10 F1 drivers who left teams at the worst time

here are 10 F1 drivers who left teams at the worst possible time and what better place to start than with Sebastian Vettel who after two years of toil has Aston Martin had barely got his retirement slippers nicely worn in before his replacement and former title rival Fernando Alonso started racking up the big results after scrapping for points in a car only good enough to finish seventh in the championship in his two years with the team Vettel missed out on Aston Martin's Leap Forward team insiders and Alonso admitted its jump up the grid is a year ahead of schedule but you have to wonder if vetta will take much comfort from that what makes vettel's two years struggle with Aston Martin all the more frustrating is that the team was competitive the year before he arrived too claiming a race win in 2020 with its Infamous pink Mercedes copycat car design so what appears to be a two-year slump just happened to coincide directly with vettel's spelling the driving seat at number nine we have Thierry boots and leaving Williams just before it became f1's dominant Force boots and joined Williams for the first year of its Renault partnership in 1989 and won three races in his two seasons with the team but when Williams saw the opportunity to persuade Nigel Mansell to abandon his retirement plans and stay in F1 it was boots and not teammate Ricardo petrazi who made way this was very much not butson's choice although he saw the writing on the wall when he returned to the garage after his hungry victory in 1990 to discover the team had already gone rather than celebrating with him that meant boots had missed out on one of the great F1 cars the Williams fw-14 which evolved into the all-conquering fw-14b for 1992. at number eight we have Pastor Maldonado walking out on Williams just before its hybrid era Revival Maldonado is likely to remain The Last Driver to win a Grand Prix for Williams for quite some time thanks to his 2012 Spanish GP win but after a terrible year in 2013 he turned his back on the team Maldonado fell out with Williams during that troubled campaign things reached their Peak after qualifying for the United States Grand Prix where he hinted at sabotage saying somebody in the team was playing with the tire pressures it was no surprise when he signed for Lotus for 2014 taking millions of Venezuelan sponsorship dollars with him but as f1's hybrid era began Williams leaped up to third in the Constructors Championship and was a regular Podium finisher while Lotus floundered and slumped to eighth in the championship scoring just 10 points unsurprisingly Maldonado admitted he had perhaps made a mistake describing the decision to leave Williams as not the best one at number seven we have Jensen Button getting moved on by Williams and Renault just before they became race winners again the early part of buttons F1 career appeared to be a case of Right Place Wrong Time first he was ushered aside at Williams after one year to make way for Juan Pablo Montoya just as the team's BMW partnership started to bear race-winning fruit then after bouncing back from a horrendous year with Benetton in 2001 with a better season Once it became Renault in 2002 he was moved aside again this time for Fernando Alonso it took Alonso just two races to claim the first pole position for the team under Renault ownership and later in the season he took his first win while Button had to rebuild all over again as bar talking of bar at number six we have Jack vilnov leaving just before it finally got its act together bir was created for vielnerve in 1999 but as his relationship with new management soured and his contract was about to run out he left the team with One race still remaining in 2003. the next season Bar's sixth car and the first not raced by vilnov was one of the best in the field behind the dominant Ferrari vilnov had to watch on from the F1 Sidelines as the team that was built around him finally came good scoring a hat full of podiums and taking second in the Constructors Championship unsurprisingly vilner didn't take it well feeling he was forced out by new team boss David Richards who'd replaced villeneuve's manager and friend Craig pollock a year earlier claimed the upturning form was down to his development work plus the switch to Michelin tires and despite speaking out against the management he was quick to throw his hat in the ring to return to the team when button tried to leave for Williams for 2005. at number five we have Fernando Alonso losing patience with Ferrari just a little too soon Alonso would feature very highly in a list of drivers who joined teams at the wrong time but he makes it onto this list too and not because minardi scored points in the first race after he left at the end of 2001. Alonso found himself outmaneuvered in late 2014 after he chased a move to Mercedes or Red Bull both of which failed a somewhat jilted Ferrari decided to snap up Sebastian Vettel to replace him despite Alonso having a contract Ferrari's dismal start to the hybrid era had prompted Alonso to shop himself around and perhaps he wouldn't have done that if he'd realized how much better the 2015 Ferrari was going to be while Alonso headed off to begin the disastrous McLaren Honda reunion vetta won three races for Ferrari in 2015 and had title challenging cars in 2017 and 18. even alonso's McLaren departure at the end of 2018 was badly timed as its next car was its best since 2014 and started the team's turnaround after four forgettable years that coincided with alonso's time there at number four we have Jano truly splitting with Renault just before it won back-to-back championships truly took his only Grand Prix win at Monaco in 2004 but his form soon nose dived and he split with the team before the end of the season truly said he fell out of favor with Team boss Flavio briatore who also managed his career their personal deal which lasted 10 years was up for Renewal and truly said that without a new arrangement in place riotori had no interest in him instead turning his attention to molding Fernando Alonso into an F1 Superstar which even truly admits wasn't a bad call Alonso backed that Faith up by winning the next two championships as Renault became a title winning Force just after trilly had left for Toyota at number three we have David Coulthard choosing money over performance in the 90s and then leaving Red Bull just before it became a front-runner coolthard's move from Williams to McLaren for 1996 paid off eventually but when he went from starting on the front row for the last race of 1995 to starting 13th for the first race of 96. he said that's when the penny dropped that he'd made the mistake of moving for money it meant he missed out on the dominant Williams FW 18 of 1996 and while he won races for McLaren in 97 his Williams replacement Jack vilnov took the title that year after that McLaren usually enjoyed the upper hand over Williams during the rest of coulthard's time there so it wasn't all bad then after leading Red Bull during its formative years he retired from F1 just before the 2009 rule changes shook up the order and Red Bull became a race-winning force that was on the brink of F1 dominance with coolthard's replacement Sebastian Vettel at number two we have John Watson missing out on one of f1's most dominant cars Watson thought he was on Rock Solid Ground holding off on signing a new McLaren deal for 1984 after five years with the team feeling there was a lack of competition for the seat but he was caught out by renault's surprise decision to sakalan Prost whom McLaren promptly signed to partner Nikki louder in 1984. as a result Watson missed out on racing the hugely successful McLaren MP4 II powered by a tag Porsche engine that louder and Prost dominated with the following year in fact he only raced an F1 car once more as a stand-in for the injured louder Brands hatch in 1985. Watson won four races for McLaren but having put in the hard yards during the early years of the Ron Dennis John Barnard era he was ousted just before that work paid off [Music] and at number one we have Mercedes replacing Michael Schumacher with Lewis Hamilton just as it turned a corner Schumacher's F1 comeback with Mercedes is often written off as a failure given he managed just one podium in three years as teammates in Nico rosberg but he performed well in 2012 and was considering whether he wanted to continue an October deadline was set for his decision on whether to carry on but in the meantime Mercedes was caught in Hamilton and convinced him to turn his back on McLaren we've covered how Mercedes pulled that move off in great detail in a dedicated video about it so make sure you check that out when you get to the end of this one when it became clear which way the wind was blowing at Mercedes Schumacher was left with no choice but to retire had he stayed on for 2013 Schumacher would have had a crack at winning races and in 2014 he almost certainly would have added to his tally of 91 F1 wins even at the grand old age of 45. he missed out on a taste of the Mercedes Glory years but those in the team always credit him for his important role in helping them become f1's dominant Force foreign

Channel: THE RACE

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Keywords: f1, formula 1, formula one, F1 news, F1 latest, F1 updates, F1 explained, The Race, the-race.com, grand prix, F1 2023, Aston Martin, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher, lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, F1 history, F1 list

Id: hxZ8XWZ0A9E

Length: 9min 14sec (554 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 19 2023