Poll The Worst Team Principal?

Worst team principal in F1

  • Flavio Briatore

    Votes: 12 32.4%
  • Ron Dennis

    Votes: 1 2.7%
  • Jean Todt

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Martin Whitmarsh

    Votes: 3 8.1%
  • Helmut Marko

    Votes: 1 2.7%
  • Christian Horner

    Votes: 1 2.7%
  • Eddie Jordan

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Vijay Malya

    Votes: 1 2.7%
  • Colin Kolles

    Votes: 2 5.4%
  • Alex Schnaeder

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Guy Ligier

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Andre Sassetti

    Votes: 6 16.2%
  • Colin Chapman

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Bobby Rahal / Neil Ressler

    Votes: 1 2.7%
  • Luca Di Montezemolo

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Alain Prost

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Tom Walkinshaw

    Votes: 1 2.7%
  • Ken Tyrell

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Frank Williams

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Akira Akagi

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Toyota Team Principals

    Votes: 1 2.7%
  • Mario Thiessen

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Stefan Domenicali

    Votes: 1 2.7%
  • Nick Fry

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Craig Pollock

    Votes: 3 8.1%
  • Niki Lauda

    Votes: 1 2.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 2 5.4%

  • Total voters
    37

Il_leone

World Champion
In the argument of why when it comes to F1 driver A fulfilled their potential and driver B did not despite being talented and just as impressive in junior formula than driver A. The usual theories are driver favouritism or supposed conspiracies against one driver or bad management from the team boss / principal.

So for a bit of fun I thought I 'd just put a poll out to select the worst team principal in F1 from the 70's onwards. There are no particular order just a few notorious ones I can remember for the wrong reasons in F1

Briatore - Claims he knows how to find talent - Alonso and Schumacher but is littered with a history of mismanagement of other driver careers - Herbert, Button, Fisi, Trulli, Piquet Jr, Bourdais.
Known for his commission earnings in choosing drivers from his own stable whilst being team boss

Finally burned too many bridges with crashgate afte Piquet Jr had enough of his bullying

Dennis - the perfectionist known for his bad loser sulking in charge of two of the sports most intense rivalries in his team. At certain points accused of favouring one driver over another despite promising team equality. Spygate battered his reputation

Todt - the master politician able to bend the rules in Ferrari's favour and was unrepentant about Austria 2002 saying it was business. Also was adamant Schumacher was no 1 and undermined Irvine's position in 1999 offering little support for his title quest

Whitmarsh - more relaxed than Dennis but has not stopped accusations of favouritism and failing to deliver Mclaren success with basic team errors occurring from time to time

Fry - Took Honda from being top 4 team to back of the grid and is lucky he still has a role at Mercedes

Marko - the guy pretty much decides who drives for Red Bull and STR. Whenever he talks no one challenges him within the camp except maybe Webber

Horner - his handling of Turkey 2010, Silverstone 2010 and Silverstone 2011 was pathetic especially when Helmut opens his mouth he seems to change his tune all of a sudden

EJ - sacking Frentzen in the middle of the season 2001 and then getting Pantano to bring in sponsors so to fund the team and pay for Heidfeld as well for 2004

VJ - his treatment of Sutil and Liuzzi in making use of the 3rd driver

Kolles - Did not do much at Spyker and HRT and known to be difficult

Schnaeder - Was proven to be a fake Russian millionaire after buying Jordan on a knockdown price and realised F1 was really expensive to dabble in

Ligier - Apparently known for throwing a wobbler if anyone dared to criticised him and his mates for failing to make better use of the team with the 4th biggest budget at the time

Sassetti - the guy was charged for fraud by forging an invoice after realising F1 was expensive despite having a successful italian shoe company. This included allowing Perry McCarthy out of the pits with only 50 seconds left for practice

Chapman - the greatest designer is here because of the water bottle row of 1982 and unwillingly to admit he was cheating when quizzed by a journalist at car launch. After his death later records found fraudulent activity when he was in charge of Lotus

Rahal/ Ressler for making a complete mess of the foundations of Stewart team and disgracing the Jaguar name. Rahal was sacked for offering IRvine to Jordan. Ressler did a crazy deal where Burti was paid by sponsors and the team

Luca - the shameful treatment of forcing out Lauda and his race engineer in 1977 along in cahoots with rest of Maranello because Lauda surrendered the title in 1976 not wanting to risk his life after nearly getting killed by making Reutemann NO 1 through favouritism in development and testing. Also getting G Villeneuve a run to replace Lauda
Also the poor treatment of Capelli in 1992 who saw a dream turn into a nightmare - Massa take note

Prost - failure to build upon the teams first season in becoming the all French team

Walkinshaw - sacking Verstappen when Frentzen became available and in turn double crossed Orange who withdrew shortly afterwards and with it the team went under

Tyrell - allegedly favoured Katayama over Blundell in 1994. Previously in charge of the team being thrown out in 1985 and also bowing to sponsors to run the team at Imola in breaking ranks from the other British teams over the water bottle row

Williams - for ruthlessly dispensing Mansell and Hill who actually did better than their replacements

Akiga - done for the fraud which also lead to the demise of March not long after that

Toyota team principals - No wins and signed Schumacher but the wrong one having spent $400m each year since 2002

Thiessen - what team principal would stop development to help the weaker driver when their other driver leads the world championship and is driving out of his skin ?
 
Some of those people aren't team principles.

I know Helmut aint but he practically is the team principal for both Red Bull and Toro Rosso anyway on driver choices - he seems to be the one making the noises not Ricciardo and JEV instead of Tost

and who else on there has not been or is not currently a team principal or team boss ?

Luca was Ferrari team principal back in the 1970's and early 1990's before he signed Jean Todt
 
I was never a great fan of Ron Dennis. Then spygate came along, he polled his managers to find out who knew what and from that told the FIA that it was only down to Mike Coughlan. Basically the people he trusted lied to him.

Then later in the season he was told that the information as spread much more widely than he had realised. Didi he try to cover it up? No, he told Martin Whitmarsh what he had found and what he was going to do. He then went off and told Max Mosley, knowing full well that he could be destroying the team he had built up over all those years.

I admire his honesty and principles, if anyone came out of spygate able to hold their head up high it was Ron Dennis.

I still don't like him though.:s
 
Luca may have been a pricipal way back when, but really he is disliked by people nowadays because of all the stupid and arrogant comments he makes as President of Ferrari.
 
Why is Mike Gasgoyne not on the list.

Technical Director Posts -

Jordan - 1998-2000, two wins, top of the midfeild
Benneton/Renault - 2001 - 2003, one win, top of the midfield
Toyota - 2003-2006 - $400m a year and...
Spyker/FI - 2007-2008 - Stayed rooted to the bottom
Lotus - 2009-2012 - An awful lot of money, and it is hard to distinguish them from the very poor Virgin and HRT.
 
Martin Whitmarsh...just for his clear favouritism over Button!!!
LOL

Never been a fan of Dennis, not very good at handling in pressure situations, can't keep drivers in control, and then there's the spygate!
 
Why is Mike Gasgoyne not on the list.

Technical Director Posts -

Jordan - 1998-2000, two wins, top of the midfeild
Benneton/Renault - 2001 - 2003, one win, top of the midfield
Toyota - 2003-2006 - $400m a year and...
Spyker/FI - 2007-2008 - Stayed rooted to the bottom
Lotus - 2009-2012 - An awful lot of money, and it is hard to distinguish them from the very poor Virgin and HRT.

Well to start off with, Mike Gascoyne was never team principal at these teams, or any team for that matter, he was technical director.

I don't think his record is particularly bad, at Jordan they finished top of the midfield. Benetton's form improved significantly while Gacoyne was there. I'll admit Toyota was a rough patch but that whole project was a bad egg. At Spyker/Force India they didn't achieve much but to be honest they ran on one of the lowest budgets which meant it was only natural they would be the worst cars. As for Lotus I think it's very easy to distuingish them from Virgin (or Marussia) and HRT, they finished both the 2010 and 2011 seasons highest with easily better performance, Lotus have threatened to get in Q2 on pure pace on a number of occasions and have done this without KERS which would have instantly made them half a second faster.

In summary Mike Gascoyne isn't on the list because he's not a team principal and as for his design career it's not been perfect but his employment has clearly helped a number of teams in previous years.
 
Well to start off with, Mike Gascoyne was never team principal at these teams, or any team for that matter, he was technical director.

I don't think his record is particularly bad, at Jordan they finished top of the midfield. Benetton's form improved significantly while Gacoyne was there. I'll admit Toyota was a rough patch but that whole project was a bad egg. At Spyker/Force India they didn't achieve much but to be honest they ran on one of the lowest budgets which meant it was only natural they would be the worst cars. As for Lotus I think it's very easy to distuingish them from Virgin (or Marussia) and HRT, they finished both the 2010 and 2011 seasons highest with easily better performance, Lotus have threatened to get in Q2 on pure pace on a number of occasions and have done this without KERS which would have instantly made them half a second faster.

In summary Mike Gascoyne isn't on the list because he's not a team principal and as for his design career it's not been perfect but his employment has clearly helped a number of teams in previous years.
----------------------------------

Mike Gascoyne actually designed Toyota's best car in 2005 and it would have been 3rd in the constructors had it not been for Indygate

He left in 2006 because he was not happy the direction of the team basically Toyota Hq's way of management . It was an expensive investment at the time to get him I think he earned more than some drivers did and they were willing to helicopter him to the base in Cologne

His record at Jordan they improved from back end to top 3 which his car won 2 races - the 1998 win was Gary Anderson designed although he was in charge as technical director then. i would say Hill probably did his bit in developing the car with his feedback

Benetton/Renault was going to be big project and he felt he could better with more resources and put on garden leave by Jordan when they knew he was going in 2001.
He designed the superb Renault 2003 which was not quick on top end speed but had tremendous aerodynamic grip to make up for it and won 1 race. On that basis he signed for Toyota who he thought had a world class engine when he joined
 
I realised I've left other Stefano Domenicali here for his shameful Hockenheim 2010 team orders situation despite earlier in the season saying the team are not like they use to be in Malaysia Massa clearly held up a faster Alonso
 
Luca may have been a pricipal way back when, but really he is disliked by people nowadays because of all the stupid and arrogant comments he makes as President of Ferrari.

I put Luca down for his shameful treatment of Lauda back in 1977 when Ferrari plotted to oust Niki out of the team as payback for his surrendering in Fuji 1976 . They then blamed Niki's engineer for not following the team line it was one of the most shameful episode of internal politics when Lauda was the man delivering the success to Ferrari
 
Has to be Adrea Sassetti. Most bosses have some failures in their career but none as spectacularly poor as Andrea Sassetti.

What were you expecting when his business is shoes and has no grasp of F1 and thought he landed a bargain buying the Coloni team and did not realise it was an expensive business to get into with all the testing and development between races as well
 
who was it that listed that voted under others ?- please could you name the team principal I thought I captured everyone bar Fry and Pollock
 
To the administrator please add the following scoundrels on the poll list

Nick Fry for taking Honda from the front to the back

Craig Pollock for making BAR a joke in the first season and overspending . Remember the noises about two cars in different colours when it was not in spirit of the rules. Apparently BAR's marketing plan into F1 was based on that idea without checking the rule book !

Stefano Domenicali for his team orders at Hockenheim 2010
 
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