Love him or hate him, you have to feel sorry for Jean Alesi. He is as passionate about his job as he has ever been, but after leaving the stagnant Sauber outfit for what he hoped would be a successful reunion with Alain Prost, one could excuse him for losing interest altogether. Perhaps we could question his blind faith in Prost's ability to turn the troublesome relationship with Peugeot around, just as we could question Jacques Villeneuve's blind faith in Craig Pollock last year.
Rather like Fisichella at Benetton, once Alesi found that his 2000 prospects were slim, he lost his competitive edge, although in Jean's case that realisation probably came before the cars went to Melbourne. That he only out-qualified team-mate Heidfeld 9-8 all season reflects poorly on the French-Sicilian, especially when many pundits claim that he is as fast behind the wheel as he ever was. Time and time again he drove as competitively as possible come Sunday, fully expecting his car to fail him, which more often than not it did.
At least he had two shining moments whereas Heidfeld had none. Alesi qualified a splendid 7th at Monaco, and but for a transmission failure would have come home 2nd. An early stop for slicks catapulted him into the points at Spa, where he might well have stayed had fuel pressure problems not intervened. But then there were also the low points, such as the daft move on Heidfeld in Austria which ended in tears, justifying himself by saying that there should have been team orders which never came.
That Alesi couldn't do anything in the Nurburgring rain says a lot about his car's limits; one of F1's rain-masters, he even had to finish behind Gaston Mazzacane. His season was then summed up at Hockenheim, where he was asked before he race if he wanted rain. He said he wanted more than rain; he wanted thunderbolts, satellites falling out of the sky, anything to help him. Instead, he was sideswiped by Pedro Diniz, resulting in a horror smash. It was a very average season for Jean, but you couldn't blame him.
Apologies in advance to all of Gaston's followers, especially in Argentina, but frankly Mazzacane is something of a waste in F1, hogging a seat that probably belongs to someone who deserves to be there more. Brought into the team because of sponsorship from South American cable network PSN (which has since bought a big share in Minardi), Mazzacane was a hark back to the pay-drivers of the mid-1990s, and did little to suggest he should have a place in F1 on merit.
He was well and truly off the pace in qualifying, more often than not over a few tenths slower than Gene, who himself was not having a good year. That in a season where usually a few tenths covered ten spots in midfield. Only four times did Mazzacane not qualify slowest (Brazil, San Marino, Germany, USA), and only at Imola did the Argentine not start from the back row.
But to be fair, Mazzacane did a credible job of keeping the car on the road, finishing 12 races, having mechanical problems in three and spinning off in the other two. In fact, of all drivers this season, he ranked 3rd in most laps covered. Then again, being a pay-driver, he was probably under instructions to bring the car home at all costs, and traditionally pay-drivers can keep a car on the black stuff. The two highlights of Mazzacane's year was a fine 8th in the Nurburgring rain, and the race at Indianapolis, where staying out on wets put him as high as 3rd. Able to stave off Mika Hakkinen for about three laps, he eventually had engine problems having lost time after making a mistake coming into the pits.
Mazzacane's position at Minardi is safe after PSN's increased involvement in the team, but in all honesty he'll have to show a lot of improvement in 2001 before people will start being convinced that he is worthy of a ride in the top league. At the moment the jury isn't even out, despite creditable showings on some occasions.
Let's not beat around the bush. Alexander Wurz has the dubious distinction of being our 'Reject of the Year'. If Fisichella was off in fairyland for the last few races, Wurz spent virtually the whole year there. We know he has the pace and the ability; Britain 1997 and the first half of 1998 showed that. But this year, he simply failed to apply himself in what was not too bad a car, and what's worse, after poor performances in 1999 he was already on notice. Perhaps there was something that we don't know about, but from what we could see Wurz seemed like he was only 50% committed (if that) all year.
By and large his qualifying performances were worse than ordinary. Only twice did he make the top 10, with 7th in the last-minute lottery at Hockenheim, and 5th in the last race at Sepang, which left even more question marks hanging in the air. If he could do it then, why not for the rest of the year? Three notably awful qualifying efforts included 20th at Silverstone, where he was only 0.052s faster than Marc Gene, 19th quickest at Barcelona, and 19th at Spa, where he had to give his car up to Fisichella towards the end of the session, and in one lap the Italian was 11th.
Actually, Wurz didn't make that many errors in races, it was just that he did hardly anything good in them. However, there were a few especially laughable moments. There was a more-than-ambitious lunge down the inside of Johnny Herbert at the Nurburgring which took both cars out, followed by the singularly most pathetic moment of 2000, when he tried to pass Jean Alesi at Magny-Cours. There he virtually forgot to brake and drove straight into the final corner gravel trap, even prompting Alesi to give him an 'are you kidding?' hand gesture.
In the end, 5th at Monza was lucky after all the first-lap drama, but he was unfortunate not to score in Malaysia. Indeed, his qualifying brilliance there he put down to having used the team's qualifying car for the first time. Trouble was, it was all too late by then. The worst part is that Wurz hardly seemed annoyed by his underachievement all year, and even having Pat Symonds as his personal race engineer didn't help.
thehemogoblin wrote:I think it would be fun to go back a long way into F1 history to see what we could come up with.
Cynon wrote:Look further down the field, enjoy the view of the little guys and/or crap drivers in cars too good for them giving their all for a meager result.
Because that's what I thought this forum celebrates the most.
1st- Damon Hill: The second former champion on the podium, takes the crown with his lukewarm attitude to the season. Granted, Villeneuve scored no points all year, but he had a poor car that no one could score points in, though Salo came close. Damon scored 7, in the same car that H-H Frentzen made a bid for the championship in. He should have hung up the keys last year, but carried on due to 2 good results.
For sheer apathy though, I must award Reject of the Year 1999 to Damon Hill. (For full details of his 1999 escapades, go to 'Hang Up The Keys' in the Hall of shame at f1rejects.com)
