F1 Entries/Rumours that never happened

[Har1MAS1415]

Inspired by Michael Andretti failing to take over Alfa Romeo, thus denying Colton Herta a potential 2022 F1 debut.

Colton's father Bryan Herta also tried unsuccessfully for a Minardi seat for 2003

 

[Antony Snook]

The problem was a control issue. As people from Alfa Romeo and Andreti will have to merge. That means laying people off especially at the top. The top people at Alfa Romeo have been around since Sauber days and work well together. There are rumours of Porsche and maybe their partners Audi and Volkswagen wanting to enter F1. They have stayed away over last couple of decades as they like highbrid power. Combustion and electric. and F1 needs to mouve away from combustion and into more economic alternatives. Because F1 supplies technology to car market that is getting into smaller engines and electric power as a secondary power source. And then merge into full electric. So Andretti can come in later down the road with their own people under Porsche or Audi or even Volkswagen. And they can do it their own way.

 

[Har1MAS1415]

The problem was a control issue. As people from Alfa Romeo and Andreti will have to merge. That means laying people off especially at the top. The top people at Alfa Romeo have been around since Sauber days and work well together. There are rumours of Porsche and maybe their partners Audi and Volkswagen wanting to enter F1. They have stayed away over last couple of decades as they like highbrid power. Combustion and electric. and F1 needs to mouve away from combustion and into more economic alternatives. Because F1 supplies technology to car market that is getting into smaller engines and electric power as a secondary power source. And then merge into full electric. So Andretti can come in later down the road with their own people under Porsche or Audi or even Volkswagen. And they can do it their own way.

That's not the point of this thread!

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

There are so, so, so many to choose from.

Arrows-Volvo? DAMS? The 4WD Cosworth F1 car? Alpine over 50 years ago? Ekström Grand Prix (Swiss team, not Swedish)

Or are we just talking about drivers? Like Paul Tracy, Oliver Gavin (who for some reason didn't get a super license), Sebastien Loeb, Jörg Müller (first F3000 champion to not get a race-drive in F1), Tom Kristensen, Kenny Bräck, Bruno Junqueira and so on.

 

[Har1MAS1415]

There are so, so, so many to choose from.

Arrows-Volvo? DAMS? The 4WD Cosworth F1 car? Alpine over 50 years ago? Ekström Grand Prix (Swiss team, not Swedish)

Or are we just talking about drivers? Like Paul Tracy, Oliver Gavin (who for some reason didn't get a super license), Sebastien Loeb, Jörg Müller (first F3000 champion to not get a race-drive in F1), Tom Kristensen, Kenny Bräck, Bruno Junqueira and so on.

This applies to drivers and teams so Dome would count as well.

 

[Antony Snook]

That's not the point of this thread!

Alfa Romeo is not doing good right now so to join them will mean changes. That means lay offs and people at the top will be let go. There is also a salary cap next year. A organisation like Andretti will have their way of doing things and punting that into the culture of a egsisting team with a different philosophy wont work. Maybe Alfa Romeo wanted young drivers mouved into the car that Andretti did not want to run. Andretti has money and finance to build a new team from the ground up. So why purchase something that may be hard to work with.

 

[Har1MAS1415]

Alfa Romeo is not doing good right now so to join them will mean changes. That means lay offs and people at the top will be let go. There is also a salary cap next year. A organisation like Andretti will have their way of doing things and punting that into the culture of a egsisting team with a different philosophy wont work. Maybe Alfa Romeo wanted young drivers mouved into the car that Andretti did not want to run. Andretti has money and finance to build a new team from the ground up. So why purchase something that may be hard to work with.

That's STILL not the point of this thread.

 

[Pulp Quango]

There are so, so, so many to choose from.

Arrows-Volvo? DAMS? The 4WD Cosworth F1 car? Alpine over 50 years ago? Ekström Grand Prix (Swiss team, not Swedish)

Or are we just talking about drivers? Like Paul Tracy, Oliver Gavin (who for some reason didn't get a super license), Sebastien Loeb, Jörg Müller (first F3000 champion to not get a race-drive in F1), Tom Kristensen, Kenny Bräck, Bruno Junqueira and so on.

Swedish Ekström Grand Prix? A team that earned about two mentions in Autosport magazine, and then faded back into the fevered imaginings of whomever had dreamt it up in the first place... There was some speculation that the whole thing was a scam after the whole thing fell apart.

Raise you: Middlebridge GP, who had a year old Benetton/Toleman, a driver, and even apparently tyres (which Toleman themselves had managed to start 1985 without)... only to be told... "we no longer accept privateers" by the powers that be.

 

[Har1MAS1415]

Swedish Ekström Grand Prix? A team that earned about two mentions in Autosport magazine, and then faded back into the fevered imaginings of whomever had dreamt it up in the first place... There was some speculation that the whole thing was a scam after the whole thing fell apart.

Raise you: Middlebridge GP, who had a year old Benetton/Toleman, a driver, and even apparently tyres (which Toleman themselves had managed to start 1985 without)... only to be told... "we no longer accept privateers" by the powers that be.

Middlebridge/Trussardi Benetton B186, Emanuele Pirro was the intended driver.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Swedish Ekström Grand Prix? A team that earned about two mentions in Autosport magazine, and then faded back into the fevered imaginings of whomever had dreamt it up in the first place... There was some speculation that the whole thing was a scam after the whole thing fell apart.

Swiss as they were based in Switzerland.

 

[sherwooa]

Graham Rahal was linked to a US F1 team back in the late 2000's as I recall, but it never materialized.

 

[Antony Snook]

Peter Winsor was involved in USF1 in 2000. Based in Charlote North Carolina. 1st team to submit entry but crashed around Chrismass. Vidio footage shows a nosecone that kept failing impact tests. I do not believe anything beyond the nosecone had been developed.

 

[wombat999]

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet but Rick Mears had a 'test' run for the Brabham team and did rather well. Bernie thought he'd be good so he made him an offer.
Rick told him where to stick his 'offer' when it became clear that it was the price that he would have pay for a seat with Brabham!

 

[Har1MAS1415]

Peter Winsor was involved in USF1 in 2000. Based in Charlote North Carolina. 1st team to submit entry but crashed around Chrismass. Vidio footage shows a nosecone that kept failing impact tests. I do not believe anything beyond the nosecone had been developed.

You mean 2010. Drivers would have been José Maria Lopez and James Rossiter.

 

[Antony Snook]

There was a Mastercard Lola car in 1993. But it never made it the 1st round

 

[Har1MAS1415]

There was a Mastercard Lola car in 1993. But it never made it the 1st round

That was 1997, it was supposed to have been 1998 but Master Card didn't want to wait that long, the 1993 Lola was the Scuderia Italia one and there was also the unraced T95/30 that didn't have an airbox and was tested by Allan McNish.

 

[Eric Rowland]

Peter Windsor was involved in USF1 in 2000. Based in Charlotte North Carolina. 1st team to submit entry but crashed around Christmas. Vidio footage shows a nosecone that kept failing impact tests. I do not believe anything beyond the nosecone had been developed.

Jose Maria Lopez

Rick Mears had a 'test' run for the Brabham team and did rather well.

Riverside, CA 1981

 

[trichens]

Not F1 as such but Project Brabham was a crowd-funding "scheme" to get a Brabham LMP2 car in the WEC for 2015... that didn't happen.
They had plans back then of creating a LMP1 car and there was talk about F1 involvement with perhaps a buyout of Force India.
There doesn't appear to have been any real progress in the eight years since the project was launched although the company have created the BT62 and BT63 models since then.

 

[Har1MAS1415]

Not F1 as such but Project Brabham was a crowd-funding "scheme" to get a Brabham LMP2 car in the WEC for 2015... that didn't happen.
They had plans back then of creating a LMP1 car and there was talk about F1 involvement with perhaps a buyout of Force India.
There doesn't appear to have been any real progress in the eight years since the project was launched although the company have created the BT62 and BT53 models since then.

Maybe this calls for a similar thread for Sports cars and Endurance Racing?

 

[Har1MAS1415]

Okay, the Russian invasion of Ukraine cost Nikita Mazepin his Haas seat for 2022. Potential replacements included Pietro Fittipaldi, Nico Hulkenberg, Oscar Piastri, Antonio Giovinazzi, Robert Kubica and even Colton Herta and Pato O'Ward before Kevin Magnussen got the nod.