Ahead of Patronise F1's questionable coverage of the Le Mans 24 Hours, The Elbow picks out six drivers aiming for glory at La Sarthe this weekend who never quite got a break, or even scored a point, in their Formula One careers.
1) Allan McNish (16 race starts in F1)
Nobody could have believed that, having finished a narrow second to David Brabham in the 1989 British F3 Championship, a recognised stepping stone to the top tier of motorsport, it would take Allan McNish a further 13 years before he stepped onto a F1 grid. Despite testing for McLaren and Benetton and racing in F3000 McNish, as fellow Briton Martin Brundle had successfully the previous decade, went in search of glory in Sports Cars in 1996, going on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans two years later.
Finally, due to his ties with Toyota, he was granted a seat on their debut as a F1 constructor in 2002. Sadly for the popular Briton, the closest he came to success was a 7th place finish in Malaysia, which would have been better had his team not messed up a pit stop. Even more sadly, his sole F1 season will be remembered for two rather more unfortunate events – his Toyota engine blowing up cost Kimi Raikkonen the French GP, handing the title to Michael Schumacher; and a horrifying accident in Qualifying at Suzuka, ruling him out of what turned out to be his last Grand Prix event.
Despite fulfilling the role of Renault third driver in 2003, he once again returned to success in Sports Cars, winning Le Mans again in 2008 and securing several victories and titles in the American Le Mans Series.
McNish will campaign the #3 Audi R18 TDI at Le Mans this weekend.
2) Jan Lammers (23 race starts in F1)
The holder of an extraordinary record in Formula One history, Lammers began his Grand Prix career with the Shadow team in 1979, failing to set the world alight with a best finish of 9th in Canada. He moved on to ATS the following year, where he achieved arguably the highlight of his F1 career by qualifying 4th for the Long Beach Grand Prix, before seeing out the year with Ensign and returning to ATS for the first four races of 1981. For 1982 his already arduous career took him to Theodore, where 5 failures to qualify and a non-finish at Zandvoort for his home Grand Prix saw his tenure seemingly end.
After some fleeting appearances in the CART Championship in America, Lammers returned to Europe to win Le Mans in 1988 for Jaguar, and followed this up with victory at Daytona in 1990. Amazingly, in 1992 after more than ten years, he returned to the F1 paddock to compete in the final two races in Japan and Australia for the cash-strapped March team, coming home 12th in Adelaide.
He looked set to return full time for the team in 1993, but they folded, leaving him to participate in F3000 instead before returning to Sports Cars.
Lammers will be at the wheel of the #5 Hope Racing Oreca at Le Mans this weekend.
3) Stephane Sarrazin (1 race start in F1)
Sarrazin appeared to be a F3000 driver of no great distinction, with a win at Oschersleben and 2nd at the Hungaroring in 1998 the highlights as he was called up by Minardi to replace the injured Luca Badoer for the 1999 Brazilian GP. The Frenchman however performed admirably, qualifying 17th on the grid ahead of both Arrows and his team mate Marc Gene (another driver at Le Mans in 2011). Sadly his race was to last only 31 laps, as a wing problem saw him suffer one of the most spectacular accidents in F1 history at the corner onto the start/finish straight, as he crashed into the wall before executing around 6 full spins and coming to rest on the opposite side of the track.
That was it for Sarrazin’s F1 career, for he returned to F3000, taking one further win later that year in Hungary. He demeaningly lost his seat midway through 2000 to Tomas Scheckter, and only competed in one more F3000 race.
After racing in the Renault World Series in 2003, he turned his attention to Rallying, competing in the tarmac rounds of the World Rally Championship for Subaru, finishing 4th in Spain in 2004 and France in 2005. He then began racing Sports Cars, although returned to the Rally scene in 2009, coming home third in the Monte Carlo Rally of that year (albeit no longer a World Championship event).
Watch out for Sarrazin at the wheel of the #8 Peugeot 908 prototype at Le Mans this weekend.
4) Franck Montagny (7 race starts in F1)
Having alerted the world to his promise in Formula 3 in 1998 by beating luminaries such as Sebastien Bourdais and Nick Heidfeld, Montagny graduated to F3000 for two unsuccessful years with the DAMS team, before winning the World Series by Renault in 2001 and coming runner-up in the same series the following year before regaining his title in 2003, beating off a young Heikki Kovalainen. He then graduated to become Renault’s third driver for the 2004 and 2005 seasons, also acting as GP2 development driver when the series began.
In 2006 his big moment arrived, as he was named third driver for the fledgling Super Aguri team. When Yuji Ide lost his drive (and indeed his superlicence) after 4 Grands Prix of the season, Montagny stepped in for the European GP at the Nurburgring. He competed in seven races with a best result of 16th, even taking time out in the middle of his F1 run to finish 2nd at Le Mans.
He was replaced at Super Aguri thereafter by the Yen-laden Sakon Yamamoto, and returned to test driver duties, which he also completed for Toyota the following season. Stints in A1GP and American single seaters followed before another second place finish at Le Mans in 2009.
Montagny will share the #8 Peugeot with Sarrazin at Le Mans this weekend.
5) Gianmaria Bruni (18 race starts in F1)
Bruni won numerous titles in Formula Renault before moving onto British F3 and coming to the attention of the Minardi team, who ran him as third driver for the final 5 races of 2003 after they lost main driver Justin Wilson to Jaguar. Minardi then chose to sign him up for 2004, although a painful campaign alongside Hungarian Zsolt Baumgartner saw the team score a solitary point, with Baumgartner finishing 8th at Indianapolis.
Bruni meanwhile managed only 9 finishes in 18 races, with a best result of 14th, and will have particularly poor memories of his only home Grand Prix, where a fire in his pit stop left him inhaling fumes and gasping for air. For 2005 he took a step downwards to the new GP2 Series, where he managed 3 victories in two seasons before switching his attention to Sports Cars, winning his class at Le Mans in 2008.
Bruni will be gunning for glory in the GT class at Le Mans this weekend in the #51 AF Corse Ferrari.
6) Olivier Beretta (10 race starts in F1)
After a somewhat undistinguished career in French and British F3, Beretta tackled F3000, albeit in hopeless fashion with a best finish of 9th during a disappointing 1992 season with Piquet Racing. Things went better the next year however as he moved to future F1 outfit Forti, winning the opening race of the 1993 season at Donington from Pole Position. Sadly he was to claim just 11 further points and finish the season in 6th place, behind such F1 greats as Pedro Lamy and Franck Lagorce.
Nonetheless, his 'talent' had been spotted by Gerard Larrousse, whose eponymous team gave him his break in Formula 1 for 1994. After retirements in the first 3 Grands Prix, Beretta finished his home Grand Prix in Monaco in an impressive 8th place, before sadly not even making the start of the next round in Spain as his engine blew on the formation lap.
He came desperately close to scoring a point in the attritional German race, finishing 7th (of the 8 runners remaining), but after another respectable 9th place finish in Hungary, it was all over as the cash strapped team decided to field a succession of questionable yet rich drivers (Philippe Alliot, Yannick Dalmas and Hideki Noda), leaving Beretta sadly out of a job.
He then turned to tin-tops, winning the FIA GT2 Championship with Pedro Lamy in 1998 and then the GT Championship outright with Karl Wendlinger in 1999. He has also secured class victories at Le Mans on five occasions, and five class victories in the American Le Mans Series drivers’ championship.
Beretta will be aiming for a strong result in GT this weekend, in the #73 Corvette.
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