Elio de angelis -- the forgotten gem ?

bonsoir again buds --

during my early teenage yrs i was a big fan of lotus F1 mainly because my father was a FI addict and drove a ridiculous looking jps lotus road car hence i quickly inherited his addiction

during those yrs i naturally took a major interest in the drivers who at the time were de angelis and mansell and because elio generally seemed to be the better driver of the two i naturally favoured him and rooted blindly for him come race day - alas the lotus cars were a sorry affair in those days ,

as my F1 knowledge increased i was convinced elio was one of the major talents with his very quick , smooth , flowing style , he also seemed to have a certain intelligence in the car that for me made him one of the top drivers at the time ,

how good was he compared to the rest before his demise at paul ricard , certainly i honestly bellieve he was better than mansell and his 3 and a bit yrs teamed up with nigel would seem to verify that ,
so by definition that would also have probally made him better than the established star at the time which was nelson piquet -

was elio worthy of a WDC - most certainly , i strongly believe he would have won 86 and 87 and not messed up as mansell did had he been lucky enough to have had mansells unbeatable williams honda at the time --

would he have actually won a WDC if he had lived -- probally not unless he had been able to force himself into the newey williams"s of the early 90s ,
must admit when he died i felt nothing but bitterness and hatred towards the incompetent clowns that were laughingly called marshals at paul ricard , however as i grew older i realised that bitterness was probally misplaced -

would be interested to hear if any body else has any recollections of this forgotten ace and if so if anything i have said strikes a cord -

 

I came across a picture of him with Ayrton Senna the other day, very nostalgia evoking, truly a gentleman

 

there are probally numerous pics of the pair dotted about in various publications , must admit i have not often seen pics of the pair together ,

sadly i dont think the pair ever really got along when teamed together during 85 --

 

He certainly had 10 odd years left in him when he died which would have taken him up to say the mid 90's. 1987 may have given him a chance to get into a Williams or a Mclaren but then again we are already into the ifs and buts. Certainly a very good driver but unfortunately there were a few goodens around at that time, and i don't think he would have trumped them all.

He had potential but sadly we'll never know.

 

A hard one to judge.

He was undisputed no.1 at Lotus so not wholly fair to judge him against Mansell when he got the benefit of Peter Warr's favouritism.

However, he was beaten on raw pace by Senna throughout 1985 and that dimmed his star, hence he left Lotus at the end of 1985 and could only get a drive at Brabham.

As Masnell found out, fall out of favour with Lotus and Peter Warr and you are made out to be not wanted.

Drives were available at McLaren, Ferrari & Williams for 1986 yet none of them seemed to want him, preferring to sign others. The thought of two Italians in a Ferrai in the 80's does not bode well with the politics that revolved around Maranello at the time!

His untimely death will mean we will never know if he would have gone on to acheive stardom, that can also be said for many in the era. I do think that if Villeneuve, and Bellof had not died so soon, the results of the WDC's in the 80's and 90's would have been a whole lot different anyway.

Also don't forget Didier Pironi who would have taken the 82 WDC and possibly many more if it wasn't for his horrific accident in Germany.

 

are you sure elio was undisputed no 1 at lotus saint , not from my recollections he was"nt , admittedly mansell was never PW favourite but there was never any team orders and both drivers were allowed to race against each other --

 

Warr resented mansell as he was Chapman's star and I beleive Chapman would always favour Mansell over Warr in a dispute and that really irked Warr.

Portugal 84 always springs to mind as there was only one set of larger brake pads. These were given to Elio (despite Mansell outqualifying him) and Mansell subsequently coasted into the pits with brake failure whilst in a strong 2nd place.

Warr's famous phrase 'Mansell will never win a gp whilst I have a hole in my arse' shows what he thought of the guy!

 

He's was a good midfield driver, but not up there with Prost, Senna or Piquet, who were the benchmarks of the day. As to Villeneuve and Bellof, Gilles probably would've been a WDC, but Bellof, by all accounts, was a bad accident waiting to happen.

 

I think when your boss is happy to put you down in public so readily then he might not have any issues in giving the other guy priority. This wasn't de Andelis' fault but simply a situation he found himself in

 

Absolutely.

de Angelis was by all accounts one of the Gentlemen of racing so i doubt he would have had any influence. Senna was more hardcore in how he went about his racing and de Angelis seemed to not cope with this very well when Senna took hold to the Lotus team.

 

ah portugal 84 , reminds me a bit of silverstone 90 when mansell also reckoned ferrari shafted him , lets have it right all the whinging that mansell did thruout his career when could anybody ever take him seriously ,

never the less i did have a soft spot for him -- but as for believing anything he said when nothing was ever his fault --
--------- thats another matter --

 

You do have to take what he said with a pinch of salt, but those are the more credible stories of the many excuses he has come out with.

Anyway, back with de Angelis, the big one that counts, as well all know, is this :-

http://f1greatestdrivers.autosport.com/

His peers clearly didn't think he was up there with the best, yet Villeneuve & Bellof are both there and neither of them had the chance to show the extent true talents either.

 

fully agree elio was never up there with the prosts of this world and was not as dramatic or probally as quick as gilles vill ,
in fairness to elio he never once had a competitive car capable of mounting a WDC campaign and probally died before he was ever lucky enough to get his chance ,

however i certainly think he had a little more in his locker than mansell when the pair were teamed up , which i suppose by definition he would of also been able to have given piquet all the trouble he could handle ---
as i said i certainly believe he would not have thrown away the 86 and 87 WDC had he been in the same fortunate position as mansell --

 

He may have bettered Mansell's 86/7 attempts, but then again he could have done far worse. He wasn't free from runs of iffy races himself.

 

I saw nothing that suggested he was going to be a great.

neither did his peers. a nice guy, but that wont win races and wdc's.

that is all I shall say.

 

Is it just me, or is it odd that that poll includes drivers who are still racing, especially those like Hamilton (17th) and Vettel (26th) who still have maybe a decade left in them?

 

no one suggested he was ever a great or was ever going to be a great ,
but as we saw he was certainly better than mansell when teamed up with him at lotus -- one can only imagine what elio might have achieved had he had the same breaks as nigel or piquet -

 

that poll was produced about a year ago by autosport and was probally the most comprehensive poll ever conducted with 217 ex F1 drivers spanning several decades voting - they were asked to vote on current and past F1 drivers ,

it was difficult to quite know where to place de angelis as he died before he was ever given a competitive car - in fairness he was never up there with the very best and was never going to be thought of in that context ,

with the likes of prost and senna coming into there own from the mid 80s onwards without a williams drive elio"s career would have stagnated anyway - never the less i believe in his short career he was a very understated driver -

 

He may not have got those breaks as team bosses didn't see the potential/talent they saw in others. Mansell and Piquet being two examples you suggested who must have impressed the guys who really matter.

 

I understand the poll was a massive survey, and I'm not questioning its findings, I'm questioning the methodology. My issue with the poll is that the half a dozen or so current drivers in the top 40 haven't finished their careers, so how can you rank them against those who have? If that poll was conducted before the current season, just think how much Vettel's stock has risen in the last twelve months! ex-F1 drivers, with all their insight into F1, do not have a crystal ball, so why include drivers who may still have a decades worth of racing in them, in the results?

You wonder where to place de angelis, as he didn't have a competitive car, the same could be said for many, many drivers. Michael Schumacher makes number two in the poll, for his obvious achievements with Ferrari. But (with the exception of Irvine and Barrichello) we have no idea how well other drivers would have coped in that situation, making comparisons incredibly difficult. I don't mean for this to be an attack on Schumacher, he is simply the obvious benchmark from the poll.

I'd love to see a statistical analysis of F1 drivers, where the quality of the car is removed from the equation (when I've got some time, it's probably something I'll tinker with!), to try and see how drivers truly stack up.