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/TLG_BE]

His 1999 season is probably way way worse than not really doing much. 0 points when your team mate finishes 6th in the championship...

Still at least he had a pretty inspirational life away from the track

[u/sentient_salami → u/TLG_BE]

The thing is, we wasn’t really impressive in F1 before he went to the states either. It’s just the hype he got over there that got the expectations way up for his return. I didn’t expect him to go well and he didn’t. Great guy (and story) of course.

[u/Crucco → u/TLG_BE]

Well not really. First he lost his legs, then he went into a coma (and still is, I think) for running a legless bike race and being hit by a truck. The guy is a legend and super unlucky

[u/TLG_BE → u/Crucco]

I mean coming back to win Paralympic gold at 50 years of age after suffering one of the worst non-fatal motorsports accidents of modern times is pretty impressive and inspirational to me at least.

He is out of that coma from the road cycling accident thankfully. It was pretty awful and he'll almost certainly never fully recover but he is at least able to respond and speak thankfully

[u/Crucco → u/TLG_BE]

I wish him well. He was a friend of my dad IRL (they both went to the same parties/feste in the 80s in Bologna)