Both Michael Schumacher and Ross Brawn are on record saying that without Luca, Ferrari would not have won 5 world championships. Michael also said that he trusted Luca's feedback and setup help when testing the car. Also, Luca visits Michael regularly after his accident. So, that tells you all you need to know. Don't give Luca a hard time. Yes he never achieved much in F1 racing, but he was a VERY good test driver - and Ferrari giving him a free car when he retired is a sign that they respected you.
@Mo Elm well, he was used to vastly different machinery. Hadn't properly raced in ten years, man. He hadn't driven the car properly, he hadn't driven on the circuits. Several f1 drivers themselves defended him. They know what they're talking about. It's easy to sit behind a screen and criticize someone, but badoer was a good driver at least when he was young. He repeatedly drove backmarker cars into the top ten. He raced in a period when only the top six scored points. He nearly scored points, but had reliability issues. He even beat Barrichello in F3000 and even won the title! Now am I saying he's the greatest ever? No. But calling him the worst driver ever is just unfair, and that's what the video's trying to say. No one who gets to f1 purely on merit is a "bad driver."
@Mo Elm if you read my comment, you'll see that I never said anything about the car. But, you do realise that Fisichella also struggled, right? Did you even watch the whole video? Also, I want to add that I personally think Stoffel wasn't treated very fairly in f1.
He's considered an unsung hero in Italy - pretty much as the various people involved always said (from Schumacher to Todt to Brawn), he was instrumental in the Ferrari utter and complete dominance of the sport in the 2000-2004 window. In a way, it can be said that the ban on private testing was partly Badoer's making - other teams lacked the financial power to test as much as Ferrari AND a driver like Luca to undertake the work in the way he did. The 2009 F60 was an absurdly difficult car to setup and drive and which required a lot of adjustment time - at the beginning of the season it was regularly at the bottom of the grid. Only as the drivers and engineers started to figure it out (and what to improve on it), it started moving towards the front. Any new driver dropped in that car would've struggled - as proven by Fisichella who, on his last race for Force India in Spa, took pole position and came home 2nd - only to end up at the bottom of the order in the Ferrari. The Scuderia should really have put Badoer in the car in 1999, when he had plenty of knowledge of it from thousands of miles of testing.
Finally a fair and balanced article about Luca! Fisichella only did moderately better without being race rusty. Luca was placed at Minardi in 1999 to keep him race ready should the need for him to fill in at Ferrari. When the need did arrive, he got overlooked. He turned down a Sauber drive for 2000 to remain loyal to Ferrari testing duties.
Under the modern top 10 points structure he would've gotten 14 points finishes from 50 starts that's 28%. More than 1/4 of your career in the top 10 in the most woeful cars in F1 history and nothing to show for it
Yeah but that doesn't mean anything when more than half of the grid was regularly being struck with reliability problems at every race throughout these years, even the most desperately woeful driver would score points if the top 10 was eligible for points back when Badoer used to race regularly
The part of the story people often leave out is that Fisichella, despite far more recent F1 experience and being a 3-time race winner, didn't score a point in the Ferrari either.
Likewise, When I saw him slumped over the car I felt so bad for him. Makes me more angry and ashamed how badly he was treated by the public and the media in 09!
@@HotRodRacer463 people are so quick to criticize and judge based off of what they see through the media and online - especially for athletes. It really sucks
The greatest test driver of all time along with Pedro de la Rosa. Came extremely close to scoring points in a Minardi ffs. But because he was older and off the pace after not racing in F1 for 10 years, idiotic armchair expert "fans" are like wORsT dRIvEr EveR. The fact Ferrari continued to treat him with such respect and admiration speaks volumes - especially given their internal politics. A great driver, no question, just a different kind of driver than what people automatically think of.
You're right. He was a promising driver in his active years and a very solid test driver that Ferrari kept for over a decade. It's an awful shame he only gets known for this. What does anyone expect from a guy who hasn't raced in a decade?
@Mo Elm because he was in a fukin minardi and a forti, which were slow cars when you needed to finish p6+ for a points finish. He was once running p4 in a minardi (which is very good) and had to retire
@Mo Elm It doesnt matter how many starts you have if youre only driving shitty cars. Look at George Russell: no points in a Williams to almost winning in a Mercedes. Also, the 10 year gap without racing IS relevant because the driving one does in testing isnt the same one does in a GP weekend. F1 went through multiple changes during the time Luca was away from competing. Think about it: F1 drivers need hundreds of laps to get used to a car. There is private testing AND winter testing. You cant compare him to Kimi because Kimi had all of this testing plus multiple race weekends to understand how to deal with a complicated car (also the guy is fucking Kimi Raikkonen. You can be slower than him and still be a good driver. Fisichella is a much better comparison because he also had 0 experience with the Ferrari and struggled just as much but he was an active F1 driver who just had put the Force India on pole and the podium. All of the examples you mentioned refer to F1 drivers who where in equal footing to their team mates context wise. Luca wasnt. It is simply unfair and unreasonable to compare him to Jos or Stofell because these two were ACTIVE F1 drivers.
@Mo Elm George was an active F1 driver, Luca wasn't. The Mercedes was top of the field, the Ferrari wasn't. What's so hard to understand about that? Do you think Fisichella sucks as well? He's the closest to Badoa in terms of context for comparison and he barely did any better despite being active for years. The crux of your argument is that the 10 year gap doesnt matter, right? If Badoa was good he should do well in a fast car. BUT THE FERRARI WASNT FAST!!! A driver who had pole position and P2 one race prior could not do anything with It. Only Kimi, a world champion with way more laps in the car than Badoa and Fisichella, could do something with it and it wasnt much.
If you win the International Formula 3000 championship beating the likes of Barrichello, Coulthard , and Panis you cant be all that bad and if they had the points system then like now where finishing in the top 10 gets points he would have scored at least 1 point in every year he raced except the 2 races for Ferrari
i also have a massive f1 spreadsheet, and what so many people don't appreciate about 2009 given the initial dominance of Brawn GP is that the 2009 grid from front to back was, I think, the closest of all modern times. so whhile Badoer definitely did suck, the closeness of the 2009 grid left him nowhere to hide (same as FIsichella).
I mean if you look at Belgium he was less than 2 seconds off pole. There have been times in F1 where 2 seconds would have got you solidly in the top half of the grid
Agree. And Fisichella didnt so better than Badoer when he took that F60. The lacking of test days ruined both drivers and Badoer even didnt know that car. Ferrari should give a chance to Badoer 10 yers early!
So glad to see the sub count triple since last time I watched one of your videos. Wow this was well researched, narrated, edited-the whole shebang! People and the UA-cam algorithm, give this man some much deserved recognition! Also forgot to say--excellent storyteller! Giving poor Luca a fair shake.
Luca's a good example that, sometimes, even if you try your hardest, it's not meant to be. However, he never gave up, he drove some awful cars but he still became an F1 driver and he drove for Scuderia Ferrari. Most people only dream of having that opportunity. And that's a good thought, he was succesful in his own way.
Badoer's son Brando has followed in his father's footsteps, currently racing in Formula 4 (he even participated in one of the Ferrari Driver Academy's training camps).
My first F1 experience was watching a few laps of a Grand Prix in the V10-era 2000s (5 at most) before I got bored of seeing Schumacher in the lead and flicked over to my native V8 Supercars if available. However, one person that kept me awake and glued to the screen was a little-known Italian called Luca Badoer. I was confused as an 8 year old as to why he was so slow (and so much slower than his teammate), so I did what any 8 year old with nothing to do would do - scour over this fancy thing called "the internet" and do some research on him. To find out that he was working with Ferrari for a literal decade (and was truly a sight to behold in the years prior when he was racing), made me so emotional that he finally got to race for the team he adored and dedicated his life to for so long. That 1999 race where he and the car broke down simultaneously got the waterworks going when it was replayed to me in the early 2010s or so. I'm not the kind of person to get too emotional, either (That cameraman better have gotten a bloody award for that, it was perfect). The F90 proved to me that Ferrari was vulnerable to the catastrophic implosions we saw in 2009 for many years. The people behind the prancing horse were crucial in keeping it on the knife-edge, and wrangling it into heights it should never have been in.
That's the fairest commentary I've heard on Luca. I was at the 2009 Italian GP, and I was hoping to see Luca race as at the time I believed he was going to perform a lot better there. I bet he would have out performed Fisi too given that by then he was more familiar with the car, and that he was very good at Monza (it's not the toughest track, I know). While it was a great thing for Ferrrari to have offered Luca the drive, they really should've left him in the seat as instead of enhancing his reputation, they destroyed it. Ferrari are good at that lately! Besides, I think Fisi would've had more good results with the Force India that year had he stayed.
Thanks Joey! Absolutely, you've only got to look at the pace of Sutil and Liuzzi at Monza to wonder how much more Fisichella could've achieved that year.
Not much would've been achieved that year. The Force India was perfectly suited for Spa and Monza, but thereafter, moved back towards the lower midfield.
badoer didn't deserve all the shit he got during his prime of career and the 2009 retry, though at least he got to play a big part in ferraris age of domination with schumacher in the end
Back in the day when he got the Ferrari drive and it became obvious that he would be so far off the pace, people started making fun of him, calling him Look-How-Bad-You-Are. Kinda funny to see how his signature reads L. Bad. Personally, I think that all things considered, he did a decent job. Fisi's outing in the car proved that. He was an active F1 driver with a very recent success to his name and only marginally better. Pit we didn't get to see Schumacher drive the car to see if he could've at least matched Räikkönen's speed. His stint with Mercedes was ill-fated from the start because that car was co-developed by Button whose driving style off all drivers had the least in common with that of Schumacher and quite a lot in common with that of Rosberg. Ferrari was a team he helped build and knew very well, he occasionally even tested the cars. It's probable that he would've done better in the Ferrari - and it could've meant that he would've looked into a permanent comeback with the prancing horse - which also might've been a bit more successful.
In his defence. Fisichella, whom had just driven some amazing races for Renault or Benneton I can't remember. He was really on the rise. He took over from Badoer. Oh what an honor to drive for Ferrari. It killed his career instantly. He was a backmarker in the seemingly difficult to drive Ferrari and next season he was gone from F1.
He was a good driver but the Ferrari drive sadly came 10 years too late . He definitely deserved to score points in 1995 and 1999 and showed great promise you cant judge him for his drive in 2009
I know someone who used to work at Minardi, and according to him Badoer was extremely arrogant and pretty much universally hated by the mechanics. When he retired from 4th at the 1999 European GP they were actually happy as that meant Gene would take 6th place and the point for Minardi.
One thing that really held him back was the lack of a proper race simulator. Ferrari were quite late to the party and didn't build theirs until the end of this season, so he couldn't even fall back on that. He truly got thrown in the deep end from the start.
Testing is not racing. Badoer was put in an impossible position. The 10ths, or 100ths of a second less per lap come from a physical and mental familiarity with car and track during intense racing action of which he was completely deprived
He had a great career if you really look at it. He was a test driver that contributed to 8 constructors championships and 6 drivers. Awesome if you ask me. And he raced in F1. Most people could only dream of that
Very nice video. I just discovered your channel :) But when talking about the worst driver, Luca Badoer would never cross my mind. There are so many adepts ahead of him.
Great video, stats really don't tell the story, as was said a number of times, he was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of a number of drivers who deserved better.
Trying and failing to figure out who is the greatest F1 driver of all time through an endless series of spreadsheets... yeah, relatable 😂 All I've managed to do is narrow the shortlist down to: Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Prost, Senna, Schumacher and Hamilton. But yes, Badoer is one of the contenders for least successful 😂
@@anthonyxuereb792 And the only time he beat Fangio in the same car, he believes Fangio let him win. Moss is an all-time great, but in my view Hamilton, Senna, Clark, Schumacher, Fangio, Prost, Stewart, Lauda, Ascari, probably Alonso, and arguably Häkkinen and Mansell were better.
He should have been given the chance to race at Monza in 09. Sure the two previous gp's weren't great, but I still think he might have been able to score points in that car there. We'll never know.
Agreed, especially since he'd had time to acclimatise to the car by then, and it was a circuit he knew well. Since Fisichella finished just out of the points that race, in his first race in the car, it's not unreasonable to think he could've been close to the points.
@@TheMobileChicane I hadn't known this until yesterday, but did you know that Fisi had tested once already with Ferrari? In 1995 Fisichella and Luca both tested the Ferrari F1 car at the same test.
Well, he was ok to be a test driver, otherwise he wouldn't stay. And he got his chance to race. One thing that was unfair is when his Minardi have broke when he almost got the 4th place.
Even Chris Amon must feel lucky compared to Luca. Fascinating story. Amazing how good the f1 drivers you pay no attention to really are. To reach f1 you have to be the best. To succeed in f1 you have to be even better and a bit lucky to
Luca is probably the most unlucky drivers in F1 ever, in terms of bad timing in his career. Going from one backmarker team to another, never being able to show his true potential. And then losing out on the Ferrari drive to Mika Salo, who apart from his podiums at Hockenheim and Monza did a poor job. Ferrari expected the impossible in '09 from a driver not racing in F1 for a full decade and had no experience in the car, which was a diva on four wheels, very difficult to drive and took a lot of time to get used to, which Luca unfortunately didn't get. The fact that Fisi did only slightly better than Luca shows that he was treated very unfairly by Ferrari, whose car was absolutely nowhere after Monza.
in my opinion, the worst was Jean-Louis Schlesser. a great rally driver but, once in F1, he wasted one of Senna's race by crashing him and was booted and never came back.
I'm from Belgium and I found it painfull to watch both D'Ambrosio and Vandoorne. They both had slow cars, but when you saw what Alonso could and what stupid things D'Ambrosio did it's fair to say they are contenders for that spot.
I'm from Belgium as well and have actually worked with d'Ambrosio. He's definitely better than his F1 stint implied, and Vandoorne suffered from a relatively hostile team environment and not being able to get used to the cars. With more seats on the grid, both would have deserved a second shot, but they both eventually got to show their worth in FE so it's not all bad!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Fisi’s 9th place finish at Monza was points-scoring, given that 2009 was the first year of the current system (I remember because I was trying to calculate how many points everyone scored in Malaysia as a 9-year-old)
Luca was super unlucky early in his career, driving insanely bad cars while being consistently faster than his teammates, including Martini who was a good driver in his own right. If he had gotten the seat Rubens took at Ferrari we'd have an entirely different view of him now I think.
Luca did a better job than Fisi who’d about 10 straight seasons of driving every race yet was arguably worse. I remember watching Fisi in the Ferrari and he looked even more hopeless.
It's just so strange that Ferrari, the most successful F1 team of all time, didn't have a reliable reserve driver they could call upon in a situation like this. Imagine Real Madrid losing their main striker through injury and responding by calling Raúl out of retirement.
@@TheMobileChicane True, though in my analogy Schumacher is Raúl (successful retired star). I suppose Badoer's Real Madrid equivalent is probably someone like Perica Ognjenović.
Luca is probably one of the least traditionally successful drivers in F1, but he is far, far from the worst driver. Compared to some of the characters that teams like Minardi often found he was probably right in the middle. If I had to pick, I'd probably go with Taki Inoue - he says so himself, after all.
Really good video on Luca. I remember thinking in 09 he needed more time in the car rather than more talent and to not allow him to run at Monza was unfair.
Of course he was slow. Otherwise he would have gotten that Benetton drive. As for testing I remember glancing down the time sheets over the years. Badoer was always about 2 seconds off Schumacher in the same car.
His job wasn't to get the fastest laptime. His job was to test the car and give feedback. Besides he beat Baricello and Coultard in F3 and was formula 3000 champion.
Still gutted for Fisichella for not winning the Belgian GP 2009, IMO stolen by/gifted to Kimi. And even more so for Luca, he deserved at lest 1 more chance in Ferrari to show something and not be thrown out after 2 failures in a very difficult car to drive with no prior/testing experience in it.
Hes the first Hulkenberg...drivers like them are always unlucky when they need to be...but the ones inside the sport and with knowledge know that they are exceptiinal in some areas
I was disappointed to see him off pace in the Ferrari especially with him being familiar with the team. Fisichella didn’t fair much better though. The car wasn’t great.
Luca seems like a nice guy, but Ferrari should have put Gene in that car instead. He performed respectably in stand in roles for Williams, and, whilst he wouldn’t have set the world alight, would have probably been a little more competitive.
Was awful seeing him break down. A solid driver who didn’t get a decent chance until way too late. But don’t feel too bad for him. He got paid to drive F1 cars and be Ferrari’s factory development driver.
He is NOT the worst driver as even FISI struggled in the Ferrari. In fact he was a very good driver and did remarkably well given the circumstances he was put in.
Well, he's no Deletraz or ide that's for sure. I think Luca performed so poorly, because he didn't drive an F1 car against the clock for 10 years when he got that Ferrari drive. In testing he wasn't really going for speed, but for knowledge and consistency to develop the car, plus I think somewhere around 2007 or 2008 testing got very very limited and by 2009 I'm not even sure that Luca had driven the F60 ever prior to Spa. His performances were awful and embarrassing for sure, but I can give him the benefit of the doubt in this case. Had it been his prime and had he driven the car extensively in testing, I think he would have done much better. Fisichella was doing very poorly in the Ferrari too after taking Badoer's seat. I think Fisico failed to score points aswell. For some strange reason Kimi was a total beast in the F60 and had a stormer in a very poor car. I say strangely, because Kimi had a quite poor season in the excellent F2008.
Feel like Ferrari missed a step by not letting him do some racing during that 10 years (sportscars or whatever). Might have stopped him doing as much as testing as he did but he may not have been as rusty once he did step in.
Both Michael Schumacher and Ross Brawn are on record saying that without Luca, Ferrari would not have won 5 world championships. Michael also said that he trusted Luca's feedback and setup help when testing the car.
Also, Luca visits Michael regularly after his accident. So, that tells you all you need to know. Don't give Luca a hard time. Yes he never achieved much in F1 racing, but he was a VERY good test driver - and Ferrari giving him a free car when he retired is a sign that they respected you.
What a good dude
His race pace isn't the best but I agree that he is one of the best F1 test driver around
@Mo Elm um the 2009 Ferrari was definitely not the fastest, and he hadn't properly raced in f1 for ten years, my man. Cut him some slack.
@Mo Elm well, he was used to vastly different machinery. Hadn't properly raced in ten years, man. He hadn't driven the car properly, he hadn't driven on the circuits. Several f1 drivers themselves defended him. They know what they're talking about. It's easy to sit behind a screen and criticize someone, but badoer was a good driver at least when he was young. He repeatedly drove backmarker cars into the top ten. He raced in a period when only the top six scored points. He nearly scored points, but had reliability issues. He even beat Barrichello in F3000 and even won the title! Now am I saying he's the greatest ever? No. But calling him the worst driver ever is just unfair, and that's what the video's trying to say. No one who gets to f1 purely on merit is a "bad driver."
@Mo Elm if you read my comment, you'll see that I never said anything about the car. But, you do realise that Fisichella also struggled, right? Did you even watch the whole video? Also, I want to add that I personally think Stoffel wasn't treated very fairly in f1.
He's considered an unsung hero in Italy - pretty much as the various people involved always said (from Schumacher to Todt to Brawn), he was instrumental in the Ferrari utter and complete dominance of the sport in the 2000-2004 window. In a way, it can be said that the ban on private testing was partly Badoer's making - other teams lacked the financial power to test as much as Ferrari AND a driver like Luca to undertake the work in the way he did.
The 2009 F60 was an absurdly difficult car to setup and drive and which required a lot of adjustment time - at the beginning of the season it was regularly at the bottom of the grid. Only as the drivers and engineers started to figure it out (and what to improve on it), it started moving towards the front. Any new driver dropped in that car would've struggled - as proven by Fisichella who, on his last race for Force India in Spa, took pole position and came home 2nd - only to end up at the bottom of the order in the Ferrari.
The Scuderia should really have put Badoer in the car in 1999, when he had plenty of knowledge of it from thousands of miles of testing.
He probably would have embarrassed Irvine, had he filled in for Schumi in 99.
If they put him in for 99 he probably would have had a good chance to "win" a race, as Salo ended up doing.
Salo "won" the German GP. Imagine what Badoer would've done. Getting his first points finish with a win is not that crazy to think.
@@VideoNarstee why did not ferrari switch him then, even he's italian, do not say he was racing at Minardi
I still couldn't believe todt made that decision.
Finally a fair and balanced article about Luca! Fisichella only did moderately better without being race rusty. Luca was placed at Minardi in 1999 to keep him race ready should the need for him to fill in at Ferrari. When the need did arrive, he got overlooked. He turned down a Sauber drive for 2000 to remain loyal to Ferrari testing duties.
He had a chance to drive an actual F1 car and he skipped it just to stick with his original team, wow
Yea because probably he got paid in one month @ Ferrari what sauber offered to pay him in 6 , so ..
Under the modern top 10 points structure he would've gotten 14 points finishes from 50 starts that's 28%. More than 1/4 of your career in the top 10 in the most woeful cars in F1 history and nothing to show for it
Also we should take into consideration. Reliability and cost-cutting was not emphasis in his time. But surely result were not to bad all included.
Yeah but that doesn't mean anything when more than half of the grid was regularly being struck with reliability problems at every race throughout these years, even the most desperately woeful driver would score points if the top 10 was eligible for points back when Badoer used to race regularly
So in all reality he would've done better than Russell right?
@@Mentadeath It is not like Badoer would be excluded from those retirements though
The part of the story people often leave out is that Fisichella, despite far more recent F1 experience and being a 3-time race winner, didn't score a point in the Ferrari either.
Just goes to show how truly dreadful that year's Ferrari was - even in his last season, Fisichella was no slouch!
It wasn’t just failing to score it was qualifying and finishing last TWICE, one of which his teammate Raikkonen won lmao
Poor Luca. He was a nice and talented guy. He deserved at least some Points.
That breakdown at the 1999 European Grand Prix is still so heartbreaking.
@@TheMobileChicane that was so hard to watch :(
Likewise, When I saw him slumped over the car I felt so bad for him. Makes me more angry and ashamed how badly he was treated by the public and the media in 09!
@@HotRodRacer463 people are so quick to criticize and judge based off of what they see through the media and online - especially for athletes. It really sucks
@@TheMobileChicane Another heartbreaking. Australia 99.
The greatest test driver of all time along with Pedro de la Rosa. Came extremely close to scoring points in a Minardi ffs. But because he was older and off the pace after not racing in F1 for 10 years, idiotic armchair expert "fans" are like wORsT dRIvEr EveR. The fact Ferrari continued to treat him with such respect and admiration speaks volumes - especially given their internal politics. A great driver, no question, just a different kind of driver than what people automatically think of.
Absolutely. Without his skills and dedication, Schumacher and Ferrari would not have been so dominant in the early 00s.
Compared to Badoer, Marc Gené scored points for Minardi in that season
Mika Hakkinen made me think every F1 tester was also a super fast come race day.
@@Luca33600 after Badoer's car broke and retired from P4 ffs
@@VytautasAkulavičius yes
Badoer was a very quick driver in his younger years. I think he is just sort of unlucky to be honest
You're right. He was a promising driver in his active years and a very solid test driver that Ferrari kept for over a decade. It's an awful shame he only gets known for this.
What does anyone expect from a guy who hasn't raced in a decade?
@Mo Elm in 2 races after a hiatus of 10 years from racing, when he was younger he was fast
@Mo Elm because he was in a fukin minardi and a forti, which were slow cars when you needed to finish p6+ for a points finish. He was once running p4 in a minardi (which is very good) and had to retire
@Mo Elm It doesnt matter how many starts you have if youre only driving shitty cars. Look at George Russell: no points in a Williams to almost winning in a Mercedes.
Also, the 10 year gap without racing IS relevant because the driving one does in testing isnt the same one does in a GP weekend. F1 went through multiple changes during the time Luca was away from competing.
Think about it: F1 drivers need hundreds of laps to get used to a car. There is private testing AND winter testing. You cant compare him to Kimi because Kimi had all of this testing plus multiple race weekends to understand how to deal with a complicated car (also the guy is fucking Kimi Raikkonen. You can be slower than him and still be a good driver.
Fisichella is a much better comparison because he also had 0 experience with the Ferrari and struggled just as much but he was an active F1 driver who just had put the Force India on pole and the podium.
All of the examples you mentioned refer to F1 drivers who where in equal footing to their team mates context wise. Luca wasnt. It is simply unfair and unreasonable to compare him to Jos or Stofell because these two were ACTIVE F1 drivers.
@Mo Elm George was an active F1 driver, Luca wasn't. The Mercedes was top of the field, the Ferrari wasn't.
What's so hard to understand about that?
Do you think Fisichella sucks as well? He's the closest to Badoa in terms of context for comparison and he barely did any better despite being active for years.
The crux of your argument is that the 10 year gap doesnt matter, right? If Badoa was good he should do well in a fast car. BUT THE FERRARI WASNT FAST!!! A driver who had pole position and P2 one race prior could not do anything with It. Only Kimi, a world champion with way more laps in the car than Badoa and Fisichella, could do something with it and it wasnt much.
If you win the International Formula 3000 championship beating the likes of Barrichello, Coulthard , and Panis you cant be all that bad and if they had the points system then like now where finishing in the top 10 gets points he would have scored at least 1 point in every year he raced except the 2 races for Ferrari
i also have a massive f1 spreadsheet, and what so many people don't appreciate about 2009 given the initial dominance of Brawn GP is that the 2009 grid from front to back was, I think, the closest of all modern times. so whhile Badoer definitely did suck, the closeness of the 2009 grid left him nowhere to hide (same as FIsichella).
I mean if you look at Belgium he was less than 2 seconds off pole. There have been times in F1 where 2 seconds would have got you solidly in the top half of the grid
I mean Fisichella did finish 2nd in a fucking Force India to be fair to him 😂
@@Duval-In-The-Wall This was just as much due to how the Force India was setup throughout the session after all the car was again quick at Monza
Badoer wasn't as bad as his drive at Ferrari showed
Agree. And Fisichella didnt so better than Badoer when he took that F60. The lacking of test days ruined both drivers and Badoer even didnt know that car. Ferrari should give a chance to Badoer 10 yers early!
Great job. Deserves more views
Thank you!
In a timeline where Mazepin exists I don’t think Luca is even in the same conversation as worst driver ever
I couldn't agree more! Lack of success is not the same as lack of skill.
So glad to see the sub count triple since last time I watched one of your videos. Wow this was well researched, narrated, edited-the whole shebang! People and the UA-cam algorithm, give this man some much deserved recognition! Also forgot to say--excellent storyteller! Giving poor Luca a fair shake.
Thanks so much John! Very kind of you.
Luca's a good example that, sometimes, even if you try your hardest, it's not meant to be.
However, he never gave up, he drove some awful cars but he still became an F1 driver and he drove for Scuderia Ferrari. Most people only dream of having that opportunity.
And that's a good thought, he was succesful in his own way.
Badoer's son Brando has followed in his father's footsteps, currently racing in Formula 4 (he even participated in one of the Ferrari Driver Academy's training camps).
The way people treated Luca in 2009 considering the situation really was dreadful.
My first F1 experience was watching a few laps of a Grand Prix in the V10-era 2000s (5 at most) before I got bored of seeing Schumacher in the lead and flicked over to my native V8 Supercars if available. However, one person that kept me awake and glued to the screen was a little-known Italian called Luca Badoer. I was confused as an 8 year old as to why he was so slow (and so much slower than his teammate), so I did what any 8 year old with nothing to do would do - scour over this fancy thing called "the internet" and do some research on him.
To find out that he was working with Ferrari for a literal decade (and was truly a sight to behold in the years prior when he was racing), made me so emotional that he finally got to race for the team he adored and dedicated his life to for so long. That 1999 race where he and the car broke down simultaneously got the waterworks going when it was replayed to me in the early 2010s or so. I'm not the kind of person to get too emotional, either (That cameraman better have gotten a bloody award for that, it was perfect).
The F90 proved to me that Ferrari was vulnerable to the catastrophic implosions we saw in 2009 for many years. The people behind the prancing horse were crucial in keeping it on the knife-edge, and wrangling it into heights it should never have been in.
That's the fairest commentary I've heard on Luca. I was at the 2009 Italian GP, and I was hoping to see Luca race as at the time I believed he was going to perform a lot better there. I bet he would have out performed Fisi too given that by then he was more familiar with the car, and that he was very good at Monza (it's not the toughest track, I know). While it was a great thing for Ferrrari to have offered Luca the drive, they really should've left him in the seat as instead of enhancing his reputation, they destroyed it. Ferrari are good at that lately! Besides, I think Fisi would've had more good results with the Force India that year had he stayed.
Thanks Joey! Absolutely, you've only got to look at the pace of Sutil and Liuzzi at Monza to wonder how much more Fisichella could've achieved that year.
@@TheMobileChicane I actually think Fisichella could have gotten on the podium at Monza tbh
Qualifying dead last twice in a Ferrari was never going to end well
Just discovered this channel - brilliant. I’ve subscribed after only two videos.
Thank you, and welcome to the channel!
I remember being quite disappointed with Fisi for moving right after almost winning at Spa.
Not much would've been achieved that year. The Force India was perfectly suited for Spa and Monza, but thereafter, moved back towards the lower midfield.
I literally just found you and I can’t believe you only have 2 videos. I hope you become bigger!
Thank you! New video out today!
7:16
Alboreto was 1985 championship runner-up! Not '95.
Really enjoyed the video, fantastic and (surprisingly) emotional ending. Instant sub.
badoer didn't deserve all the shit he got during his prime of career and the 2009 retry, though at least he got to play a big part in ferraris age of domination with schumacher in the end
Great video , it really deserves more views and exposure 🤍
Thank you!
Back in the day when he got the Ferrari drive and it became obvious that he would be so far off the pace, people started making fun of him, calling him Look-How-Bad-You-Are. Kinda funny to see how his signature reads L. Bad. Personally, I think that all things considered, he did a decent job. Fisi's outing in the car proved that. He was an active F1 driver with a very recent success to his name and only marginally better. Pit we didn't get to see Schumacher drive the car to see if he could've at least matched Räikkönen's speed. His stint with Mercedes was ill-fated from the start because that car was co-developed by Button whose driving style off all drivers had the least in common with that of Schumacher and quite a lot in common with that of Rosberg. Ferrari was a team he helped build and knew very well, he occasionally even tested the cars. It's probable that he would've done better in the Ferrari - and it could've meant that he would've looked into a permanent comeback with the prancing horse - which also might've been a bit more successful.
I think the difference for Fisichella was that the Ferrari got worse. For example, Raikkonen was 11th in Abu Dhabi, not 1st
Honestly what F1 portray him is not the full story which i thank you of correcting his Career
Can't wait to be able to say I was your 170th subscriber when you're getting millions of views mate. Very underrated content!
very kind of you Will, thank you!
In his defence. Fisichella, whom had just driven some amazing races for Renault or Benneton I can't remember. He was really on the rise. He took over from Badoer. Oh what an honor to drive for Ferrari. It killed his career instantly. He was a backmarker in the seemingly difficult to drive Ferrari and next season he was gone from F1.
He was a good driver but the Ferrari drive sadly came 10 years too late . He definitely deserved to score points in 1995 and 1999 and showed great promise you cant judge him for his drive in 2009
I know someone who used to work at Minardi, and according to him Badoer was extremely arrogant and pretty much universally hated by the mechanics. When he retired from 4th at the 1999 European GP they were actually happy as that meant Gene would take 6th place and the point for Minardi.
Doesn't mean much when Minardi was a team of total prats back in the day.
I don't get that surely you'd be more happy with the p4 as you get more points doesn't matter who it is
How do you only have 12 subs? Great video!
Thank you!
One thing that really held him back was the lack of a proper race simulator. Ferrari were quite late to the party and didn't build theirs until the end of this season, so he couldn't even fall back on that. He truly got thrown in the deep end from the start.
Testing is not racing. Badoer was put in an impossible position. The 10ths, or 100ths of a second less per lap come from a physical and mental familiarity with car and track during intense racing action of which he was completely deprived
Great video, can't wait to see what you have in store next👌👌👌
Recording and editing the next video this week!
He had a great career if you really look at it. He was a test driver that contributed to 8 constructors championships and 6 drivers. Awesome if you ask me. And he raced in F1. Most people could only dream of that
Very nice video. I just discovered your channel :) But when talking about the worst driver, Luca Badoer would never cross my mind. There are so many adepts ahead of him.
mate you derserve at least 20k subs. In future can you not stretch the images. I.e keep it in the original resolution. Great video!
"Who is Luca Badoer"? Monaco, 1996. That's all you need to know.
[watches video]
Now I feel empathy for the guy.
What happened? Watched it several times but can't remember
Great video, stats really don't tell the story, as was said a number of times, he was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of a number of drivers who deserved better.
Trying and failing to figure out who is the greatest F1 driver of all time through an endless series of spreadsheets... yeah, relatable 😂
All I've managed to do is narrow the shortlist down to: Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Prost, Senna, Schumacher and Hamilton.
But yes, Badoer is one of the contenders for least successful 😂
It's truly one of life's greatest struggles!
No mention of Moss?
@@anthonyxuereb792 I'd put him somewhere between 10th and 13th
@@elliotcrossan6290 that's a bit harsh, he duelled with the one he called the Maestro.
@@anthonyxuereb792 And the only time he beat Fangio in the same car, he believes Fangio let him win. Moss is an all-time great, but in my view Hamilton, Senna, Clark, Schumacher, Fangio, Prost, Stewart, Lauda, Ascari, probably Alonso, and arguably Häkkinen and Mansell were better.
He should have been given the chance to race at Monza in 09. Sure the two previous gp's weren't great, but I still think he might have been able to score points in that car there. We'll never know.
Agreed, especially since he'd had time to acclimatise to the car by then, and it was a circuit he knew well. Since Fisichella finished just out of the points that race, in his first race in the car, it's not unreasonable to think he could've been close to the points.
@@TheMobileChicane I hadn't known this until yesterday, but did you know that Fisi had tested once already with Ferrari? In 1995 Fisichella and Luca both tested the Ferrari F1 car at the same test.
@@kieferclarkf1674 I did not know that - great fact!
Well, he was ok to be a test driver, otherwise he wouldn't stay. And he got his chance to race. One thing that was unfair is when his Minardi have broke when he almost got the 4th place.
Great video man, hope to see more from you. This is some great quality content, well thought out and presented! Thumbs up and subscribed
Thank you so much!
arguably it was easier for back markers to score points in 90s as half the cars would usually breakdown
the title is unfair and missleading. the video content is fair.
Not such thing as a 'bad' driver in F1....except Mazepin...!!!
I smoke Chesterfields ..
Even Chris Amon must feel lucky compared to Luca. Fascinating story. Amazing how good the f1 drivers you pay no attention to really are. To reach f1 you have to be the best. To succeed in f1 you have to be even better and a bit lucky to
Luca is probably the most unlucky drivers in F1 ever, in terms of bad timing in his career. Going from one backmarker team to another, never being able to show his true potential.
And then losing out on the Ferrari drive to Mika Salo, who apart from his podiums at Hockenheim and Monza did a poor job.
Ferrari expected the impossible in '09 from a driver not racing in F1 for a full decade and had no experience in the car, which was a diva on four wheels, very difficult to drive and took a lot of time to get used to, which Luca unfortunately didn't get.
The fact that Fisi did only slightly better than Luca shows that he was treated very unfairly by Ferrari, whose car was absolutely nowhere after Monza.
One of the most unluckiest drivers ever 😢
in my opinion, the worst was Jean-Louis Schlesser. a great rally driver but, once in F1, he wasted one of Senna's race by crashing him and was booted and never came back.
Latifi has now points :D
Jesus Christ this story is brutal. Gotta feel for the guy
It was really a shame Ferrari didnt let him race in some other championship races between 2000;and 2009..
I'm from Belgium and I found it painfull to watch both D'Ambrosio and Vandoorne. They both had slow cars, but when you saw what Alonso could and what stupid things D'Ambrosio did it's fair to say they are contenders for that spot.
I'm from Belgium too. Still hoping Vandoorne will come back into F1 some day. He's definetly a much better driver than D'Ambrosio.
I'm from Belgium as well and have actually worked with d'Ambrosio. He's definitely better than his F1 stint implied, and Vandoorne suffered from a relatively hostile team environment and not being able to get used to the cars. With more seats on the grid, both would have deserved a second shot, but they both eventually got to show their worth in FE so it's not all bad!
Very good video. Thank you.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Fisi’s 9th place finish at Monza was points-scoring, given that 2009 was the first year of the current system (I remember because I was trying to calculate how many points everyone scored in Malaysia as a 9-year-old)
The current system came into place in 2010!
annd subbed cause that channel name is too good.
Haha, thank you!
I miss the hopeless back marker drivers of the early 1990s and the farcical Thursday pre-qualifying
And 24 cars on the grid too.
Luca was super unlucky early in his career, driving insanely bad cars while being consistently faster than his teammates, including Martini who was a good driver in his own right. If he had gotten the seat Rubens took at Ferrari we'd have an entirely different view of him now I think.
I was a big fan of Luca as a kid idk, looked like a friend of mine and I always played as him in my 96 F1 video game
Luca did a better job than Fisi who’d about 10 straight seasons of driving every race yet was arguably worse. I remember watching Fisi in the Ferrari and he looked even more hopeless.
In that first race, hadn't he just moved aside and let someone pass him for position when he crossed the white line?
It's just so strange that Ferrari, the most successful F1 team of all time, didn't have a reliable reserve driver they could call upon in a situation like this.
Imagine Real Madrid losing their main striker through injury and responding by calling Raúl out of retirement.
I think this might be the first time that Raúl and Badoer have been compared in the same sentence!
@@TheMobileChicane True, though in my analogy Schumacher is Raúl (successful retired star). I suppose Badoer's Real Madrid equivalent is probably someone like Perica Ognjenović.
Great video! Keep it up man!
All he needed was a couple of days of testing at Fiorano or Mugello and he would have been fine
The testing ban killed him had it been a couple of year's earlier he'd have done a Mika Salo style job
Absolutely true! He stated many times it was the 10 months away from testing, rather than the 10 years away from racing, that really hurt him.
Luca is probably one of the least traditionally successful drivers in F1, but he is far, far from the worst driver. Compared to some of the characters that teams like Minardi often found he was probably right in the middle.
If I had to pick, I'd probably go with Taki Inoue - he says so himself, after all.
Definitely agree with you - throw Jean-Denis Deletraz and Yuji Ide into there too.
Badoer was never given a fair break in the 1990s. But truth be told, he was the perfect test driver.
i bet there are a hellva lot of drivers, who wish they were this bad.......
Where is Luca Badoer?
Who is Luca Badger?
Why is Luca Badoer?
Really good video on Luca. I remember thinking in 09 he needed more time in the car rather than more talent and to not allow him to run at Monza was unfair.
Very impressive video...really enjoyable.
Sorry to take away from this interesting insight slightly....but @10:26 Fworrr!!
Of course he was slow. Otherwise he would have gotten that Benetton drive. As for testing I remember glancing down the time sheets over the years. Badoer was always about 2 seconds off Schumacher in the same car.
His job wasn't to get the fastest laptime. His job was to test the car and give feedback. Besides he beat Baricello and Coultard in F3 and was formula 3000 champion.
So was Herbert and he won 3 Grand Prix's
Great vid !
Thank you!
Sad but beautiful video
I remember he was very fast and proved his talent in F3 and F0000. F1 never worked for him unfortunately
Still gutted for Fisichella for not winning the Belgian GP 2009, IMO stolen by/gifted to Kimi. And even more so for Luca, he deserved at lest 1 more chance in Ferrari to show something and not be thrown out after 2 failures in a very difficult car to drive with no prior/testing experience in it.
Hes the first Hulkenberg...drivers like them are always unlucky when they need to be...but the ones inside the sport and with knowledge know that they are exceptiinal in some areas
I was disappointed to see him off pace in the Ferrari especially with him being familiar with the team. Fisichella didn’t fair much better though. The car wasn’t great.
Subbed
Luca seems like a nice guy, but Ferrari should have put Gene in that car instead. He performed respectably in stand in roles for Williams, and, whilst he wouldn’t have set the world alight, would have probably been a little more competitive.
With more context that 'and now the fashionable tears' comment seems that bit more callous.
Was awful seeing him break down. A solid driver who didn’t get a decent chance until way too late. But don’t feel too bad for him. He got paid to drive F1 cars and be Ferrari’s factory development driver.
the worst part of all might be that his last name starts with Bad..
They did call him Look-How-Bad-You-Are!
Beatiful video.
Why couldn’t they have asked Schumacher or Villeneuve or anyone?
He is NOT the worst driver as even FISI struggled in the Ferrari. In fact he was a very good driver and did remarkably well given the circumstances he was put in.
Should have been replaced Irvine in 2000
I dare anyone on this comment section to match what Luca did in 2009. Good luck getting your hands on a Ferrari 👍🏻
Including you
@@ronghe79 already got the Ferrari
I like it. Good vid, thumbs up and subbed. More like this please...
Who’s the driver you mention before Max Chilton?? I can’t hear his name lol
Charles Pic! He raced in F1 in 2012 and 2013 with Marussia and Caterham.
Great video
My pick for worst driver is max chilton
Well, he's no Deletraz or ide that's for sure. I think Luca performed so poorly, because he didn't drive an F1 car against the clock for 10 years when he got that Ferrari drive. In testing he wasn't really going for speed, but for knowledge and consistency to develop the car, plus I think somewhere around 2007 or 2008 testing got very very limited and by 2009 I'm not even sure that Luca had driven the F60 ever prior to Spa.
His performances were awful and embarrassing for sure, but I can give him the benefit of the doubt in this case. Had it been his prime and had he driven the car extensively in testing, I think he would have done much better.
Fisichella was doing very poorly in the Ferrari too after taking Badoer's seat. I think Fisico failed to score points aswell.
For some strange reason Kimi was a total beast in the F60 and had a stormer in a very poor car.
I say strangely, because Kimi had a quite poor season in the excellent F2008.
Feel like Ferrari missed a step by not letting him do some racing during that 10 years (sportscars or whatever). Might have stopped him doing as much as testing as he did but he may not have been as rusty once he did step in.
Pleasant enough guy. But not F1 standard. Actually hit a parked F1 car in Park Ferme