Worst F1 Driver in History?

[Jungles]

I just saw this post on Sniffpetrol.com...



I thought it was a bit harsh, considering he drove the utterly worthless Footwork, and had terrible luck to boot (getting hit by a safety car?!).

Anyway, who is the worst driver to have raced in F1? I'm not talking about fly-by-nighters, but regular drivers.

My pick: Yuji Ide.

Edited by Jungles on Friday 4th November 13:12

[CommanderJameson]

Easy peasy lemon-squeezy.

Délétraz.

ETA: Did you add the bit about a full season afterwards? The aforementioned sad sack only raced in 3 grands prix.

[anonymous-user]

pick any of the late 80s/early 90s pay per race drivers from the pre-qualifying days of F1 such as Paul Belmondo, Pedro Chaves, Andrea Montermini or my nomination: Enrico Bertaggia, slowest in every pre-qualifying session he ever entered.

http://www.f1rejects.com/drivers/bertaggia/index.h...

f1rejects said:

In Portugal, when Yannick Dalmas and Nicola Larini's Osella were both disqualified from pre-qualifying, Bertaggia, despite being slowest, got bumped up to 11th in pre-qualifying (and a stunning 37th overall) by default. This would remain his best F1 effort. It is rather ironic, however, that in this so-called 'best effort' he was almost 4 seconds slower than Bernd Schneider's Zakspeed ahead of him, with a time which ended up being over 13 seconds slower than Ayrton Senna's pole time

www.f1rejects.com is a great read

[Jungles]

CommanderJameson said:

Easy peasy lemon-squeezy.

Délétraz.

ETA: Did you add the bit about a full season afterwards? The aforementioned sad sack only raced in 3 grands prix.

Brain-fart moment. For some reason, I thought he actually did race a full season before getting his license revoked. I'll edit to say just regular drivers (which Ide was), rather than say, test-drivers who filled in for one race.

[Streps]

Bernie Ecclestone.

[Crafty_]

I can remember Roberto Moreno driving Forti in the late 90s who was rather useless. I can clearly remember him spinning at the entrance to the tunnel in Monaco, at the end of the spin the car rolled backwards into a gap between two barriers where the car then beached on the kerb.

Martin Brundle was commentating and had to desperately try not to say exactly what he thought..

[groomi]

Crafty_ said:

I can remember Roberto Moreno driving Forti in the late 90s who was rather useless. I can clearly remember him spinning at the entrance to the tunnel in Monaco, at the end of the spin the car rolled backwards into a gap between two barriers where the car then beached on the kerb.

Martin Brundle was commentating and had to desperately try not to say exactly what he thought..

IIRC Moreno did a season at Benneton and was 'reasonable', so he's not the worst by a long shot.

Others mentioned such as Paul Belmondo did reasonably well in sportscars or other series, so how much was their poor F1 performances down to the cars/teams they were driving and how much was their own incompetence?

I'd go along with Ide.

[thiscocks]

Crafty_ said:

I can remember Roberto Moreno driving Forti in the late 90s who was rather useless. I can clearly remember him spinning at the entrance to the tunnel in Monaco, at the end of the spin the car rolled backwards into a gap between two barriers where the car then beached on the kerb.

Martin Brundle was commentating and had to desperately try not to say exactly what he thought..

Moreno was(is) a v talented driver. One of those drivers who seemed to pull out better performances the worse the car was eg. 1990 USA with the eurobrun or 1992 at monaco with the hapless Andrea Moda squad.

[Teppic]

Crafty_ said:

I can remember Roberto Moreno driving Forti in the late 90s who was rather useless. I can clearly remember him spinning at the entrance to the tunnel in Monaco, at the end of the spin the car rolled backwards into a gap between two barriers where the car then beached on the kerb.

Martin Brundle was commentating and had to desperately try not to say exactly what he thought..

Would that be the same Roberto Moreno that, driving his first race for Benetton, finished second to Nelson Piquet in the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix?

As said above, far from usless.

Now Ricardo Rosset, on the other hand...

[skinny]

piquet jnr

[Kevin VRs]

Baumgartner Zsolt was a lot slower than his team-mate if I remember correctly.

[Crafty_]

Teppic said:

Would that be the same Roberto Moreno that, driving his first race for Benetton, finished second to Nelson Piquet in the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix?

As said above, far from usless.

Now Ricardo Rosset, on the other hand...

Maybe it was Rossett I'm thinking of?

ETA: Im confusing two different incidents I think, but here is Rossett cocking it up:

http://youtu.be/qC3iGSGMJ8c

I've still got a memory of a yellow Forti being beached at that corner, does anyone remember it or am I just going a bit mad ?

Edited by Crafty_ on Friday 4th November 17:16

[Grandpa Potts]

Tiff Needell

[sanf]

Can I nominate Pierre-Henri Raphanel - 17 Grand prixs - Failed to qualify for 16. Spent the first 10 races of 1989 with Coloni and failed to pre-qualify in 9 - so switched to Rial and failed to qualify for the remaining 6. The only slight floor is that the one race he qualified for was Monaco - where he managed 18th - out qualifying Moreno (who was in the old car) by 7/10ths of a second...

[groomi]

sanf said:

Can I nominate Pierre-Henri Raphanel - 17 Grand prixs - Failed to qualify for 16. Spent the first 10 races of 1989 with Coloni and failed to pre-qualify in 9 - so switched to Rial and failed to qualify for the remaining 6. The only slight floor is that the one race he qualified for was Monaco - where he managed 18th - out qualifying Moreno (who was in the old car) by 7/10ths of a second...

Again, he's performed well in other series and the Coloni and Rial were two of several teams at that team who's race weekend usually ended after pre-qualifying.

[Giles240]

Giovanni Amati was pretty hopeless, and I remember Giovanni Lavaggi being pretty slow.

[touring fan]

Crafty_ said:

I can remember Roberto Moreno driving Forti in the late 90s who was rather useless. I can clearly remember him spinning at the entrance to the tunnel in Monaco, at the end of the spin the car rolled backwards into a gap between two barriers where the car then beached on the kerb.

Martin Brundle was commentating and had to desperately try not to say exactly what he thought..

It is Rossett you are thinking of, not Moreno.
Morena was a vey decent peddler.

[Richard-G]

Jason Plato

[Mr_Thyroid]

Narain "what mirrors" Karthikeyan
Norberto "sorry Jacques" Fontata
Riccardo "foot down eyes closed" Rosset

[(MrB)]

Ralph Firman