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WORST F1 DRIVERS:
Many people call a driver bad because he takes 3 or 4 tenths of a second from the team's main driver, but in fact any driver who takes that time is NOT A BAD DRIVER.
To demystify this subject, I did a survey of the drivers who took up absurd amounts of time from the team's main driver, and that's why they can literally be called BAD PILOTS. The 1990s are the period with the worst drivers in F1 history, because in addition to the lack of geniuses in the top teams (with the exception of Schumacher), some untalented paying drivers bought a place in F1.
1) Al Pease (CAN) in 1969: he was black flagged and disqualified in the 1969 Canadian GP for going too slowly on the track, a unique case in the history of F1.
2) Dave Walker (AUS) in 1971 and 1972: he was a teammate of Emerson Fittipaldi in 1972 at Lotus, but took an average of 3 seconds from the Brazilian in training. He is the only driver in history to have the following negative record: he raced in a champion car (Lotus 1972) without scoring a single point during the entire season, all points for the team were scored by Emerson.
3) Otto Stuppacher (AUT) in 1976: took 42s from the last time of GP Italy/76 and took 8s from the last time of GP Canada/76, both by Tyrrell, but was prevented from running in both races.
4) Claudio Langes (ITA) in 90: this Italian driver holds the record of 14 non-qualifications from pre-qualifying to official F1 practice in one season. He raced for the very weak EuroBrum, but what gives him credibility to be on this list is that he was on average 5.7s behind his teammate Roberto Moreno. But we should mention that EuroBrum was a stand-in for sponsors in practice, but they didn't have the money to race, so they didn't make an effort to qualify for the races. It's bizarre but true, and this was confirmed by Roberto Moreno. Even so, an average difference of 5.7s to his teammate is a lot.
5) Perry MacCarthy (ING) in 92: he never even qualified for a single race in F1. Perry was respectively 16s and 10s behind his teammate, Roberto Moreno, in pre-qualifying at the 1992 British GP and the 1992 Belgian GP for Andrea Moda. It is not known whether it was a lack of equipment, because everyone knows that small teams could not afford to provide equal equipment to both drivers, or whether it was a lack of talent, or whether it was both factors together. But a difference of 10s is quite considerable.
CURIOSITY: Perry MacCarthy was best man at Mark Blundell's wedding.
6) Philippe Adams (BEL) in 94: he bought a place at Lotus in GP Belgium 94 and in GP Portugal 94 he took 6s and 1.9s respectively from Herbert in training. Even compared to other driversF1 payers like De Cesaris, Diniz, Stroll, Latifi and Mazepin, this Belgian is way behind them in terms of talent.
7) Jean Dennis-Deletraz (SUI) in 94 and 95: in the Australian GP 94 for Larrouse he took 2.3s from that of the weak Japanese driver Hideki Noda. In the GP Portugal 95 and the GP Europe 95 for Pacif he took 4.6s and 3.2s respectively from the average Italian driver Andrea Montermini. This Swiss pilot was a “tough arm”.
8) Giovanni Lavaggi (ITA) in 95 and 96: in GP Germany 95, GP Hungary 95, GP Belgium 95 and GP Portugal 95 for Pacific he took respectively 1.2s, 2.2s, 4s and 4.6s from Italian driver Andrea Montermini. Then in the GP Germany 96, in the GP Hungary/96, in the GP Italy/96, in the GP Portugal/96 and in the GP Japan/96 for Minardi he took respectively 1.9s, 0.7s, 0.9s, 1.1s and 1 .9s from Portuguese driver Pedro Lamy.
NOTE: In the 90s, there were so many bad drivers that it is said that the FIA stipulated the rule of 112% of the time in practice for the race, precisely to prevent these drivers from starting.
9) Yuji Ide (JAP) in 2006: took an average of 4s from the good driver Takuma Sato in Super Aguri. At the 2006 San Marino GP, Ide caused a serious accident with Christijan Albers due to the Japanese driver's fault in a clumsy maneuver. He was banned from racing in F1, as he was considered dangerous. Regardless of this, taking 4s from your teammate qualifies you to enter this list.
10) Nikita Mazepin (RUS) in 2021: He made his F1 debut in 2021, financed by his father, a Russian millionaire. In that year, he lost in practice by 19x3 to Mick Schumacher, his teammate on the Haas team, being on average 0.4s slower. In 2022, Mazepin was replaced by Kevin Magnussen, who was on average 0.3s faster in practice than Mick Schumacher. To make matters worse, in 2023, the same Kevin Magnussen had Nico Hulkenberg as his teammate and was 0.3s behind Nico on average in practice.
We can't say for sure, but if Mazepin were Hulkenberg's teammate, he would probably be losing around 1 second per lap to the German driver. This indicates that Mazepin was well below the average F1 driver.
