggi with his female body-guards.
EDIT - And the Simteks. Also cool.

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 12 Feb 2010, 09:19

Forti - Any team with Moreno and Badoer as former drivers gets my support

Soopah Aguri - SS United (whoever they are) ruined the dream by defaulting on payments. But Sato nailing Schumacher and Alonso around the outside of the last chicane at Canada '07 was bloody brilliant.

ibsey · Post by **ibsey** » 12 Feb 2010, 11:52

Although I loved the orginal "glow in the dark" yellow paint scheme of Forti & and the reject attitudes of the likes of Lola & Andrea Moda. I've got to pick Minardi (if they do count?) as my favorite reject team. Simply because they hung in there, and ocassionaly fought it out with the big boys for so long & it would make my year when they beat the bigger teams. Furthermore, they were very good at giving away free gifts to fans (they once top a poll in F1 racing magazine) & they were the team HWNSNBM was last seen with.

Waris · Post by **Waris** » 12 Feb 2010, 12:23

Super Aguri, of course.
Other than that, I've always been very fond of Onyx before they became Monteverdi. (Didn't they score a podium though, so exactly how are they a reject team?) Life, Andrea Moda and Lola (1997) I like because they were so bad it's funny.

Frentzen127 · Post by **Frentzen127** » 12 Feb 2010, 13:56

Fondmetal.
No reject team ever looked better.

Post by **Nuppiz** » 12 Feb 2010, 14:09

Waris wrote:Other than that, I've always been very fond of Onyx before they became Monteverdi. (Didn't they score a podium though, so exactly how are they a reject team?

Reject teams don't have position limits like drivers (although, in essence, it's a point limit of three points), only a limit of 6 points with the pre-2003 system. So, in theory a team could get a 2nd place and still be a reject if they never scored again.

Phoenix · Post by **Phoenix** » 12 Feb 2010, 14:30

Simtek. Simtek. Simtek. Simtek. SIMTEK! I can only feel sorry about a team with so many bad luck and unfulfilled promise. And, looking to the future, Virgin as well.

ibsey · Post by **ibsey** » 12 Feb 2010, 15:09

You got to love Life aswell. Aside from the horrific engine and sending drivers out on wet tyres in 30 degrees heat, I love the arrogance that the owner must have, in thinking if he hired someone like Bruno Giaomelli would things would sort themselves out.

BTW, I always thought Bruno looked slightly on the large side back then and to this day it still amazes me, how he managed to fit into that car (& get out of it afterwards).

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 12 Feb 2010, 15:44

I loved Simtek, I used to watch the mid 90s races as a young lad with my dad on a sunday afternoon shouting Damon Hill on and although I can't remember much of that at all I'm sure I would have had witnessed them going round and being lapped!

The reason Simtek are my favourite is because a little later on I got my hands on an F1 encyclopedia which was released prior to the 97 season which had a section on teams, featuring a rather poor selection but including both Simtek and Pacific. The MTV livery was great and (yes the story continues) my mum had a VHS featuring a collection of Dire Straits hits from the Brothers in Arms album. Anyone with a bit of knowledge on that will know that it featured the track Money for Nothing which had those memorable lines sung by Sting at the beginning and end... 'I want my MTV...' Used to watch that video over and over as a kid dancing round the front room so it was the logical choice! :lol:

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 12 Feb 2010, 16:33

It has to be Simtek for me as well, even though I never really saw them race. The horrific bad luck combined with their good pace in 1995 makes me think that, had things gone more their way, they may have made it as an F1 team. Which is why I'll be supporting Simtek 2, aka Virgin. Super Aguri is a close second, though.

MikeH · Post by **MikeH** » 12 Feb 2010, 18:57

Pretty much any reject team that ran between 1988 and 1996. :p That was such a classic age of F1 for privateers, underachievers, fraudsters and criminals in F1 team ownership!

I've always had a soft spot for what Pacific tried to achieve with so little, but I'm a Forti man foremost - especially this gorgeous creation:

RejectSteve · Post by **RejectSteve** » 12 Feb 2010, 19:30

I didn't start watching F1 until 1994, so I'll just stick to the teams I've seen on track. I'd love to say Lola - I remember watching one of their cars spinning in qualifying - but seeing as Forti actually raced and were on screen fairly often (whilst being lapped), I'm going with the yellows. I love yellow on racing cars and having Roberto Moreno was a clincher. The team was hard trying for a minimally funded team, such a pity the gorgeous FG03 was hung out to dry by Shannon Group after the FG01B showed it couldn't qualify within 107%.

Faustus · Post by **Faustus** » 12 Feb 2010, 19:55

Simtek and Super Aguri.
I have a few bits of Simtek memorabilia and I remember looking at the first photos of the car in early 1994 and how striking the livery was (the black and purple). I became an instant fan. I remember cheering like a maniac and jumping up and down with joy when David Brabham out-qualified Eric Comas in the German Grand Prix.
I almost went to work for Super Aguri in 2007. The money was crap and I would have had to move, but I really fancied the idea of working with a lot of my former colleagues from Arrows and to see the A23 again. In the end I didn't do it because I couldn't afford the drop in wages. I still followed and supported the team and attended the pre-British Grand Prix test in 2007. Such a shame that the team got shafted by the sponsor.

Bleu · Post by **Bleu** » 13 Feb 2010, 03:19

Super Aguri is a good choice since it's only reject team since F1 Rejects was born.

But probably I will say Simtek. Of those two teams that debuted at the same time, I was rooting for Simtek much more than Pacific.

eagleash · Post by **eagleash** » 13 Feb 2010, 13:21

It has to be Connew, the guy built the thing in his garden shed basically; got it qualified in the hands of Francois Migault in one race. I think it suffered two suspension breakages in the 2 races it attended, in 1972.
(Britain...DNQ & Austria crashed out of 17th place).
It turned up at Brands for the end of season Race of Champions with David Purley driving but DNS.
Converted to F5000 spec. for subsequent season it again crashed heavily I think at Brands with Tony Trimmer driving.
Around 2006 there was an attempt to re-build it for posterity, but I am not sure if it was ever completed.

watka · Post by **watka** » 13 Feb 2010, 14:13

eagleash wrote:It has to be Connew, the guy built the thing in his garden shed basically; got it qualified in the hands of Francois Migault in one race. I think it suffered two suspension breakages in the 2 races it attended, in 1972.
(Britain...DNQ & Austria crashed out of 17th place).
It turned up at Brands for the end of season Race of Champions with David Purley driving but DNS.
Converted to F5000 spec. for subsequent season it again crashed heavily I think at Brands with Tony Trimmer driving.
Around 2006 there was an attempt to re-build it for posterity, but I am not sure if it was ever completed.

There isn't much on this site about the older reject teams, but from my knowledge, Lec was probably the worst in the 70s, building a car that almost killed David Purley.

Like most here, Super Aguri are the only recent reject team, so they've got to be up there. Out of the 90s bunch, I would say Life for being so hopeless, and also Simtek. I forgot just how good the Forti looked though!

eagleash · Post by **eagleash** » 13 Feb 2010, 14:53

watka wrote:
eagleash wrote:It has to be Connew, the guy built the thing in his garden shed basically; got it qualified in the hands of Francois Migault in one race. I think it suffered two suspension breakages in the 2 races it attended, in 1972.
(Britain...DNQ & Austria crashed out of 17th place).
It turned up at Brands for the end of season Race of Champions with David Purley driving but DNS.
Converted to F5000 spec. for subsequent season it again crashed heavily I think at Brands with Tony Trimmer driving.
Around 2006 there was an attempt to re-build it for posterity, but I am not sure if it was ever completed.

There isn't much on this site about the older reject teams, but from my knowledge, Lec was probably the worst in the 70s, building a car that also killed David Purley.

Like most here, Super Aguri are the only recent reject team, so they've got to be up there. Out of the 90s bunch, I would say Life for being so hopeless, and also Simtek. I forgot just how good the Forti looked though!

LEC was the Purley family company & made frdges etc.
The car didn't kill him but shattered his legs from which he made an eventual recovery (GB GP 1977)
He was killed flying aerobatics in a Pitts Special off Bognor Regis in 1985.

watka · Post by **watka** » 13 Feb 2010, 14:56

I knew that, but somewhere between my brain and my hands the word "almost" changed to "also". :oops:

Phoenix · Post by **Phoenix** » 14 Feb 2010, 11:38

And...what about the Apollon team from 1977? The car was based in a 1973 Williams FW03 (uncompetitive even back on its day) with an updated body and the same Cosworth engine and Goodyear tyres it had. The car was driven by Loris Kessel, who was also the owner of the team, and the car was comically named Fly. It was entered for 5 races that season, but the team missed the first 4 races due to transport problems, and when it finally showed up in Italy it DNQed. Pure rejectdom.
Here's an image of the car

eagleash · Post by **eagleash** » 14 Feb 2010, 15:55

Phoenix wrote:And...what about the Apollon team from 1977? The car was based in a 1973 Williams FW03 (uncompetitive even back on its day) with an updated body and the same Cosworth engine and Goodyear tyres it had. The car was driven by Loris Kessel, who was also the owner of the team, and the car was comically named Fly. It was entered for 5 races that season, but the team missed the first 4 races due to transport problems, and when it finally showed up in Italy it DNQed. Pure rejectdom.
Here's an image of the car

Loris Kessel had a connection with John MacDonald & the RAM team. From which we get to Middlebridge who in 1987 bought year old Benettons, & made an entry part way through the season only to be denied at the last moment as the chassis were deemed to be illegal being "old" even though they conformed to the regs..
The driver was to be Pirro.

LucaPacchiarini · Post by **LucaPacchiarini** » 14 Feb 2010, 19:36

Post by **Nuppiz** » 14 Feb 2010, 20:17

It has to be Simtek, those guys had just too much bad luck. If everythink had been gone their way, maybe they could have scored enough points to avoid rejectdom.

Off-topic: Whilst looking for some info on Jari Nurminen (shares the same surname with me by the way, although as far as I know he's not a relative of any sort), a Finn who tested for Arrows back in '86, I stumbled across the name Harri Toivonen, brother of the late Henri Toivonen. Some Finnish sources claim that he had already signed a contract with Pacific F1 in 1995, but it came to nothing when Toivonen's sponsors withdrew. Anyone else got some more information about this?

Pieman · Post by **Pieman** » 14 Feb 2010, 23:22

I know Harri raced for the Ascari team alongside Klaas Zwart and Phil Andrews in the BOSS single seater formula in the early 2000s. The series was for a mixture of single seaters including several reject F1 cars (is this series still going?) and if I remember rightly, the Ascaris bore a strange resemblance both in shape and livery to the 1994 Pacifics. Maybe there's something to go on there, or perhaps just coincidence.

fvanalst · Post by **fvanalst** » 16 Feb 2010, 03:58

Gotta be the Life team from 1990. Partially because I have photos of Giacommelli on both of his laps run Friday morning at the Canada GP race weekend.... :-0

Marco · Post by **Marco** » 16 Feb 2010, 20:15

It has to be Connew, the guy built the thing in his garden shed basically; got it qualified in the hands of Francois Migault in one race.

I don't know if it has been posted here, but on this page is the full story: http://www.axos.nl/retrorace/temp/The%2 ... 0Story.htm
Reading this makes me add my vote to Connew.

CasinoSquare · Post by **CasinoSquare** » 16 Feb 2010, 21:20

I am shocked and saddened that neither

1. Coloni with their fantastic yellow and green colours are mentioned (Btw the FC188 car driven by Pierre Henri Raphanel is actually for sale at the moment) nor
2. EuroBrun with their ever changing colour scheme and Oscar Larrauri

are mentioned. Shame!

I fear from some of the suggestions that Eagleash and I are the only ones over 30...

ibsey · Post by **ibsey** » 16 Feb 2010, 21:28

CasinoSquare wrote:I am shocked and saddened that neither

1. Coloni with their fantastic yellow and green colours are mentioned (Btw the FC188 car driven by Pierre Henri Raphanel is actually for sale at the moment) nor
2. EuroBrun with their ever changing colour scheme and Oscar Larrauri

are mentioned. Shame!

I fear from some of the suggestions that Eagleash and I are the only ones over 30...

I forgot about Coloni, anything with such a great yellow and green colour scheme as that will always get my vote.

I can't remember off the top of my head but was it Eurobrun that started its F1 career with their F3000 chassis?

Post by **Nuppiz** » 16 Feb 2010, 21:49

ibsey wrote:I can't remember off the top of my head but was it Eurobrun that started its F1 career with their F3000 chassis?

At least Dallara/Scuderia Italia did so.

Valrys · Post by **Valrys** » 16 Feb 2010, 22:44

CasinoSquare wrote:
1. Coloni with their fantastic yellow and green colours are mentioned (Btw the FC188 car driven by Pierre Henri Raphanel is actually for sale at the moment) nor
2. EuroBrun with their ever changing colour scheme and Oscar Larrauri

Speaking of cars for sale

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/122770.htm

shinji · Post by **shinji** » 16 Feb 2010, 22:48

Valrys wrote:
CasinoSquare wrote:
1. Coloni with their fantastic yellow and green colours are mentioned (Btw the FC188 car driven by Pierre Henri Raphanel is actually for sale at the moment) nor
2. EuroBrun with their ever changing colour scheme and Oscar Larrauri

Speaking of cars for sale

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/122770.htm

I have £700 in a bank account.

Now I just need to find £99,300. Easy peasy.

Post by **Nuppiz** » 16 Feb 2010, 23:15

shinji wrote:
Valrys wrote:
CasinoSquare wrote:
1. Coloni with their fantastic yellow and green colours are mentioned (Btw the FC188 car driven by Pierre Henri Raphanel is actually for sale at the moment) nor
2. EuroBrun with their ever changing colour scheme and Oscar Larrauri

Speaking of cars for sale

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/122770.htm

I have £700 in a bank account.

Now I just need to find £99,300. Easy peasy.

Or http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/122768.htm. "Minardi F1 ex Pierre L Martini". Spelling rejects, anyone?

deCrasheris · Post by **deCrasheris** » 17 Feb 2010, 00:06

Nuppiz wrote:Or http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/122768.htm. "Minardi F1 ex Pierre L Martini". Spelling rejects, anyone?

That i believe is Luis Perez Sala's car since he ran 24 in 1989. Whoever wrote it I guess can't tell the difference between one Minardi driver to the other. :lol: