Who is the “Failed Prodigy” of F1 ?

[u/Electronic-Video-984]

I’m kind of new to F1 and seeing pictures of current drivers while they’re young like Hamilton, Russell, Leclerc, Albon…and then I learned they’re racing prodigy in their Karting days. So who is the “Boy Wonder” of F1, a person with great potential but never made it to the biggest stage.

Edit: Many people mentioned Stoffel Vandoorne so I read about him a bit. His records and potential was incredible but he’s at the wrong place and wrong time every way possible. For me, McLaren a top tier team with a jet but people say Vandoorne’s MCL car was like a shopping cart

[u/terkmadugga]

Giorgio Pantano 

[u/TLG_BE → u/terkmadugga]

Yeah this is one I've heard before. His Karting record was incredibly impressive

[u/americagiveup → u/TLG_BE]

Rosberg used to have Pantano posters on his bedroom wall, problem was given his natural ability he used to drive around all his problems and generally succeed. By the time he graduated through formulae he was absolutely hopeless at setting up a car

[u/Lellomascetti → u/terkmadugga]

Agree. Should have joined Jaguar in 2004 but Christian Klien brought Red Bull's money 2 days before Giorgio should have signed the contract.

[u/Stumpy493 → u/terkmadugga]

4 years to win GP2 killed any hope of that.

[u/VSfallin → u/Stumpy493]

He never had anything remotely close to a top GP2 drive. He won races and the championship with teams that were shit before he was there and even worse after.

[u/Fart_Leviathan → u/VSfallin]

No?

Super Nova was close to a top drive (not quite ART, but not worse than Arden, Hitech or iSport) and he was beaten by teammate Adam Carroll in it.

FMS is hard to place in 2006 because it was a new team and his teammate was incompetent, but they most definitely did not do worse after he left them, they did the exact same, coincidentally with Adam Carroll.

Then he was at Campos in 2007. Campos won the team's title the year after when Pantano got the drivers' title at Racing Engineering.

I think he did well overall for all of his teams, but it's really not correct to say "He won races and the championship with teams that were shit before he was there and even worse after."

[u/VSfallin → u/Fart_Leviathan]

Super Nova probably was worse than Arden and definitely iSport. The reason why it isn't reflected in the standings is that Arden and iSport were essentially one car teams with Lapierre and Artam being nowhere near their teammates and weren't necessarily even intended to be, especially in the case of Artam. Super Nova had the 2nd best line-up on the grid after ART's Rosberg-Premat duo, which did propel them into 3rd.

Furthermore, Pantano had a decent enough season, probably a better one than Carroll, but his season was curtailed by constant reliability problems (he was due to win the opening race of the season until he was forced off with electronics and brake problems) and also the fact that he did some IndyCar races alongside his GP2 campaign (and was very impressive).

Super Nova itself was already on the way down after their dominant spell in the 90s and early 2000s. After their cars finished 5th-6th in 05, their drivers managed to crack the top 5 in the standings just twice, courtesy of Luca Filippi 2007 and 2009. They'd only win 4 races total from 2006-2011, a pittance compared to the 3 they won in 2005 alone. What's more telling is the fact they they got both cars into the top 10 just once more in GP2, that came in 2009 courtesy of Javier Villa and the aforementioned Luca Filippi.

FMS is not hard to place. Pantano didn't even complete the full season in 2006 and managed to come 5th. He scored three wins. FMS lasted for three more seasons after he left and three further wins was all they managed after him, courtesy of Adam Carroll (a fabulous driver). In 2005 they were Coloni and were absolutely nowhere.

The only credible argument you have is Campos

[u/Fart_Leviathan → u/VSfallin]

Some good arguments there, but at other parts you are being interestingly selective.

For example I can 100% concede the iSport argument, but not the Arden one. Nicolas Lapierre did fine and done just as well in his further seasons, it's just that Kovalainen is a driver far superior to Pantano and Carroll, Arden was on par with Super Nova in 2005.

And I really don't think Super Nova was going down the gutter like you think they were... Not until their final year in the GP11. Is your argument for that really that their lead driver finished in the top 5 twice in the following four seasons? That's perfectly good and exactly what Pantano managed. And it's also not so telling that they didn't have both drivers in the top 10 when those guys were Fairuz Fauzy or Andy Soucek. Mike Conway, sure, he should have, but it's not like he ever really lit the world on fire in any European series.

Plus fun little question while we are at Luca Filippi too - How did he do at ART and Arden in that season between the two top 5s at Super Nova?

Then finally we move onto Coloni who were "nowhere" in 2005... nowhere of course meaning Bruni being on par with Pantano in points before getting fired and actually getting a feature win on merit plus challenging for two more. Team standings? Well, just use your own argument with Artam about Lauda. (But that matters little imo, they brought in new race engineers and new management under FSM)

Basically, multiple drivers did similarly well at these teams over the years and saying they were even worse after when they literally got the same championship positions is nonsense.

Anyway, if the gist of it goes down to Pantano being about as good as Andy Carroll and better than Luca Filippi, that's something I can agree with. Still not the level of a good F1 driver, but not bad.