What's the oddest path to F1 you have seen a driver take?

[Peat]

Originally Posted by bella

being fair to fisi, didn't he do the ridiculously awesome itc? that was still pretty much a touring car?

ITC cars were FAR from touring cars.

- Active ride
- Active Ballast
- Traction Control
- ABS

These things were more advanced than F1 cars of the day.

[Mekola]

Chanoch Nissany. An Israeli/Hungarian businessman who decided in 2002 to income in auto racing and F1 was his aim. He did karts, Hungarian F2000 Hillclimbing and circuit races, WSR Light, F3000, and then F1 Friday driver with Minardi. And he did all that in little more than three years.

[ensign14]

Didn't do much actual racing though.

Anyone get to F1 from dragster racing? Other than Danny Ongais.

[Mathew T]

without a doubt Max Chilton... much like his older brother Tom

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

Adrian Campos, first success was in radio-controlled car racing, winning the Spanish Championship in 1980.
Mind you that was as near as he got to winning anything in F1 after buying his way into the lower formula's, he is known in Spain as "The most unsuccessful F1 driver"
I wonder if his son will ever get there ?

At the time you would have thought Spain would be happy just to have an F1 driver.

[chillibowl]

sorry if it has been mentioned earlier, but didnt Hammy also start his racing career with rc cars?

[Born Racer]

He did, although it wasn't so much his route to F1.

[nycuk]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

sorry if it has been mentioned earlier, but didnt Hammy also start his racing career with rc cars?

De La Rosa too. And wasn't Alex Wurz a BMX champion in his teens?

[Silk Cut Jaguar]

Didn't Takuma Sato start off racing bicycles before switching to cars quite late? Late teens/early 20s maybe? I'm sure I've heard that somewhere.

[Bezzen]

Originally Posted by Richard B

Not so much his racing career path, but former ATS driver Slim Borgudd was the drummer on a few Abba singles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIks7g33Mik

[adam46]

I guess Kimi's path was odd?

Formula Renault to F1?

[ensign14]

Great find. "Funky Formula"? Interesting that the record label was one of his sponsors - one wonders which came first, the record deal or the car deal.

[RF_Racer]

Originally Posted by Flavio Galtieri

The weirdest I've seen in modern times is Max Chilton, who was at the Abu Dhabi F1 test.

He skipped all the junior formulae altogether and went from "T-Cars" (a joke kids formula with maybe 7 or 8 on the grid when I saw it) to Formula 3, thereby avoiding any need to prove himself against any of his peers lower down the order.

I know motor sport isn't a meritocracy but that took the biscuit imho....

What do you expect he could just buy his way into any championship even F1!

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by Razzzor

F1 doesn't seem to take much notice of Indycars anymore. It's more of a post-F1 series than ever before, rather than a feeder. Di Matta, Zanardi and Montoya must have been the last fellas to come from there, and they proved their Indycar worth a decade ago now. The only exception is Bourdais, but he had to dominate 4 consecutive seasons just to give a mid-back field seat in F1.

I remember Dixon had a test with Williams I think it was back around 02. Would have been awesome had he got a seat in F1. He'd probably have been more consistent than Montoya.

Just picked up on this. Brundle also won, but I believe he won the series.

[Born Racer]

Originally Posted by RF_Racer

What do you expect he could just buy his way into any championship even F1!

He's doing alright at the moment.. GP2 feature race winner and sixth in the championship.

[Marcus666]

Originally Posted by Razzzor

...
I remember Dixon had a test with Williams I think it was back around 02. Would have been awesome had he got a seat in F1. He'd probably have been more consistent than Montoya.

This is one weird descision. Why the hell did williams let a new zealander who had just won the Indy racing league WITH NO ROAD COURSES AND JUST OVALS ON THE CALENDER??!! ****ing hell, Bourdais had already won the F3000 title and some races in champcar at that time (2003-2004), He's the one who deserved the test most.

However, I read that Bourdais didn't get to be Renault's test driver because he didn't want to be in a rookie program developed by Flavio Briatore. Well, I guess that was one bad step by Seb, but He's always gonna be one driver that I reckon as one of the few that really deserves a seat in a good F1 team!

[wnut]

Stroke of the London Rowing club and no drivers licence before 25 has to be right up there!

Graham Hill WDC

[p-matt]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

He's doing alright at the moment.. GP2 feature race winner and sixth in the championship.

I can't help but think its more Carlin than Chilton. I would live to see how two decent drivers would do in that team

[BootsOntheSide]

Originally Posted by Marcus666

This is one weird descision. Why the hell did williams let a new zealander who had just won the Indy racing league WITH NO ROAD COURSES AND JUST OVALS ON THE CALENDER??!! ****ing hell, Bourdais had already won the F3000 title and some races in champcar at that time (2003-2004), He's the one who deserved the test most.

However, I read that Bourdais didn't get to be Renault's test driver because he didn't want to be in a rookie program developed by Flavio Briatore. Well, I guess that was one bad step by Seb, but He's always gonna be one driver that I reckon as one of the few that really deserves a seat in a good F1 team!

Bourdais didn't exactly shine when he did get the F1 drive though. And Dixon had been a frontrunner in ChampCar for 2 years when it was road-course dominated, in his late teens.

[Flavio Galtieri]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

He's doing alright at the moment.. GP2 feature race winner and sixth in the championship.

In eight years, and some 166 motor races Chilton has won two. One in F3 and one in GP2.

I wouldn't want to take anything away from the achievement last weekend, which was a very good and impressive drive by anyone's standards.

I do think it proves how track time, which of course means money, can and does prevail in the end. The longer a driver can afford to spend, and survive, at the F3, FR 3.5, GP2 level the more his chances of success.

[davyboy]

It has to be Derek Daly, who along with David Kennedy, emigrated from Ireland to Australia in 1973 to work as labourers in an iron ore mine in order to raise funds 'to become Formula One racing drivers' !