10 F1 Drivers From The Last 20 Years Who Didn’t Deserve A Seat

1. Yuji Ide

Remember him? Ide raced for Super Aguri four times during the team’s debut season in 2006. He was well off the pace of his team-mate Takuma Sato and got caught up in an incident at the San Marino Grand Prix, pitching another driver into a roll. He had his FIA superlicense revoked for erratic driving and returned to racing in Japan.

Inoue raced 18 times between 1994 and 1995 (so 21 years ago, but close enough) for Simtek and Footwork, and was set to race in 1996 before sponsorship struggles forced him out. Inoue career is probably best summed up by the fact he is best remembered for being hit by a safety vehicle that was rushing to put out an engine fire.

3. Gaston Mazzacane

Known for being a ‘pay driver’, Mazzacane enjoyed an underwhelming 2000 with Minardi and a few disappointing races in the following season with Prost. Apparently he was fired by Alain Prost, the team owner, by using a performance clause in his contract. The Argentine failed to set the world alight and denied some talented drivers a shot at F1.

Badoer has had quite a diverse career in F1, which is surprising considering his lack of results. He raced for Scuderia Italia in 1993, Minardi in 1995 and Forti in 1996. After a brief switch to GT racing the Italian returned to Minardi in 1999.

While it was hard to make an impression in underfunded teams, Badoer was regularly beaten by his team-mates. He spent most of his top flight career as a test driver at Ferrari and surprised many by being named as the injured Felipe Massa’s replacement mid-way through 2009, 10 years after he’d last raced an F1 car. However, he was completely out of his depth and following two woeful weekends - coming last on both occasions - Giancarlo Fisichella took his place for the rest of the season.

5. Esteban Tuero

The Argentine failed to turn heads with his junior series results but moved up the ladder thanks to a healthy amount of sponsorship. He signed to drive for Minardi in 1998 and became the third youngest F1 driver to ever start a race at the time. Tuero was undoubtedly not ready for F1 and his disappointing season ended with a neck injury after crashing at the finale in Japan.

During the 1998 season, commentary legend Murray Walker said people were debating whether Rosset was “F1 quality”. Ex-F1 driver Martin Brundle replied simply saying it would be a “fairly short debate”. That probably sums things up well. Rosset raced for Footwork in 1996, consistently being well off team-mate Jos Verstappen’s pace. He then attempted the 1997 season opener with the woeful Mastercard Lola entry and disappointed for Tyrrell in 1998 before moving away from racing.

7. Sakon Yamamoto

Yamamoto’s feeder category results were ‘meh’ to say the least, but he was still picked up by Super Aguri to race late in the 2006 season. He then made sporadic appearances for Spyker in 2007 and HRT in 2010, but his F1 career failed to improve his reputation.

8. Narain Karthikeyan

Karthikeyan raced 46 times in F1 and was big news in India. He is best remembered in his debut season for a huge crash in China and finishing fourth in the US GP. That’s the one where all of the Michelin runners pulled out and only six cars remained, by the way. Mediocre results meant he was not retained but he made a return with the struggling HRT in 2011 and 2012.

9. Patrick Friesacher

I’d actually forgotten about Friesacher’s brief attempt at an F1 career, which shows just how disappointing it actually was. His results in Formula 3000 were encouraging but his half season with Minardi in 2005 had little impact on the F1 circus and the Austrian was then dropped due to sponsor issues.

10. Pastor Maldonado

I’ll be clear with this one. Maldonado is talented. He won a race for crying out loud, and claimed a GP2 title. But his erratic driving and incident-filled stint in F1 gave him a villainous reputation in the series. While he may be talented, we didn’t see that enough and there were plenty of other drivers (who obviously couldn’t match him in terms of sponsorship) who were more deserving of a shot.

Who else do you think should be on this list? Let us know in the comments!