Originally Posted by tamburello
It's not complete speculation.
What has to be considered was that he was dropped by Benetton half-way through 1989 due to the after-effects of his injury, not because of a lack of results based on his natural abilities. Benetton themselves said at the time that they had rushed Herbert's recovery.
It was a long time after that when he got a second chance in F1, due to the perception that he was not physically fit.
The key to transferring lower-formula success into F1 success is keeping the momentum going...being in the right place at the right time.....and it was solely due to the effects of his F3000 crash (which wasn't his fault, by the way) that Johnny lost the momentum in his career.
After that, he was never in a position to re-create the momentum that had seen Benetton sign him in the first place. By the time he got a competitive drive again with Benetton in '95, the momentum had swung to the other driver on that team.
So, whilst it is true that not all lower-formula stars make it big in F1, there is a big difference between being dropped because of a lack of talent causing a failure to be competitive and being dropped because of the effects of an injury.