Hired & Fired: Even Sam Allardyce lasted longer than these...

History has shown that McLaren get it right more often than it gets it wrong with its drivers… but Michael Andretti’s brief time at the Woking team (and in F1) is a tenure it particularly wants to forget. Son of F1 world champion Mario Andretti, Michael himself was a decorated star in his native United States in the IndyCar Series, so his parachute straight into F1 to share a garage with Ayrton Senna at McLaren came with evident pressures but not without reason. However, Andretti’s form flashed at best, with careless errors, difficulties adapting to the more technologically-demanding cars and new rules limiting laps at unfamiliar circuits putting him on a back foot he couldn’t recover from… having Senna showing him up as a team-mate didn't help matters either. Ironically, he scored his maiden podium in the Italian Grand Prix (only his third points’ finish of the year) just before he was given his marching orders with three rounds remaining.

Did you know 161 drivers have started just one F1 race over the course of the sport's history? That is a lot of shortlived race careers at the top of the sport! As such, it takes a very special case for a driver to be identified as having the shortest racing career in F1, but alas Marco Apicella is considered the candidate for such an inauspicious honour. A fairly successful Formula 3000 and sportscar driver prior to his F1 call up ahead of the 1993 Italian Grand Prix, Apicella replaced former race winner Thierry Boutsen in the Jordan team but it would prove to be something of an unintentional baptism of fire. With no previous F1 experience, Apicella qualified 23rd for the Monza race, became embroiled in a multi-car accident on the opening lap and retired on the spot. With Jordan opting to sign Emanuele Naspetti for the next race, Apicella’s F1 race career would thus last just a few hundred metres.

Which driver has started the most F1 races without ever scoring a point? It makes a good F1 pub quiz question, but one perennial backmarker Luca Badoer no doubt wishes did not apply to him… particularly given the prime late career opportunity that landed in his lap in 2009. In a sporadic F1 career that saw him complete four seasons between 1993 and 1999, Badoer never troubled the points in the 56 races he entered but nonetheless found a worthwhile role as Ferrari test driver in the years thereafter. Credited as having played a pivotal behind the scenes role in turning Ferrari into the dominant force it was between 2000 and 2004, Badoer was given a surprise ‘thank you’ call up to race ahead of the 2009 European Grand Prix as a replacement for Felipe Massa, injured the previous round in Hungary. Marking the Italian’s first F1 start in 10 years, with a familiar and competitive car beneath him, many felt this was the ideal belated opportunity for Badoer to finally get his name on the scoreboard and rid himself of his inauspicious ‘honour’. Alas, Badoer was not only outside the points, he was comfortably off the pace and whilst he kept it out of the wall he managed just two races at the back of the field before Ferrari rescinded its offer and dropped him. Badoer retired from all competition later that year.

With the advent of the internet and the fact random wildcards are a thing of F1 past, it is difficult in the modern era for a team to sign a driver that very few had ever heard of. Then again, the early days of Super Aguri were far from standard since it was a privateer team under the stewardship of ex-F1 driver Aguri Suzuki cobbled together with a modicum of Honda assistance primarily to keep Japanese hero Takuma Sato following his BAR exit. His team-mate, Yuji Ide, however was an unknown to most outside of Japan, where he had cut his teeth in the Formula Nippon series. Though a former runner-up in the competitive championship, the combination of Super Aguri’s last minute entry, an uncompetitive car and barely any testing meant Ide was thoroughly out of his depth in F1. After three error-strewn race weekends, a first lap clash with rival Christijan Albers during round four at Imola – one that launched the Midland barrel-rolling - prompted the FIA to ‘advise’ the team that it should consider replacing him or it would rescind his superlicence anyway. Super Aguri subsequently followed this ‘advice’ and promptly replaced him with Franck Montagny.

LIFE as a team may have been alive but it didn’t show too many vital signs over the course of the 1990 season. The team originally emerged as a prospective engine supplier with an unconventional W12 3.5-litre engine, but when it failed to find a team to partner with it instead mated the block to an existing chassis and entered F1 in its own right. Purchasing this chassis from stillborn 1989 team First Racing, given that car failed a crash test a year earlier and was derided by those that drove it as unsafe, LIFE didn’t begin life in rude health. Nevertheless, it made it to the first round in 1990 and proceeded to enter a total of 14 rounds. However, the car was woefully slow and unreliable, knocking out only 480HP, some 200HP less than the top cars. When it did run it was often more than 20secs behind the best of the pre-qualifiers alone, while at the 1990 Italian Grand Prix Bruno Giacomelli lapped the Monza circuit 32secs off the pole winning time… A switch to Judd engines immediately knocked 10secs off that chasm but the endeavour would last just two more races before LIFE folded as - statistically at least – the worst team to compete in F1.

Such is Ferrari’s status that even its team principals and engineers have become superstars over the years, with the likes of Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Stefano Domenicali and incumbent Maurizio Arrivabene almost as well-known as the drivers. However, it is easy to forget the man who held the team principal role between the latter two aforementioned men… Marco Mattiacci. Presiding over one of Ferrari’s toughest ever seasons in 2014, on paper at least Mattiacci appeared to fail as the team struggled to get a grasp on the new regulations, managed just a single podium and prompted Fernando Alonso to walk out. His memory has been tainted further by Arrivabene coming in and overseeing a revival of sorts in 2015, though many point out many of the critical decisions that ultimately led to the fight-back – the signing of Sebastian Vettel and designer James Allison – were actually made by Mattiacci. Sadly for him, Sergio Marchionne acted decisively influenced by the poor results and Mattiacci wasn’t given the chance to see how his moves paid off, the Italian eventually leaving the company altogether as a result.

Things may have been very different for Lola’s ill-fated foray into Formula 1 as a constructor in 1997 had it kept to its original plan to enter in 1998 following a year of development. However, after securing big name title backing from MasterCard it was pressured into readying itself a year earlier than planned. As a result the T97/30 chassis was based on dated technology from IndyCar – where Lola was a constructor –, never saw the inside of a wind tunnel and barely had any track testing when it arrived for the opening round in Melbourne. Furthermore, the original plan to use an in-house Lola engine had to be shelved in favour of an already outdated Ford V8 from 1996 strugglers Forti. Despite the bold livery and backing, drivers Vincenzo Sospiri and Ricardo Rosset lapped more than 10 seconds off the pace and thus failed to qualify for the race. It was to be the only weekend the car turned a wheel, MasterCard backing out immediately leaving Lola penniless and in debt. After withdrawing from the next race in Brazil, it withdrew entirely from the championship.

An excellent example of how to turn your career around despite a huge set-back, Romain Grosjean had been touted a future world champion when he made his earlier-than-planned F1 debut with Renault mid-way through the 2009 season but years of preparation were nearly ruined in just a few short months. Coming in to replace the sacked Nelson Piquet, expectations were high… but in the remaining seven races he barely made an impression and failed to score. Such was the disappointment, Renault opted not to give him another chance to redeem himself in 2010 despite its investment in him in the junior categories. Looking back, Grosjean himself admits he was promoted too early after minimal testing – especially when paired alongside a team-mate as Fernando Alonso -, though he points out that the atmosphere in the team had changed significantly anyway in the wake of the Piquet-instigated ‘Crash-gate’ scandal that was distracting Renault at the time. Down but not out, Grosjean took a step back to take two steps forward without Renault’s assistance and after a successful part-season return to GP2 in 2010, the title in 2011 earned him a deserved return to F1 with the same team – now Lotus – in 2012. Eleven podiums later, Grosjean’s reputation has been firmly vindicated.