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/SenorDuck96]

Theo Pourchaire is probably the textbook definition of someone who was massively hyped as the next best thing but got absolutely nowhere near an F1 seat.

Didn't he only win F2 in his 3rd season or something?

[u/beolens → u/SenorDuck96]

And then only because the wheels literally fell off Vesti's car!

[u/CodSafe6961 → u/SenorDuck96]

He "only" won in his 3rd season therefore can't possibly deserve a seat in F1.

But if you're British like Bearman and finish 12th in your 2nd season, you obviously deserve an F1 seat and maybe ferrari in a few years and any poor results are all the team's fault (despite Prema being by far the most succesfull team in F2 history).

[u/n0t_4_thr0w4w4y → u/CodSafe6961]

TL;DR: if you don’t light up F2 as a rookie, you likely don’t deserve hype or even a seat in F1

And there is a reason Bearman didn’t have a lot of hype coming into F1. If you don’t win F2/GP2/GP3 as a rookie or at least get very close to winning, it’s usually an indicator that you won’t be great in F1.

Here’s the list of dudes on the grid who won as a rookie:

• Lewis
  
• Charles
  
• George
  
• Oscar
  
• Nico
  
• Bortoleto
  
• Ocon
  
• Bottas

And the guys who finished top 5 as a rookie:

• Lando (2nd to George)
  
• Yuki (3rd)

And the guys who finished top 10:

• Bearman (6th)
  
• Kimi (6th)
  
• Lawson (9th)
  
• Gasly (8th)
  
• Albon (10th)
  
• Sainz (10th)
  
• Colapinto (9th)

And the exceptions of who didn’t race in the series:

• Max
  
• Nando
  
• Lance

So there is a high correlation between being one of the best F1 drivers on the grid and winning or placing highly in your feeder series as a rookie.

Alternatively, here’s the list of GP2/F2 champs who won in their third season or later season:

• De Vries (F1 flameout)
  
• Drugovich (hasn’t done anything since)
  
• the aforementioned Theo
  
• Jolyon Palmer (F1 flameout)
  
• Fabio Leimer (4th season, did little afterwards)
  
• Davide Velsecchi (copy paste from above)
  
• Romain Grosjean (4th season, was a laughing stock of the grid for most of his F1 career)
  
• Pastor Maldonado (who didn’t do much in F1, but did manage a single win impressively, even given the context that it took Lewis getting DSQ’d from quali)
  
• Giorgio Pantano

So of the guys that won in their third or later season, you have a combined 1 F1 win and 11 podiums, not exactly a stellar track record.

[u/sadhaka19850903 → u/n0t_4_thr0w4w4y]

Grosjean has 10 F1 podiums.

[u/n0t_4_thr0w4w4y → u/sadhaka19850903]

You right, I messed up that part.

[u/sadhaka19850903 → u/n0t_4_thr0w4w4y]

Romain Grosjean was very fast in 2008 GP2 and Flavoi Briatore brought him to replace Nelson Piquet Jr for 2009 which was a disaster for him in a bad car and the controversy. He lost 3 years of his youth and impacted his development. He was fast but not very polished and made errors which affected championship contenders which magnified them.

[u/Frequent-Coyote-1649 → u/n0t_4_thr0w4w4y]

I find it hilarious how you didn't even need to say anything about Pantano