Grand Prix Rejects

Ladies and gents,

We've come up with a brand new "rolling" advent calendar, produced in typically GPRejects fashion. Having had a discussion about the most disappointing stints in F1's best teams, we chose some names and turned it into an almost December-long article.

Thanks to the efforts of our wonderful contributors, we've come up with 25 drivers who didn't do the business in the 25 best(ish) teams, each with a little bit of supporting evidence.

Keep following our Facebook and Twitter pages for updates, and we hope you enjoy it!

This way to Christmas fun --> https://gprejects.com/news/the-best-of- ... t-calendar

Nigel Mansell at McLaren for the big one (supposed to be Christmas Eve, but you've gone for 25 articles instead of 24). Calling it now!

We're doing it by the alphabetical order of our 25 teams, so you'll just have to wait and see!

The door for day two has also been opened...

I was just pondering which teams the calendar still has. 10 gone, 15 to go.

Obvious inclusions, a total of 9:
Ligier
Lotus
McLaren
Minardi
Red Bull
Renault
Sauber
Tyrrell
Williams

The rest will be from these I suppose:
Lola (all incarnations)
March (all incarnations)
Maserati
Mercedes (based on their success should obviously be listed but the modern era doesn't really include bad driver, first phase lasted only two years)
Osella/Fondmetal
Porsche
Shadow
Surtees
Toro Rosso
Toyota
Vanwall

And if I had to take a stab at who the driver would be in each case for the "obvious 9", it would be:

Ligier - Jean-Pierre "awful and crass piece of driving" Jarier (runners-up: Philippe Alliot, Olivier Grouillard)
Lotus - Dave "nul points against a champion team-mate" Walker (runners-up: Michael Bartels, Satoru Nakajima)
McLaren - Nigel "my arse is too big" Mansell (runner-up: Stephen South)
Minardi - Adrián "I've got a second season in this car, ¿por qué?" Campos
Red Bull - Christian "I've got a second season in this car, warum?" Klien (runner-up: Daniil Kvyat)
Renault - François "mobile camera" Hesnault (runner-up: Bruno Senna, in the later Enstone-based version, if that counts)
Sauber - Esteban "I just cost my team ninth place in the championship and handed it on a silver plate to Marussia!" Gutiérrez (runner-up: Adrian Sutil, the same season)
Tyrrell - Ricardo "it's a fairly short debate, Murray" Rosset (runner-up: Michele Alboreto, in 1989)
Williams - Jean-Louis "mind that McLaren!" Schlesser (runner-up: Heinz-Harald Frentzen)

At least Frentzen put in some decent performances at Williams, my money's on Kazuki Nakajima.

Just want you all to know I'm very disappointed with the honourable mentions for Arrows. Borderline heresy aside, loving them though.

Was there nobody who could have been picked from the 50s for Mercedes? I honestly thought there was nobody you could pick from modern Mercedes, I thought picking Schumi was quite harsh as he was there in the team's least competitive years and he did beat Rosberg quite a bit (though with Hamilton, Rosberg and Bottas being the only other drivers he was the worst of the 4 I guess).

I was wrong, there was no Minardi driver in the calendar. Well, the team was not successful but the team with 21 years in the sport I expected it to be there. Much like Arrows was although with little bit better history having 25 years and 9 podiums (Morbidelli's Adelaide effort being the only podium during Footwork era)

James1978 wrote:Was there nobody who could have been picked from the 50s for Mercedes? I honestly thought there was nobody you could pick from modern Mercedes, I thought picking Schumi was quite harsh as he was there in the team's least competitive years and he did beat Rosberg quite a bit (though with Hamilton, Rosberg and Bottas being the only other drivers he was the worst of the 4 I guess).

Who else could we go for, though? Karl Kling did his job as Fangio's rear gunner, Lang and Simon did only one race each, and both Taruffi and Herrmann were pretty capable.

The amount of hype and, by association, the resulting disappointment of Schumacher's three years back was enough to give him the edge here.

Yeah, my disbelief at it is partly fuelled by the fact that I really, really wanted it to go well. It was hard to accept that the Schumacher of old wasn't really there anymore. I'll never forget Belgium 2011 though, that was a mega drive from a "has-been".