For a driver F1 has always been about being in the right place at the right time, not only race wise but timing wise too. Every driver needs to be in the right team at the right time to take his chances to earn his reputation. There is another piece of timing drivers need to be aware of regarding their reputation as well, and this is one they are less good at, when to give up. Unfortunately every driver that gets to the top believes he’ll always be at the top and the idea that they are no longer good enough to compete doesn’t enter their head. Most top notch drivers usually manage to leave the sport at the top remembered very fondly by the fans but for a fair few after a couple of years of sunning it up on their boats and playing business man get bored and have the great idea to go back and conquer F1 again. They did it before so hard can it be? Everyone keeps talking about how great they are compared to this new lot. So back they come and unless your Niki Lauda or, at the moment, the Kimster then usually it leaves their fans clenching their buttocks with shame and shuffles them down the order of greats. I’ve assembled the top 5 of worst ‘second’ careers as a warning to our current hereos on what not to do.
5. Alain Prost
2nd Career stats:
Races: 16
Wins: 7
Podiums: 2
Points: 99
Hang on I hear you cry isn’t that picture of Prost celebrating his world title in 1993? How can you have him ranked him 5th in the worst champion come backs ever? Well quite simply Prost’s 4th world title masks a lot of things that went on that year and in actual fact it could be that Prost would have been better off not bothering and being a 3 times world champion.
There was a time, way back before the foundation of the church of Senna, when Alain Prost was F1’s hero and the clever little Frenchmen was seen as the greatest driver of all time. Senna on the other hand was considered as dangerous as Maldonado and Grosjean put together and as popular as a Lewis Hamilton win round Monza. 1990 had seen Prost leave Mclaren to join Ferrari and take on the might of Senna and Mclaren. He came very close to doing it and with Senna taking him out to make sure he didn’t if there had been internet forums back them the majority of them would have voted Prost the best driver on the grid. However a season is a long time and by mid-1991, although Senna was still cast as the villain, it was Nigel Mansell in his come back to Williams that had the hero role. Prost was frustrated at an awful Ferrari and lashed out in the media and found himself sacked. He chose not to return to the grid in 1992 and that really should have been the end of a very strong F1 career.
However 1992 saw the dawn of the Williams era. The new all singing all dancing Williams Renault made the other F1 cars look like they had to be started with a wind up handle at the front and Mansell cruised to one of the easiest titles in F1 history and Williams and Renault realised they were light years ahead everyone else and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. So what did Renault want? A French world champion powered by French engines. Jean Alesi was otherwise occupied and no one was stupid enough to suggest Phillipe Alliot, Prost was the only contender and the deal was done. Mansell was not happy about Prost coming in or the money he was being offered so he cleared off to America. Who was going to be Prost’s team mate? Senna was in the media saying he’d drive for Williams for free but Prost was having none of it and said he wouldn’t drive with Senna. So some old test driver bloke called Damon Hill who’d driven round in a pink Brabham for a bit was put in the car and was clearly labeled number 2. For those F1 fans who had just watched one of the dullest F1 seasons in history the idea that Prost was vetoing anyone with any skill getting a second seat in the only car that could realistically win the title did not make him a popular man. If you think its predictable now back at the beginning of 1993 we all knew Prost was going to be world champion before a wheel had been turned. We didn’t see anything to change our minds at the first race in South Africa but as we went to the second race in Brazil a chink in Prost’s armor, one we’d always suspected, reared its head. Prost was on slicks as the rain started to fall hard, lost control of the car and ploughed straight into Christian Fittipaldi’s Minardi. Senna went on to take the win and Prost was never really the same again as we saw in the very next Grand Prix. Donnington 1993 is remembered as Ayrton Senna’s greatest ever GP but it was also the day the majority of F1 fans concluded that the great Alain Prost had lost his bottle. I lost track of how many pit stops Prost had that day but they seemed endless, every time a speck of water hit his visor Prost seemed to jump in the pits. In the mean time his great rival Ayrton Senna ran away with the GP in a very under powered, and frankly awful, Mclaren. F1 had a new underdog and I deny anyone who was watching that season not to be rooting for Senna to keep pulling shock wins off over the massively superior Williams and suddenly Prost was super villain to Senna’s super hero.
The rest of the season didn’t improve our opinion of the professor much as it followed the pattern of Hill streaking off into the lead, backing off, Prost ‘overtaking’ him at mid-point and Damon following him home. Not only did we have doubts that Prost was the best driver on the grid we doubted he was even as quick as his team-mate. Just to prove us all right when Williams announced Senna would be in the team next year Prost promptly announced his retirement. His second career may have seen him capture his 4th world title but it also left a massive black mark on his reputation, something I don’t think he’s ever recovered from. So now whilst his closest rival gets god status Prost is relegated to side-kick in the story. Maybe he’d have been better off packing in after 1991.
4. Michael Schumacher
Second Career Stats:
Races: 58
Wins: 0
Podiums: 1
Points: 197
When I think of Michael Schumacher’s return to F1 I can’t help but think of that scene in the film the Untouchables where they off the accountant guy in the lift and Costner opens the lift doors to see the words Touchable smeared on the door with blood. Don’t let the naysayers who pull apart his career on the internet convince you otherwise because love him or hate him he was who he was and he was the unbeatable Michael Schumacher. Yes he’d gone out being beaten by Alonso in 2006 but it had taken years and plenty of rule changes to topple the guy and his mere name sent a shudder down peoples spine so when 2 races into his comeback you saw him wheelbanging and losing out to the likes of Jamie Alguersauri you knew something wasn’t right.
What was more unnerving was the smile and good nature he walked round the pitlane with. It was a bit like seeing Darth Vader without the mask on or having Voldermort invite you round for tea. The Kaiser briefly returned in actions if not in results when he attempted to kill Rubens Barrichello against the pitwall at Hungary and whilst making out he was apologising basically said Rubens should get over it but whilst it was a familiar attitude we weren’t seeing the familiar results. For those of us who had lived the Schumacher era it was hard to accept that Schumie didn’t know something we didn’t, we’d seen the possible end of the Schumie era so many times only to be wrong. I think the majority of us suspected that his smile hid something he knew about the Merc car for the year following and part of suspected we might see him rule the ways once again in 2011.
A super Mercedes didn’t materialize in 2011 and his season was much the same as the one before yet still a cheerful and friendly Michael strolled round the pit lane. At Canada that year due to safety cars and rain Schumacher found himself at the front challenging for the win. “Come on Schumie!” a great deal of us shouted before stopping ourselves and wondering where the hell that came from. Could it be that we’ve come to like Michael as an underdog? Surely not! The season continued as the last one did and we all actually chuckled when we saw him blocking Hamilton to an inch of his life whilst convincing the stewards he wasn’t by having Ross Brawn come on the radio and warn him about it. Nice to see the old Schumie back we thought, but he wasn’t back results wise.
By 2012 the joke was over and as a highly competitive season raged on around him we got used to seeing Michael park the car up half way through with whatever issue he’s managed to pick up that weekend. Even his pole wasn’t really a pole at Monaco and he finally lucked his way into a podium at Valencia. Meanwhile he sprouted stuff about how happy he was and how sometimes you learn more from not winning. As he came to his last Grand Prix it was seen as a fitting end that he helped his friend and countrymen Vettel secure his third title by letting him past to secure 6th. Well I disagree, fitting end my backside! A fitting end would have been if Schumie had blocked him for 3 laps and then smashed him of the track to have one last say in the championship. Who was this adorable pussycat of the second career? I’m sorry but Schumacher spent so long pruning the villain role and being the uncontrollable beast of a driver. He did anything to take a win and a title and that’s what made him so great. All this nicey nicey was like the boogyman tucking you into bed at night and telling you a story.
There is no doubt in my mind that if Schuamcher hadn’t retired when he did he’d have won at least one more title in 2007 or 2008 but this comeback was all just a bit too late and all it achieved was the greatest of all time bumping himself down to second greatest of all time. Wish you’d stayed at home Schumie.
3. Jacques Villeneuve
Second Career Stats:
Races: 34
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Points: 16
Jacques Villeneuve made a huge splash in F1 when he first arrived jumping straight into a seat with one of the top teams and almost winning his first GP(hey that sounds familiar). He finished second in the championship in his first season and he pushed his world champion team-mate out of the his team to become world champions in only his second F1 season(still sounding familiar). After that though things went down hill as his team were unable to produce a car for him that was capable of challenging for the title(even more familiar). The 1998 Williams really didn’t have the pace of its rivals and Villeneuve had to constantly out perform the car to achieve results and he eventually left to start a new challenge pushing a team up the grid from further down(ok this is getting silly now). But things didn’t work out for him there either and although he achieved a few good podiums in 2001 come 2003 he was pushed out of his own team by an up and coming Jenson Button(stop it now!). No one picked him up for 2004 and it looked like Jacques F1 ride was over.
Villeneuve’s ex girlfriend Danni Minouge was once asked why she split up with Jacques and she said it was because once you took away his racing he was the most boring person on the planet. Having heard his album I tend to think she has a point so maybe it was this that prompted the comeback at the end of 2004. Jarno Trulli had fallen out of favor at Renault and big man Flavio decided to take a gamble of old Jac for the last 3 races of the Grand Prix. Villeneuve came back with a lot of bluster promising Renault he would help them take 2nd place from his old team BAR. Bluster was just what it was as Villeneuve not only failed to score any points in those 3 races but he failed to even finish on the lead lap in any of them. Renault came 3rd in the championship and Villeneuve’s contract was not picked up.
His second career should have ended there but Sauber, usually a team with good taste, decided Villeneuve had too much potential to ignore and he was signed for 2005. It seemed a good decision when he stuck the Sauber on 4th for the first GP of the year in Australia but that turned out to flatter him as he ended up down in 13th a lap down yet again. In the first 3 races of 2005 he was the slowest driver on Michelin tyres which prompted rumors he was about to be ditched but then in San Marino Jacques managed to pull a 4th place out of somewhere and kept his drive. By the time we got to Monaco though they were probably wishing they hadn’t when a very silly move by Villeneuve pushed his team-mate, Fellipe Massa, and himself off the road meaning they didn’t score any at all. 14th in the championship and behind his team-mate Massa did not look good for Jacques.
2006 saw Sauber become BMW and BMW wanting to get rid of Villeneuve. Heiki Kovalinan and Dan Wheldon were the favorites to do so but our Jacques reminded BMW how much they’d have to pay him if they didn’t continue his contract and low and behold he was in the race seat alongside Heidfeld. The first 5 races went quite well for Villeneuve but from round 6 onwards the championship things went down hill. Heidfeld went on a run of points scoring finishes and Jacques just couldn’t match him. He apparently picked up some sort of injury in Germany which meant a young Robert Kubica got a first race in Hungary and promptly finished 7th and despite being disqualified for being under weight BMW suddenly had a new superstar and Villeneuve never returned to the car. Jacques gave the reason as he didn’t want to get involved in a shoot out for a place in the car with Kubica when he’d already proven himself which stank a little bit of him knowing he couldn’t compete with the young pole.
Villeneuve had already done his best to ruin our memories of a champion at the end of his first career but his second career certainly meant we’d remember him as chump rather than champ. Another comeback in 2010 with proposed new team Steffan was promptly cut short when Bernie wouldn’t let them on the grid. Thank god for that. Stay home Jacques!
2. Alan Jones
Second Career Stats
Races: 20
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Points: 4
Retirements: 15
Alan Jones, Australia’s second greatest driver (suck that Mark Webber) and the man who helped make Williams the team it was. Jones peak of form came right in the middle of the ground effect era and his rise to the top came through consistency more than anything else. His championship year saw 5 wins and 5 podiums in 14 races. 1981 saw his form nearly as good and although he only secured 3rd in the championship he was only a handful of points off the top and if his rivalry with Reutemann had not been so intense he could have won it. He announced his retirement mid-way through 1981 and won what was meant to be his very last Grand Prix to go out on a high it seemed like a fitting end…….if only we’d known.
1983 was the first sign of the dreaded comeback though when Jones made a one off appearance for Arrows at a non-championship race at Brands Hatch labeled the race of champions where he qualified 3rd and finished 3rd. Wasn’t it nice to see him back for that one off race. What? He’s coming back again? Yes he turned up for Arrows at the United States GP in Long Beach. He qualified 12th but it was a bit naff when after 58 laps he retired due to ‘driver fatigue’. Thankfully Jones wasn’t around in 1984 to dent his reputation anymore however as 1985 loomed large in the windscreen it was announced that Carl Haas and Teddy Mayer were forming Team Haas. The Americans were coming backed by Ford engines and its drivers were Patrick Tambay and, yes, Alan Jones. This was going to be exciting right? Well yes apart from the fact that Ford were using the Haas team to develop their new turbocharged V6 and it wouldn’t be ready until the start of the 1986 season. Carl Haas signed a deal with Brian Hart for engines and then also decided not to enter the team for the whole of the 1985 season but just a few races near the end. Jones turned up in the new Haas team and promptly stuck it on the grid……second to last. Worse followed as he completed 6 laps before retiring. After a poor showing Jones and Haas decided to skip Belgium and prepare for the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch the extra time certainly helped them improve, this time Jones qualified 22nd and managed to last 13 laps before and engine failure. Things didn’t improve when they reached South Africa as Jones qualified the car but sent a note from his mum on race day as he felt a bit poorly. 1985 finished for the Haas team in Jones homeland of Australia and in true patriotic fashion Alan pulled out his best race of the season where he managed to complete a whole 20 laps before the car gave out on him again.
I think a collective groan from fans of Alan Jones could be heard when it was announced they would be in F1 full time in 1986 although the prospect of a new car with the new Ford engine was a good thing right? Yeah apart from it wasn’t ready in time and both Jones and now on the grid team-mate Tambay started with the old car still with Hart engines and rather embarrassingly for Alan Tambay seemed to be able to get out more performance out of it. A massive dent in Jones reputation came at the third Grand Prix of the year in San Marino where Tambay in the old Hart powered car qualified 11th and Jones in the all new singing and dancing Haas THL2 was down in 21st. The season continued in much the same vein and although the records show Jones scored a 4th in Austria and a 6th in Italy let it also be known that Jones was a full 2 laps down on the leaders and both were races of attrition.
As the 1986 season ended so did the funding for Haas and thankfuly that brought the second career of Alan Jones to an end but it certainly left a big splodge on his reputation and the up and coming racing Aussies would much rather preach Jack Brabham as their hero than name drop Alan Jones which is such a shame when in his day Jones was a match for most. Should have stayed at home Alan!
1. Nigel Mansell
Second Career Stats
Races: 6
Wins: 1
Podiums: 0
Points: 13
Retirements: 3
Sorry Nigel but I’m afraid despite being only 6 races your second career has to be the worst of all time and a warning for all other champions to know when your time is done. Nigel waved goodbye to F1 after his championship year of 1992 at the ripe old age of 39 and went across the pond to show them yanks how it was done, which he promptly did by becoming Indycar champ in 1993. Nice one Nige! Back over in the world of F1 though tragedy struck with the death of Ayrton Senna and F1 was on a bit of a downer. Quick to come to its aid of course was Mr Ecclestone who realised what F1 needed was the return of a hero to heel its wounds and sounded out Mr Mansell who was having a bit of a bad time of it in Indycar. Nigel was keen to come back and jump in that Williams but contracts can’t be got out of so instead of rushing back to take on this new German upstart Schumacher he arranged to come back for a one off appearance in France and the three last races of the season.
As we all know though timing in F1 is everything and things change very quickly. If Mansell had come back to F1 straight away we’d have embraced him with open arms but by the time he turned up in France things had changed again. A certain Damon Hill had come to the fore and was leading the Williams team from the front. Nigel’s return meant that a young up and coming Scot named David Coulthard had to sit on the sidelines which didn’t sit well with the British fans. To be fair to Nigel he stuck it in second behind Damon in quali and although he couldn’t keep up with Damon and Schumie in the race and eventually retired with gearbox problems he did look competitive unfortunately with the Schumacher/Hill rivalry beginning to blossom nobody really cared in fact it left most of us wondering what the point in the exercise was.
Nigel returned to America where he was doing the best he could to completely destroy the good reputation he built up in his debut year by pushing cameramen around, failing to turn up for PR events and having a war of words with teammate and U.S legend Mario Andretti. The catalyst for all this was of course how awful his indycar season was going with no wins, 2 podiums and 7 retirements from the season Nigel wasn’t exactly enjoying himself so I’m guessing F1 looked like a fine idea. Eventually his nightmare of an Indycar season was to finish and he jumped straight back into the F1 scene. He arrived with 3 races left at the European Grand Prix in Jerez hoping for a fanfare and to be welcomed with open arms. What really happened was that everyone was busy watching Hill and Schumacher go head to head for the title and hardly noticed his return. Those that did had an attitude summed up by a banner seen hanging up at Jerez which read “We love you Nige but give Coulthard the keys”. Maybe he’d caught sight of that banner on lap 47 at Jerez when he spun off into the gravel trap, once again he hadn’t been on terms with Hill and Schumacher but had been best of the rest although in the best car in the field you would have expected that really. The next race was in Japan and due to severe weather and an accident involving Martin Brundle and a marshal the race was in 2 parts and the last ever race decided on time aggregate. Nigel actually had what would have been classed as a legendary battle with Jean Alesi’s Ferrari for the final podium place. Like I said it would have been legendary if we all weren’t too busy biting our nails and looking at the battle of pure speed going on between Schumie and Hill at the front. So we all missed Nigels gutsy overtake with two laps to go and had to watch it through a reply on a dodgy wet onboard camera which probably didn’t do it justice. Did no one love Nigel anymore? Seemed not, as before we even hit Australia it seemed pretty certain he wouldn’t be driving a Williams next year and all the talk was of Damon being the next British champion. Still the ozzies loved Nigel and he got the warmest reception of anywhere and promptly stuck it on pole. Schumacher and Hill scampered away at the start and the story of Adelaide 1994 has been told many times and we all know what happened but do as many of us remember that the race that day was won by Nigel Mansell by 2.5 seconds from Gerhard Berger? Not many, bet even less of us realise that it was Nigels only F1 victory on a street circuit. So what a lovely way for Nigel to go, ok so his comeback seemed a bit pointless to us and we had new hereos in F1 now but signing off with a win in Australia was a lovely way to end his career, like a last little victory lap…………or so it should have been but Nigel has never been one to know when to give up.
Mclaren had been on the slide since 1991 and with Senna and Berger left the team at the end of 1993 and its new partnership with Peugeot in 1994 had been awful. 1995 saw them team up with Mercedes for the first time but Mclaren’s main sponsors were still insisting that Ron Dennis has a world champion in the car. They’d insisted this the previous season too which had led to Prost testing the Mclaren before deciding no being as Senna was the only other champ left at the time the sponsors let it slide but this year Mansell was on the market and, unlike Prost, Nigel wanted back in to F1 and despite Ron Dennis and Mansell pretty much hating each other the deal was struck. Its fair to say the F1 public were a bit confused, Mansell and Mclaren? Didn’t seem to make sense to most and to be honest all the talk was still about Schumacher and Hill. Not to mention British fans had the distraction of Coulthard and Herbert both having competitive drives. Was Nigel really going to rock our worlds? Maybe there were a core of fans who thought so but I’m afraid to say as the 1995 season started this is where the puzzled what is he doing faces stopped and the fist biting of embarrassment was to start. It was announced that Mansell would not be driving the Mclaren-Mercedes for its first 2 Grand Prix because, and everyone cringed as we heard it, he could not fit in the cockpit. How this was not the end of this comeback I have no idea, surely when it comes down to having to change the design of your car so your ‘star driver’ can fit in it then it’s a clue that maybe the partnership wasn’t going to work. The fact that Mansell wasn’t even at the races spoke louder than any press release in ronspeak.
Mansell did eventually jump into the race seat for F1’s rather bleak return to Imola and you instinctively got the impression that both parties wondered why they were bothering. Mansell qualified 9th, a full 1.2 seconds slower than team-mate Hakkinen in 5th and the race did not get much better. Mansell made the wrong decision to start on slicks and lost valuable time to all the front runners, he had a run in with Eddie Irvine and brought the car home in 10th a full 2 laps down on the winner and a whole lap down on his team-mate. By this point most of us who’d jumped up and down in excitement as Nigel took on Senna in 1991 were now pretending we’d forgotten he was in the field and blushing everytime we saw him interviewed talking about his championship challenge. Even Nigel couldn’t be believing it by the time we were in Spain and he found himself 10th on the grid a full 2.45 seconds behind Schumachers pole time. Whether Nigel had decided he was walking away before the race will never be known but a retirement after 18 laps with the official reason given as ‘handling’ seems mighty suspicious to me. With that Mansell’s F1 career came to an end but not before Nigel gave his fans one more reason to be embarrassed by claiming his split from Mclaren was due to the car as he didn’t want to be an “also ran”. He scared us all again by testing a Jordon a year or so later but lucky for us (and him) nothing came of it and that was it for Red Five Nige.
It was at least 3 to 4 years before Nigel fans could speak up and talk about how great he was again without being met by a chorus of giggles about him being too fat to get in the car, the shouts and giggles were still there they just weren’t as loud. Even now Mansell can’t be discussed without the whole second career coming up and massively blotting his copy book and the question we really have to ask is was it worth it Nigel? Because we really wish you hadn’t.
So let this be a warning for the Vettel’s, the Alonso’s and the Hamilton’s out there. However much you think you are it right now in the end someone is going to come along and be faster, better and more talented than you so please know when to give it up and have a long hard read of this list before considering any sort of comeback because those fans you have right now, won’t love you for it
5. Alain Prost
2nd Career stats:
Races: 16
Wins: 7
Podiums: 2
Points: 99
Hang on I hear you cry isn’t that picture of Prost celebrating his world title in 1993? How can you have him ranked him 5th in the worst champion come backs ever? Well quite simply Prost’s 4th world title masks a lot of things that went on that year and in actual fact it could be that Prost would have been better off not bothering and being a 3 times world champion.
There was a time, way back before the foundation of the church of Senna, when Alain Prost was F1’s hero and the clever little Frenchmen was seen as the greatest driver of all time. Senna on the other hand was considered as dangerous as Maldonado and Grosjean put together and as popular as a Lewis Hamilton win round Monza. 1990 had seen Prost leave Mclaren to join Ferrari and take on the might of Senna and Mclaren. He came very close to doing it and with Senna taking him out to make sure he didn’t if there had been internet forums back them the majority of them would have voted Prost the best driver on the grid. However a season is a long time and by mid-1991, although Senna was still cast as the villain, it was Nigel Mansell in his come back to Williams that had the hero role. Prost was frustrated at an awful Ferrari and lashed out in the media and found himself sacked. He chose not to return to the grid in 1992 and that really should have been the end of a very strong F1 career.
However 1992 saw the dawn of the Williams era. The new all singing all dancing Williams Renault made the other F1 cars look like they had to be started with a wind up handle at the front and Mansell cruised to one of the easiest titles in F1 history and Williams and Renault realised they were light years ahead everyone else and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. So what did Renault want? A French world champion powered by French engines. Jean Alesi was otherwise occupied and no one was stupid enough to suggest Phillipe Alliot, Prost was the only contender and the deal was done. Mansell was not happy about Prost coming in or the money he was being offered so he cleared off to America. Who was going to be Prost’s team mate? Senna was in the media saying he’d drive for Williams for free but Prost was having none of it and said he wouldn’t drive with Senna. So some old test driver bloke called Damon Hill who’d driven round in a pink Brabham for a bit was put in the car and was clearly labeled number 2. For those F1 fans who had just watched one of the dullest F1 seasons in history the idea that Prost was vetoing anyone with any skill getting a second seat in the only car that could realistically win the title did not make him a popular man. If you think its predictable now back at the beginning of 1993 we all knew Prost was going to be world champion before a wheel had been turned. We didn’t see anything to change our minds at the first race in South Africa but as we went to the second race in Brazil a chink in Prost’s armor, one we’d always suspected, reared its head. Prost was on slicks as the rain started to fall hard, lost control of the car and ploughed straight into Christian Fittipaldi’s Minardi. Senna went on to take the win and Prost was never really the same again as we saw in the very next Grand Prix. Donnington 1993 is remembered as Ayrton Senna’s greatest ever GP but it was also the day the majority of F1 fans concluded that the great Alain Prost had lost his bottle. I lost track of how many pit stops Prost had that day but they seemed endless, every time a speck of water hit his visor Prost seemed to jump in the pits. In the mean time his great rival Ayrton Senna ran away with the GP in a very under powered, and frankly awful, Mclaren. F1 had a new underdog and I deny anyone who was watching that season not to be rooting for Senna to keep pulling shock wins off over the massively superior Williams and suddenly Prost was super villain to Senna’s super hero.
The rest of the season didn’t improve our opinion of the professor much as it followed the pattern of Hill streaking off into the lead, backing off, Prost ‘overtaking’ him at mid-point and Damon following him home. Not only did we have doubts that Prost was the best driver on the grid we doubted he was even as quick as his team-mate. Just to prove us all right when Williams announced Senna would be in the team next year Prost promptly announced his retirement. His second career may have seen him capture his 4th world title but it also left a massive black mark on his reputation, something I don’t think he’s ever recovered from. So now whilst his closest rival gets god status Prost is relegated to side-kick in the story. Maybe he’d have been better off packing in after 1991.
4. Michael Schumacher
Second Career Stats:
Races: 58
Wins: 0
Podiums: 1
Points: 197
When I think of Michael Schumacher’s return to F1 I can’t help but think of that scene in the film the Untouchables where they off the accountant guy in the lift and Costner opens the lift doors to see the words Touchable smeared on the door with blood. Don’t let the naysayers who pull apart his career on the internet convince you otherwise because love him or hate him he was who he was and he was the unbeatable Michael Schumacher. Yes he’d gone out being beaten by Alonso in 2006 but it had taken years and plenty of rule changes to topple the guy and his mere name sent a shudder down peoples spine so when 2 races into his comeback you saw him wheelbanging and losing out to the likes of Jamie Alguersauri you knew something wasn’t right.
What was more unnerving was the smile and good nature he walked round the pitlane with. It was a bit like seeing Darth Vader without the mask on or having Voldermort invite you round for tea. The Kaiser briefly returned in actions if not in results when he attempted to kill Rubens Barrichello against the pitwall at Hungary and whilst making out he was apologising basically said Rubens should get over it but whilst it was a familiar attitude we weren’t seeing the familiar results. For those of us who had lived the Schumacher era it was hard to accept that Schumie didn’t know something we didn’t, we’d seen the possible end of the Schumie era so many times only to be wrong. I think the majority of us suspected that his smile hid something he knew about the Merc car for the year following and part of suspected we might see him rule the ways once again in 2011.
A super Mercedes didn’t materialize in 2011 and his season was much the same as the one before yet still a cheerful and friendly Michael strolled round the pit lane. At Canada that year due to safety cars and rain Schumacher found himself at the front challenging for the win. “Come on Schumie!” a great deal of us shouted before stopping ourselves and wondering where the hell that came from. Could it be that we’ve come to like Michael as an underdog? Surely not! The season continued as the last one did and we all actually chuckled when we saw him blocking Hamilton to an inch of his life whilst convincing the stewards he wasn’t by having Ross Brawn come on the radio and warn him about it. Nice to see the old Schumie back we thought, but he wasn’t back results wise.
By 2012 the joke was over and as a highly competitive season raged on around him we got used to seeing Michael park the car up half way through with whatever issue he’s managed to pick up that weekend. Even his pole wasn’t really a pole at Monaco and he finally lucked his way into a podium at Valencia. Meanwhile he sprouted stuff about how happy he was and how sometimes you learn more from not winning. As he came to his last Grand Prix it was seen as a fitting end that he helped his friend and countrymen Vettel secure his third title by letting him past to secure 6th. Well I disagree, fitting end my backside! A fitting end would have been if Schumie had blocked him for 3 laps and then smashed him of the track to have one last say in the championship. Who was this adorable pussycat of the second career? I’m sorry but Schumacher spent so long pruning the villain role and being the uncontrollable beast of a driver. He did anything to take a win and a title and that’s what made him so great. All this nicey nicey was like the boogyman tucking you into bed at night and telling you a story.
There is no doubt in my mind that if Schuamcher hadn’t retired when he did he’d have won at least one more title in 2007 or 2008 but this comeback was all just a bit too late and all it achieved was the greatest of all time bumping himself down to second greatest of all time. Wish you’d stayed at home Schumie.
3. Jacques Villeneuve
Second Career Stats:
Races: 34
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Points: 16
Jacques Villeneuve made a huge splash in F1 when he first arrived jumping straight into a seat with one of the top teams and almost winning his first GP(hey that sounds familiar). He finished second in the championship in his first season and he pushed his world champion team-mate out of the his team to become world champions in only his second F1 season(still sounding familiar). After that though things went down hill as his team were unable to produce a car for him that was capable of challenging for the title(even more familiar). The 1998 Williams really didn’t have the pace of its rivals and Villeneuve had to constantly out perform the car to achieve results and he eventually left to start a new challenge pushing a team up the grid from further down(ok this is getting silly now). But things didn’t work out for him there either and although he achieved a few good podiums in 2001 come 2003 he was pushed out of his own team by an up and coming Jenson Button(stop it now!). No one picked him up for 2004 and it looked like Jacques F1 ride was over.
Villeneuve’s ex girlfriend Danni Minouge was once asked why she split up with Jacques and she said it was because once you took away his racing he was the most boring person on the planet. Having heard his album I tend to think she has a point so maybe it was this that prompted the comeback at the end of 2004. Jarno Trulli had fallen out of favor at Renault and big man Flavio decided to take a gamble of old Jac for the last 3 races of the Grand Prix. Villeneuve came back with a lot of bluster promising Renault he would help them take 2nd place from his old team BAR. Bluster was just what it was as Villeneuve not only failed to score any points in those 3 races but he failed to even finish on the lead lap in any of them. Renault came 3rd in the championship and Villeneuve’s contract was not picked up.
His second career should have ended there but Sauber, usually a team with good taste, decided Villeneuve had too much potential to ignore and he was signed for 2005. It seemed a good decision when he stuck the Sauber on 4th for the first GP of the year in Australia but that turned out to flatter him as he ended up down in 13th a lap down yet again. In the first 3 races of 2005 he was the slowest driver on Michelin tyres which prompted rumors he was about to be ditched but then in San Marino Jacques managed to pull a 4th place out of somewhere and kept his drive. By the time we got to Monaco though they were probably wishing they hadn’t when a very silly move by Villeneuve pushed his team-mate, Fellipe Massa, and himself off the road meaning they didn’t score any at all. 14th in the championship and behind his team-mate Massa did not look good for Jacques.
2006 saw Sauber become BMW and BMW wanting to get rid of Villeneuve. Heiki Kovalinan and Dan Wheldon were the favorites to do so but our Jacques reminded BMW how much they’d have to pay him if they didn’t continue his contract and low and behold he was in the race seat alongside Heidfeld. The first 5 races went quite well for Villeneuve but from round 6 onwards the championship things went down hill. Heidfeld went on a run of points scoring finishes and Jacques just couldn’t match him. He apparently picked up some sort of injury in Germany which meant a young Robert Kubica got a first race in Hungary and promptly finished 7th and despite being disqualified for being under weight BMW suddenly had a new superstar and Villeneuve never returned to the car. Jacques gave the reason as he didn’t want to get involved in a shoot out for a place in the car with Kubica when he’d already proven himself which stank a little bit of him knowing he couldn’t compete with the young pole.
Villeneuve had already done his best to ruin our memories of a champion at the end of his first career but his second career certainly meant we’d remember him as chump rather than champ. Another comeback in 2010 with proposed new team Steffan was promptly cut short when Bernie wouldn’t let them on the grid. Thank god for that. Stay home Jacques!
2. Alan Jones
Second Career Stats
Races: 20
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Points: 4
Retirements: 15
Alan Jones, Australia’s second greatest driver (suck that Mark Webber) and the man who helped make Williams the team it was. Jones peak of form came right in the middle of the ground effect era and his rise to the top came through consistency more than anything else. His championship year saw 5 wins and 5 podiums in 14 races. 1981 saw his form nearly as good and although he only secured 3rd in the championship he was only a handful of points off the top and if his rivalry with Reutemann had not been so intense he could have won it. He announced his retirement mid-way through 1981 and won what was meant to be his very last Grand Prix to go out on a high it seemed like a fitting end…….if only we’d known.
1983 was the first sign of the dreaded comeback though when Jones made a one off appearance for Arrows at a non-championship race at Brands Hatch labeled the race of champions where he qualified 3rd and finished 3rd. Wasn’t it nice to see him back for that one off race. What? He’s coming back again? Yes he turned up for Arrows at the United States GP in Long Beach. He qualified 12th but it was a bit naff when after 58 laps he retired due to ‘driver fatigue’. Thankfully Jones wasn’t around in 1984 to dent his reputation anymore however as 1985 loomed large in the windscreen it was announced that Carl Haas and Teddy Mayer were forming Team Haas. The Americans were coming backed by Ford engines and its drivers were Patrick Tambay and, yes, Alan Jones. This was going to be exciting right? Well yes apart from the fact that Ford were using the Haas team to develop their new turbocharged V6 and it wouldn’t be ready until the start of the 1986 season. Carl Haas signed a deal with Brian Hart for engines and then also decided not to enter the team for the whole of the 1985 season but just a few races near the end. Jones turned up in the new Haas team and promptly stuck it on the grid……second to last. Worse followed as he completed 6 laps before retiring. After a poor showing Jones and Haas decided to skip Belgium and prepare for the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch the extra time certainly helped them improve, this time Jones qualified 22nd and managed to last 13 laps before and engine failure. Things didn’t improve when they reached South Africa as Jones qualified the car but sent a note from his mum on race day as he felt a bit poorly. 1985 finished for the Haas team in Jones homeland of Australia and in true patriotic fashion Alan pulled out his best race of the season where he managed to complete a whole 20 laps before the car gave out on him again.
I think a collective groan from fans of Alan Jones could be heard when it was announced they would be in F1 full time in 1986 although the prospect of a new car with the new Ford engine was a good thing right? Yeah apart from it wasn’t ready in time and both Jones and now on the grid team-mate Tambay started with the old car still with Hart engines and rather embarrassingly for Alan Tambay seemed to be able to get out more performance out of it. A massive dent in Jones reputation came at the third Grand Prix of the year in San Marino where Tambay in the old Hart powered car qualified 11th and Jones in the all new singing and dancing Haas THL2 was down in 21st. The season continued in much the same vein and although the records show Jones scored a 4th in Austria and a 6th in Italy let it also be known that Jones was a full 2 laps down on the leaders and both were races of attrition.
As the 1986 season ended so did the funding for Haas and thankfuly that brought the second career of Alan Jones to an end but it certainly left a big splodge on his reputation and the up and coming racing Aussies would much rather preach Jack Brabham as their hero than name drop Alan Jones which is such a shame when in his day Jones was a match for most. Should have stayed at home Alan!
1. Nigel Mansell
Second Career Stats
Races: 6
Wins: 1
Podiums: 0
Points: 13
Retirements: 3
Sorry Nigel but I’m afraid despite being only 6 races your second career has to be the worst of all time and a warning for all other champions to know when your time is done. Nigel waved goodbye to F1 after his championship year of 1992 at the ripe old age of 39 and went across the pond to show them yanks how it was done, which he promptly did by becoming Indycar champ in 1993. Nice one Nige! Back over in the world of F1 though tragedy struck with the death of Ayrton Senna and F1 was on a bit of a downer. Quick to come to its aid of course was Mr Ecclestone who realised what F1 needed was the return of a hero to heel its wounds and sounded out Mr Mansell who was having a bit of a bad time of it in Indycar. Nigel was keen to come back and jump in that Williams but contracts can’t be got out of so instead of rushing back to take on this new German upstart Schumacher he arranged to come back for a one off appearance in France and the three last races of the season.
As we all know though timing in F1 is everything and things change very quickly. If Mansell had come back to F1 straight away we’d have embraced him with open arms but by the time he turned up in France things had changed again. A certain Damon Hill had come to the fore and was leading the Williams team from the front. Nigel’s return meant that a young up and coming Scot named David Coulthard had to sit on the sidelines which didn’t sit well with the British fans. To be fair to Nigel he stuck it in second behind Damon in quali and although he couldn’t keep up with Damon and Schumie in the race and eventually retired with gearbox problems he did look competitive unfortunately with the Schumacher/Hill rivalry beginning to blossom nobody really cared in fact it left most of us wondering what the point in the exercise was.
Nigel returned to America where he was doing the best he could to completely destroy the good reputation he built up in his debut year by pushing cameramen around, failing to turn up for PR events and having a war of words with teammate and U.S legend Mario Andretti. The catalyst for all this was of course how awful his indycar season was going with no wins, 2 podiums and 7 retirements from the season Nigel wasn’t exactly enjoying himself so I’m guessing F1 looked like a fine idea. Eventually his nightmare of an Indycar season was to finish and he jumped straight back into the F1 scene. He arrived with 3 races left at the European Grand Prix in Jerez hoping for a fanfare and to be welcomed with open arms. What really happened was that everyone was busy watching Hill and Schumacher go head to head for the title and hardly noticed his return. Those that did had an attitude summed up by a banner seen hanging up at Jerez which read “We love you Nige but give Coulthard the keys”. Maybe he’d caught sight of that banner on lap 47 at Jerez when he spun off into the gravel trap, once again he hadn’t been on terms with Hill and Schumacher but had been best of the rest although in the best car in the field you would have expected that really. The next race was in Japan and due to severe weather and an accident involving Martin Brundle and a marshal the race was in 2 parts and the last ever race decided on time aggregate. Nigel actually had what would have been classed as a legendary battle with Jean Alesi’s Ferrari for the final podium place. Like I said it would have been legendary if we all weren’t too busy biting our nails and looking at the battle of pure speed going on between Schumie and Hill at the front. So we all missed Nigels gutsy overtake with two laps to go and had to watch it through a reply on a dodgy wet onboard camera which probably didn’t do it justice. Did no one love Nigel anymore? Seemed not, as before we even hit Australia it seemed pretty certain he wouldn’t be driving a Williams next year and all the talk was of Damon being the next British champion. Still the ozzies loved Nigel and he got the warmest reception of anywhere and promptly stuck it on pole. Schumacher and Hill scampered away at the start and the story of Adelaide 1994 has been told many times and we all know what happened but do as many of us remember that the race that day was won by Nigel Mansell by 2.5 seconds from Gerhard Berger? Not many, bet even less of us realise that it was Nigels only F1 victory on a street circuit. So what a lovely way for Nigel to go, ok so his comeback seemed a bit pointless to us and we had new hereos in F1 now but signing off with a win in Australia was a lovely way to end his career, like a last little victory lap…………or so it should have been but Nigel has never been one to know when to give up.
Mclaren had been on the slide since 1991 and with Senna and Berger left the team at the end of 1993 and its new partnership with Peugeot in 1994 had been awful. 1995 saw them team up with Mercedes for the first time but Mclaren’s main sponsors were still insisting that Ron Dennis has a world champion in the car. They’d insisted this the previous season too which had led to Prost testing the Mclaren before deciding no being as Senna was the only other champ left at the time the sponsors let it slide but this year Mansell was on the market and, unlike Prost, Nigel wanted back in to F1 and despite Ron Dennis and Mansell pretty much hating each other the deal was struck. Its fair to say the F1 public were a bit confused, Mansell and Mclaren? Didn’t seem to make sense to most and to be honest all the talk was still about Schumacher and Hill. Not to mention British fans had the distraction of Coulthard and Herbert both having competitive drives. Was Nigel really going to rock our worlds? Maybe there were a core of fans who thought so but I’m afraid to say as the 1995 season started this is where the puzzled what is he doing faces stopped and the fist biting of embarrassment was to start. It was announced that Mansell would not be driving the Mclaren-Mercedes for its first 2 Grand Prix because, and everyone cringed as we heard it, he could not fit in the cockpit. How this was not the end of this comeback I have no idea, surely when it comes down to having to change the design of your car so your ‘star driver’ can fit in it then it’s a clue that maybe the partnership wasn’t going to work. The fact that Mansell wasn’t even at the races spoke louder than any press release in ronspeak.
Mansell did eventually jump into the race seat for F1’s rather bleak return to Imola and you instinctively got the impression that both parties wondered why they were bothering. Mansell qualified 9th, a full 1.2 seconds slower than team-mate Hakkinen in 5th and the race did not get much better. Mansell made the wrong decision to start on slicks and lost valuable time to all the front runners, he had a run in with Eddie Irvine and brought the car home in 10th a full 2 laps down on the winner and a whole lap down on his team-mate. By this point most of us who’d jumped up and down in excitement as Nigel took on Senna in 1991 were now pretending we’d forgotten he was in the field and blushing everytime we saw him interviewed talking about his championship challenge. Even Nigel couldn’t be believing it by the time we were in Spain and he found himself 10th on the grid a full 2.45 seconds behind Schumachers pole time. Whether Nigel had decided he was walking away before the race will never be known but a retirement after 18 laps with the official reason given as ‘handling’ seems mighty suspicious to me. With that Mansell’s F1 career came to an end but not before Nigel gave his fans one more reason to be embarrassed by claiming his split from Mclaren was due to the car as he didn’t want to be an “also ran”. He scared us all again by testing a Jordon a year or so later but lucky for us (and him) nothing came of it and that was it for Red Five Nige.
It was at least 3 to 4 years before Nigel fans could speak up and talk about how great he was again without being met by a chorus of giggles about him being too fat to get in the car, the shouts and giggles were still there they just weren’t as loud. Even now Mansell can’t be discussed without the whole second career coming up and massively blotting his copy book and the question we really have to ask is was it worth it Nigel? Because we really wish you hadn’t.
So let this be a warning for the Vettel’s, the Alonso’s and the Hamilton’s out there. However much you think you are it right now in the end someone is going to come along and be faster, better and more talented than you so please know when to give it up and have a long hard read of this list before considering any sort of comeback because those fans you have right now, won’t love you for it