F1’s Nearly Men

It is incredibly hard to break into Formula One and plenty of good men spend their entire professional lives trying. The pinnacle of motorsport is very sharp and just reaching it is a monumental achievement. All of the drivers on today’s Grand Prix grid paid their dues by fighting through the lower categories of racing, and whilst some had it easier than others, they all had full careers before stepping into Grand Prix machinery.

What that means is that someone, somewhere, has a story about the time they beat so-and-so ten years ago before they made it big in F1. Some of those people also race in Formula One these days, but others have disappeared into total obscurity.

Here then is what happened to some of the sport’s modern nearly-men, a small selection of drivers who beat F1’s best in their early days but were unable to follow them onto the world stage.

Marc Hynes
Beat Jenson Button in British Formula Three – 1999

Jenson Button raced hard for the British Formula Three Championship in 1999 and his strong efforts attracted the attention of Frank Williams. Interestingly, despite doing enough to score a Formula One seat Button didn’t actually win the F3 title. That honour went to Marc Hynes instead, a driver who is likely following Jenson’s current success rather closely.

Button signed for the Williams F1 team in 2000 but Hynes career never reached any higher peak. He graduated into Formula 3000 after his F3 triumph and entered three races, but he failed to qualify for one of them and retired from the other two. He was given a Formula One test in 2000 with BAR, ironically the team that Jenson Button has since made his own, but his times were nothing special and he wasn’t invited back.

Hynes then disappeared into sportscars and got a second unsuccessful crack at F3000 in 2003. He now hasn’t won a single race in over a decade and his last competitive performance was in last year’s Australian V8 Supercar championship.

Cesar Campanico
Beat Fernando Alonso in the European Formula A Karting Championship – 1998

Fernando Alonso was a dominant force in Spanish Karting throughout the nineties and had an impressive collection of titles by 1998. He was a serious contender for that year’s European Formula A Championship, but got pushed into the runners up position by a young Portuguese driver named Cesar Campanico.

Alonso and Campanico progressed out of Karting at the same time, but as Fernando marched towards F1, Cesar got trapped in Formula Three and Formula Renault. He competed in A1GP in 2006 but has since focussed touring cars. Campanico has claimed a pair of Portuguese tin top championships, and currently drives the awesome Audi R8 GT car in a German sportscar series. He has been fairly competitive in 2009 having won two races so far this year.

Danny Watts
Beat Lewis Hamilton in British Formula Renault – 2002

Danny Watts moved into British Formula Renault in 2000 after dominating the UK Formula First Championship. He struggled early on as Kimi Raikkonen’s teammate, but stayed in the series and came to the fore two years later when he overcame Lewis Hamilton for the title. His efforts also earned him the Autosport British Club Driver of the Year award.

Danny moved into Formula Three before Lewis but was unable to continue winning races. He started mixing his F3 duties with the Porsche Supercup and that eventually led to a fulltime career in sportscars. Watts has been driving in the American Le Mans Series since 2007, and also raced in the most recent season of the A1GP series.

Ronnie Bremer
Beat Kimi Raikkonen in Nordic ICA Junior Karting Championship – 1997

Kimi Raikkonen shot through the ranks of junior motorsport very quickly on his way to Formula One and left few people in his wake. However, one driver that did get the better of him in karting was Ronnie Bremer.

The Dane is a very talented driver and made a brief career for himself in the USA. He blitzed the Scandinavian karting scene ten years ago, and in 1997 he raced in the Nordic ICA championship against Raikkonen. He got the better of Kimi, and went on to win consecutive Danish titles over the following three years. However, in that same time Kimi advanced through Formula Renault and was preparing for his Grand Prix Debut.

Ronnie graduated into Formula Ford, F3, and then into Formula Atlantics in the USA. He won a race and moved up again into the Champcar World Series, but then went back to the Atlantics and eventually returned home to Danish Touring Cars. This year Bremer is leading the Peugeot Spider Cup in Europe with 4 wins from 4 races, and with Raikkonen looking at life in motorsport beyond Formula One, they might just find themselves against each other again one day.

Maximilian Gotz
Beat Sebastian Vettel in German Formula BMW – 2002

Maximilian Gotz had a fairly tame karting career but made a real name for himself in German Formula BMW. He finished runner up in the series at his first attempt, and fought long and hard the following year to beat Sebastian Vettel to the title.

Gotz moved into the Formula Three Euroseries immediately after his BMW success, a year before Sebastian, but never made it any further. He has remained in F3 since, but still has time to advance further as he is only 23 years old. Having said that, Maximilian’s Formula One chances are over and his fight with Vettel may end up being the highlight of his career.

Kristian Kolby
Beat Mark Webber in British Formula Ford – 1996

Mark Webber has the unusual distinction of never winning a championship of any kind beyond karting. He recently indicated that when his time in F1 is over he won’t continue racing anywhere else so Mark will likely go his entire career without a single title.

Webber’s closest shot at a championship was in 1996 when he contested the British Formula Ford series. He drove well on his way to second place that year but was beaten in the end by youngster Kristian Kolby.

Webber won the Formula Ford festival and moved out of the category through F3, Le Mans, and Formula 3000. Kolby matched Webber’s path but ended up taking a different turn a few years down the track. He also raced in F3 and Formula 3000, but didn’t get the same results and tried his luck in the Indy Lights Championship. He took a win in the USA before returning to F3000, but ran out of cash and decided to end his career in the knowledge that his F1 chance was over.

Reinhard Kofler
Beat Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg & Robert Kubica in European ICA Junior Karting Championship – 1999.

The European Championship in 1999 was full of modern day F1 stars. Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Robert Kubica all finished in the top five (in that order) and the series also featured GP2 drivers Alvaro Parente, Marko Asmer, and Giedo Van Der Garde. However, the man who beat them all ten years ago was 14 year old Reinhard Kofler.

Whilst Kofler’s early rivals now fight for points in Formula One, Reinhard is competing in the obscure Bomboogie GT Championship in Italy. He rose with the others into Formula Renault and continued to mix it with them, but that’s where they left him behind. Kofler took the occasional race win but never made it big in the series, and only moved into the FIA GT Championship around the same time that Hamilton and co were making their F1 debuts.

Reinhard Kofler is just one great driver who couldn’t make it into F1, but can at least say that he used to beat those who did.

There are plenty like him.

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