Posted by Jamie Hibbard at 11:15AM on Wednesday 07 May, 2008 10 Comments
It was sad yesterday that Super Aguri had to call it a day.
They had some great moments during their short tenure - the greatest possibly being Takuma Sato overtaking Fernando Alonso in Canada last year - and will be missed by many F1 fans around the world.
Super Aguri may have only scored four points during their F1 career, but compared to this lot below, they were titanic heroes:
Connew Racing Team
A Surtees design engineer set this team up and built his own cars. They competed in two races, but failed to start the first or finish the second.
Amon
Driver Chris Amon decided to start a team and build his own ambitious car in 1974. It first appeared at the Spanish GP where it retired. It then failed to qualify for the next six races, after which the team closed down.
Gulf Rondini Racing
These guys managed to qualify last and finish 14th at the German GP in 1975. They took part in three more races - finishing 18th in Monza - and were never heard from again.
Andrea Moda Formula
Italian shoe maker Andrea Sassetti bought a team in 1991, which was immediately excluded from its first race for failing to stump up the new team deposit. Their second driver was there simply to make up the numbers - he rarely got chance to qualify - and Sassetti was later arrested in the Belgian paddock for allegedly forging invoices. The FIA eventually excluded the team for bringing the series into disrepute.
Derrington-Franci Racing Team
Stirling Moss's old mechanic Alf Francis started a team in 1964 in time for the Monza GP, lasting 25 laps. The one and only chassis was then destroyed in testing and the car disappeared (not literally).
Eifelland Wohnwagenbau
Team owner Gunther Henerici made a fortune selling caravans to Germans and entered F1 in 1972. The car appeared eight times before the caravan business was sold, and that was that.
Protos
The Protos team was actually a Formula 2 squad, but qualifies for this list as the 1967 German GP was run concurrently with that year's F2 race.
Spyker F1
The Dutch supercar manufacturer Spyker bought the ailing Midland F1 squad in 2006, but sold it again at the end of 2007 due to lack of funds. They were rubbish.
Token
A couple of businessmen bought a car from Ron Dennis's Rondel squad in 1974 that competed in four races. And that was that.
Apollon
The Jolly Club of Switzerland acquired a Williams FW03 in 1977 that was hopelessly off the pace at its one and only Grand Prix in Italy.
I've deliberately missed a bunch out, so be sure to send in your favourite rubbish teams using the handy comments form below...
10 Comments for "Bottom of the bottom"
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You forgot Life and Mastercard Lola...
Surely Lola need to be in there. Entering in the first Grand Prix of 1997, they were something like 15 seconds off Villeneuve's outrageous pole position time and both cars failed to qualify due to the 107% rule.
And that was that! A very poor showing from a company with some motor racing heritage and backed by MasterCard. Rubbish!
I have to wade in here with two famous back-of-the-grid names from the mid-1990s: Pacific and Forti.
Pacific, led by former mechanic Keith Wiggins, entered the fray in 1994 - running the likes of Bertrand Gachot, Andrea Montermini and Paul Belmondo for two point-less seasons before the pennies ran out and Wiggins reverted to F3000.
Guido Forti's eponymous team arrived in 1995 with backing from driver Pedro Diniz (Parmalat) but were never on the pace in their garish yellow challenger. When Diniz left the team to join Ligier in 1996 the writing was on the wall, and an ill-fated 11th-hour deal with Shannon Racing could not prevent the team's withdrawal following that season's German Grand Prix.
Forti Course was a favourite of mine. Their livery switched from bright yellow to green as the ownership changed half way through 1996. Then they disappeared all together.
EuroBrun: I read up on F1 rejects that they went a whole year without a start. Now that's worse than Token or Apollon.
Does anyone remember the Stewart Fords complete with tartan trim?
I have a Scalextric one. It's broken; that says it all really.
Well Mikeado, Stewart got a race win and many podiums, things that a lot of the teams presently on the grid like Red Bull, Toyota, Toro Rosso and BMW can only dream of...
What about the 'greats' of the late 1980s when the turbos were banned and suddenly every man built his own dog of a Formula One car.
Rial and Onyx actually made it as far as scoring the odd point, Coloni never got near it despite the legendary Roberto Morenos efforts (has anyone ever driven a bigger variety of crap cars than poor old Roberto?)
AGS, Zakspeed... some races had 39 entries, only one less than twice the current entry.. makes you think doesn't it...
We shall miss Aguri, the last of the plucky underdogs. Now, Honda, when are you going to promote Anthony Davidson to the works team? Surely you owe him one....
Minardi, Arrows and Jaguar... enough said!
Please tell the full story of Connew: A couple of blokes in a shed build a Grand prix car, tow it on an open trailer, con money out of a wealthy driver and actually get to race.
Imagine Bernie, the other teams or Max allowing some bloke to just rock up with a home built car today!