Anyone else miss crap teams? ;)

[52Paddy]

Minardi did a pretty good job considering their budget. Simtek had a lot to go through especially in 1994. I feel for poor David Brabham who was completely knocked off his career path by it. He also had to contend with driving that monstrosity of a Life car in 1990(?).

I agree. I thought Minardi did a solid job with what they had throughout their career. David Brabham did choose the wrong team at the wrong time (Simtek 1994) but it was another Brabham (Gary) who drive the 1990 Life Car. He admitted that that season with Life ruined his F1 career from the start and he was never seen in F1 again. Shame.

[wedge]

Politoys? BAR? Toleman?

If you follow the bloodlines of those cars you get, Williams, Brawn GP, Benetton & Renault. The likes of which have all won GP and even made World Champions.

Sometimes it's impossible to tell what's going to transpire, any team which actually exists has the potential to take a driver to glory... in 8 years time... who knows?

I see what you mean but BAR were midfielders and so were Toleman because they managed to do something right whereas most struggled even to qualify for the full GP weekend.

Excuse my ignorance but I never bothered learning about a team like Osella. Everytime time I think of Osella, AGS, Coloni, I immediately think of school playgrounds and Top Trumps!

[blito]

Everytime i think of AGS i remember that spectaular startline pile up at the old Osterriechring when Phillipe Fabre ended up on top of everyone else (literally). I think it was 1987 - i`d have been twelve years old and in love with sport - the back markers especially ... when i first got into F1 in 1985 i just loved the Skoal Bandit Ram car, even though it was the absolute slowest out there

[Soperfan]

i loved the RAM car too Blito! that and the ATS were lovely looking cars and in 1984 that ATS was far higher up the grid at times than it was given credit for

[philipbain]

I remember AGS in either 1989 or 1990 having to run an F3000 chassis upgraded to F1 regs because they had designed an F1 chassis that inherantly didnt comply with the regulations!

But as for out and out crap teams, do I miss them? Nope, though I for one do miss thier no-hoper rent-a-drivers as they provided some comedy moments, such as Tarso Marques & Ricardo Rosset, the latter being the subject of a classic bit of Murray & Martin commentary on ITV's coverage of the Monaco GP, Murray Comments that there has been some debate as to whether Rosset was F1 calibre, immediately after which he performs a touch free spin and whilst trying to recover jams the car in a gap in the barrier, after which Martin says absolutely dead pan "its a short debate"!

[Rodriguez 917]

The thing I loved about crap teams were some of the crap drivers could get a seat. Remember some of these, Giovanni Lavaggi, Jean Denis Deletraz, Gregor Foitek, Giovanna Amati etc... Mind you they did produce some good current drivers like Trulli, Fisi and Alonso!

One of the best moments I ever saw was at Monaco when Alex Yoong binned it at St Devote on his first qualifying lap and the camera then showed Mika Salo openly laughing in the Toyota pit.

[V12]

The point about a lot of these outfits is that they may have been "the worst", but they were the worst of the best. Which is still pretty damn good.

Out of 13 teams the bottom team is useless and should get rid of them? OK that leaves us with 12.
Out of 12 teams the bottom team is useless and should get rid of them? OK that leaves us with 11.
Out of 11 teams the bottom team is useless and should get rid of them? OK that leaves us with 10.
Out of 10 teams the bottom team is useless and should get rid of them? OK that leaves us with 9.
Out of 9 teams the bottom team is useless and should get rid of them? OK that leaves us with 8.
etc....

You basically end up with 2 cars. Or a spec-series. And I can't for the life of me decide which is worse to be honest.

[blito]

I agree with V12, and have previously mentioned something similar on the main F1 forum when people slag off F1 drivers as being useless - to even get to F1 you have to be special.. most of us couldnt even fit in a race car cockpit, let alone drive one and i suppose its the same for teams... you think Colini was crap so lets see your efforts instead - mines based on a bathtup and has a vespa engine

[blito]

ROFL m8 :0

i play rFactor quite a bit and tbh, i suck massively i can barely keep F1`s on the road, and you know when i do complete a lap its usually below my F3 pace!

[Anubis]

I used to love seeing the "decent but small" teams surprising everyone once in a while. Minardi popping into the points was always cause for celebration, and I'm sure Martini or Campos stuck one on the second row one year, or did I dream that? Adelaide? I used to cheer on the likes of Leyton House, Onyx and Rial, not to mention Hill during his Arrows season. I don't miss the basket cases like Pacific, Coloni or Eurobrun, but having the "plucky underdogs" in there biting at the heels of the big boys is always good, which is why the BrawnGP story is go great. It gets boring seeing the biggest chequebook winning everything.