The best of teams, the worst of times: A GPR advent calendar
December 16th – 20th
Dec 16: Mercedes – Michael Schumacher
Among F1 champions’ comebacks, Michael Schumacher’s isn’t quite on the Alan Jones end of the scale, but it wasn’t exactly Prost or Lauda either. His countless and still mostly unshaken records from 1991-2006 need not be parroted here, so we shall merely finish this paragraph by saying that Michael Schumacher was nigh-unbeatable as a teammate up to his first retirement.
2009-10 saw possibly the most exciting off-season in recent memory, bolstered by the news that Mercedes was re-entering Formula One as a works team, bringing Michael Schumacher, along for the ride.
After three years away, Schumacher was immediately outpaced by his younger teammate Nico Rosberg. While the seven-time champion wasn’t too far off over a lap, the fact that he couldn’t beat the then-relatively unproven 24-year-old was just one disappointing story from a generally underwhelming Bahrain Grand Prix.
Niki Lauda, who – like Schumacher – made a comeback to F1 after three years away, predicted that we would be seeing the old Michael back by China. We didn’t. Schumacher barely scraped into Q3 on that occasion and scored one point while Rosberg had an easier time scoring his second consecutive podium.
This would be the running story of Michael’s three years at Mercedes. There were glimpses of the seven-time world champion of old, like his controversial passing move on Alonso at the end of the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix and his attempts to back former Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello into the wall in Hungary.
There were times in the first half of 2012 when it looked like he could possibly even win a race, and Schumacher would have been on pole at Monaco were it not for the fact that he had a five-place grid penalty going into qualifying.
By the end of 2012, the romantic notion of Schumacher’s return had lost all shine, and was not able to bring his win tally into triple digits as some might have hoped; win number 92 seemed ever further out of reach as his second career wound down.
Rosberg continued to hold the upper hand in qualifying, outscoring Michael 324-197 over their three years together. One might say that, for the first and last time in his career, Michael Schumacher was humbled on track and proved that he was only human.
He was 41 at the start of 2010, well past the age most drivers – himself included at one time – would turn a page and begin a new chapter in their lives, be it motorsport or otherwise. Schumacher demonstrated that even the greatest can only stay so good for so long.
Anthony Byrne
Dec 17: Red Bull – Robert Doornbos
Come the end of 2005, it seemed like Robert Doornbos would be easily forgotten, a name amongst the many that have spent a short, irrelevant stint at Minardi. Instead, his former F3000 boss Christian Horner threw him a lifeline. Now running the show at Red Bull, Horner offered Doornbos the role of Friday test driver. One would think such a role would be rather routine: Jump in, drive around, send feedback to the team, enjoy the rest of your weekend in luxury.
Instead, pretty much by accident, Doornbos formed an odd, practice session-only rivalry with no-one other than reigning world champion himself, Fernando Alonso.
At the Hungarian Grand Prix, Alonso apparently thought Robert had baulked him on the previous lap. Pulling alongside Doornbos on the main straight, he gesticulated wildly and nearly sideswiped him. As if that wasn’t enough, he brake checked the Red Bull going into turn one. All this earned Fernando a two-second penalty to his time in qualifying. It didn’t stop there.
At the very next race in Turkey, Doornbos went alongside Alonso down the back straight. As they approached the upcoming hairpin, neither driver gave way to each other, resulting in inevitable contact. Doornbos accused Alonso of ‘playing chicken’. The attention over this Dutch driver would only get bigger as Christian Klien was fired from Red Bull before the Chinese Grand Prix, promoting Robert Doornbos to the main squad alongside the veteran David Coulthard.
Believe it or not, Doornbos actually outqualified DC in his first race for Red Bull at Shanghai, even making it into the top-10 shootout. All this would come to nought, though, as he tangled with Robert Kubica in the first turn, trundling home to 12th place. That was as good as it got for Doornbos, with just two more anonymous, below-average performances to 13th and 12th in Japan and Brazil respectively to close out the season.
With Mark Webber knocking on Red Bull’s door, Doornbos was demoted back to testing the Red Bull before turning his back on his distinctly below-average F1 career to get involved with Champ Cars, Superleague Formula and sex toy entrepreneurship.
Honourable mentions: Both of Doornbos’ predecessors – Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi – were also looked at. All three were particularly average, but Doornbos’ general clumsiness takes the cake. Plus, we couldn’t really have Liuzzi twice…
Luke Levy
Dec 18: Renault – Nelson Piquet Jr.
Renault seems to have a bad track record with sons and nephews of famous F1 drivers. Jolyon Palmer has failed to impress, Bruno Senna was ineffectual and Nelsinho Piquet threw the whole caboodle into disarray in 2009… and underperformed a bit.
Nelson Junior, son of Nelson Senior (and hopefully the father of Nelson III so we can get a thing going) did alright for himself in the junior formulae, finishing runner-up to Lewis Hamilton in the 2006 GP2 season. On the back of that, Renault hired him as their test driver for 2007, and landed a seat for 2008 – finding himself paired with Enstone’s prodigal son Fernando Alonso.
To be fair to Nelson, he was put into a pressure cooker environment; the pressure of living up to his father’s name was immense, and there was also the pressure of beating – or at least matching – a world champion teammate in a works team that had recently won back-to-back championships.
Rarely was Piquet anywhere near Alonso’s pace. Q1 knockouts were not uncommon and even when he was in Q2, Fernando was usually mixing it in Q3. Things improved from the French Grand Prix onwards, in which Piquet scored his first points, and he followed that up with a fine second in Germany, resulting in a boost of confidence from the team having demonstrated good pace throughout.
More points would be awarded for his troubles in Hungary, Japan and China and, while still not really on Alonso’s level, Piquet had done well enough to stay for 2009.
Unfortunately, the new Renault R29 was not up to Enstone’s usual high standards and, while Alonso was performing the miraculous drives he’s since become associated with at McLaren, Piquet was permanently glued to the lower-midfield. He was dropped after Hungary having scored no points.
Piquet’s Formula 1 exploits didn’t end there. After being dropped, he revealed that his embarrassing crash in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix was not a mistake, but a premeditated action designed to help Alonso win the race. While there is certainly a debate to be had over the extent of Piquet’s guilt versus that of his superiors, Piquet’s actions (and subsequent whistleblowing) had a dramatic effect on the Renault team thereafter.
Honourable mentions: As discussed, Senna and Palmer were difficult second-generation drivers who failed to make their marks at Renault. Jacques Villeneuve (look, another son!) had an equally flaccid stint with Renault in 2004 having replaced viticulturist Jarno Trulli, in which he helped the team lose 2nd in the constructors’ championship to BAR. Oh, Jacques.
Anthony Byrne
Dec 19: Sauber – Esteban Gutierrez
Losing Sergio Perez to McLaren following his impressive trio of podiums in 2012, Sauber wanted to keep the pesos he’d brought from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to balance the books.
To bridge the gap, reserve driver Esteban Gutierrez was ushered in to the driving line-up, boasting an not-unimpressive CV. A former Formula BMW champion, “Guti” also won the inaugural season of GP3 before placing third overall in the 2012 GP2 season (albeit in an unimpressive field). Paired with Nico Hulkenberg, Gutierrez had a highly-rated benchmark to learn from and compare his progress to. In theory.
In reality, Hulkenberg’s performance in a sub-par C32 was a bellwether for Gutierrez’s complete subservience in the team, and the Mexican managed just six points in comparison to his team-mate’s 51 – the Japanese GP yielding Guti’s sole top 10 finish.
Hulkenberg swapped seats with Force India’s Adrian Sutil for the following year, in which Sauber had delivered a grossly-overweight car. As a result, the insipid Sutil-Gutierrez duo yielded no points, although both drivers threw away potential points finishes at Monaco; Gutierrez lazily hit the barrier at Rascasse while in eighth place, a costly mistake in which Sauber slipped behind tail-enders Marussia in the constructors’ championship.
Arguably, Gutierrez cost the team more than he brought in cash, and later watched his Sauber seat go to three other drivers in the Hinwil edition of musical chairs in early 2015.
He ended up at the new Haas team a year later, and gained the nickname “Spinal Tap” for consistently operating at (P)11 all year long.
Honourable mentions: All of Johnny Herbert’s 1997 team-mates were nominated, although Norberto Fontana was a shade worse than Ferrari affiliates Nicola Larini and Gianni Morbidelli. Current incumbent Marcus Ericsson got a mention, as did Jean-Christophe “Stock Cube” Boullion and Jacques Villeneuve.
Jake Boxall-Legge
Dec 20: Toro Rosso – Scott Speed
Scott Speed surely had the name. He had the look. He had the PR benefit of being the first American driver in Formula One in 13 years. His junior record was mightily impressive, being picked up by Red Bull’s Junior programme in 2003 and finishing third overall in the 2005 GP2 season. It seemed that it would be no surprise that he was picked up by Red Bull’s new ‘junior’ team, Scuderia Toro Rosso, for the 2006 season.
His 2006 was by all accounts decent – if not average – for a new driver, and managed to clinch Toro Rosso’s highest qualifying position for the season, qualifying in 11th in tricky conditions in China.
He was also in a position to claim Toro Rosso’s first points in Australia, but was docked with a 25 second time penalty for overtaking under yellow flags, demoting him to 9th and outside the points paying positions. Just to rub salt in the wound, he was also fined $5000 for ‘abusive language’ towards senior Red Bull driver David Coulthard during the post-race hearing. Otherwise, Speed was fairly level with teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi throughout the season, and as such was retained for the following 2007 season.
His second season was a disaster. Throughout the course of the year, Toro Rosso was incredibly unreliable, with teammate Liuzzi retiring every race from Bahrain to Budapest. Speed had a similar record, but it’s fair to say some of those retirements could have been avoided, for example his two first-lap incidents in Bahrain and Britain and a needless collision with Alex Wurz at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Barring an aggressive climb through the field at Monaco, Speed’s performances just weren’t up to par and his attitude was getting on Toro Rosso’s nerves. This came to a head in the infamous deluge at the 2007 European Grand Prix. Speed was one of many drivers – alongside teammate Liuzzi – to end up in the turn 1 gravel trap. Afterwards, he asked Toro Rosso principal Franz Tost about the mix-up in the pitlane that had cost him time.
What happened next is contrasting; Speed says Tost punched him in the back and grabbed him by the neck in front of the entire team. Tost contended that he only grabbed Speed by the shoulder. Either way, Speed was quickly gone from Toro Rosso, replaced for the season by another driver from the Red Bull Junior programme: Sebastian Vettel.
Honourable mentions: There was a noticeable surge in quality in Toro Rosso’s driving staff after Speed was given the shove. “Other Seb” Sebastien Bourdais was considered, but his low points haul doesn’t entirely tell the whole story of his unfortunate time with Toro Rosso.
Luke Levy
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