The five most accident‑prone F1 drivers

Pastor Maldonado

Pastor Maldonado is a decent enough driver, but his career has been marred by a series of crashes. Most famously, the Venezuelan failed to slow down following an accident in a Formula Renault 3.5 event in Monaco in 2005 and hit a marshal on the track, causing serious injury. As a result, he was banned from four races in the series and barred for life from the Principality, a punishment that his father reportedly overturned by paying for the marshals treatment.

His crash-happy nature continued into the premiere series of racing, with the then 26-year-old colliding with Lewis Hamilton at Monaco, before spinning out of the Canada race and then ‘deliberately’ sideswiping Hamilton during qualifying at Spa, for which he received a five-place grid penalty.

Things only got worse from then on out, with Maldonado crashing on the last lap of the 2012 season opener, before winning the Spanish Grand Prix, a success overshadowed when he deliberately hit Sergio Perez at Monaco, followed in quick succession by Pedro de la Rosa. The remainder of the season saw no less than five crashes (into debris, Hamilton, Perez, Paul di Resta and Timo Glock) and three penalties at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Miraculously, he bagged a seat with Lotus for 2014, driving under the lucky number 13 (things couldn’t get worse for him, really), and promptly collided with Esteban Gutiérrez at the Bahrain Grand Prix, causing him to roll and incurring a ten second stop-go penalty, three points on his FIA Super licence and a five place grid penalty at the following Chinese Grand Prix. You would have thought he’d have learned by now, but Maldonado suffered seven further crashes, and caused another that year.

But still he drove on, and in his final season in the Championship, the chaos continued, with countless crashes and calamities tarring the Venezuelan’s name.

Andrea de Cesaris

Ah, Andrea de Cesaris, the man so prone to disaster that he earned the moniker de Crasheris… With heavy Marlboro funding (thanks to a high up father in the Philip Morris empire), de Cesaris started as a rookie at McLaren in 1981, famously damaging between 10 and 19 cars in just one year, and the toll didn’t end there. Moving to Alfa Romeo in 1982, he counted five accidents, one of which took both team cars out of contention on the Austrian start line, followed by three in ’84, four in ’85, four in ’87 and three in ’88.

But he did prove that he was both fast and loose, beating Lauda’s McLaren to pole position at Long Beach in 1982, and coming within touching distance of various race wins, only to be blighted by mechanical bad luck.

Over his 13 year F1 career, of his 208 races entered, he retired from 148, with a huge 18 consecutive retirements. He famously set the record for the most races entered without a win.

Sadly, he died as he lived, crashing his motorcycle in Rome in October 2014.

James Hunt

Good God, these nicknames are creative. ‘Hunt the Shunt’ earns an honourable mention on our list for his dangerous escapades, which would result in him either taking the win or crashing. He encapsulated the win or die-trying attitude, and while he was not necessarily more accident-prone than his peers, when he did crash, it tended to be spectacular – as were his resulting tantrums. His worst behaviour came when he was racing in the little leagues, including the controversial clash with Dave Morgan during a battle for second position at Crystal Palace in October 1970, when the pair collided and crashed out of the race, before Hunt got out of his car and pushed him to the ground.

Taki Inoue

Taki Inoue is a bit of an odd one. While he undoubtedly caused countless crashes himself, he was also the unfortunate victim of plenty more, with the Japanese driver suffering strangely at the hands of the safety car.

In the first five races of his first season in the Championship, 1995, the pay driver spun off in three. He spun off again during practice at Monaco, but that wasn’t the worse accident to befall him that day. As he was towed from the track, Jean Ragnotti, driving a demo lap in the safety car, rounded the corner and collided with Inoue’s car, flipping it. Luckily, he escaped with just a concussion.

Over the next four races, he crashed out and retired twice, before engine failure brought him to a halt at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Seemingly not content with the un-dramatic nature of the incident, he managed to run in front of the medical car, which subsequently ran him over.

Yuji Ide

While not the most prolific crasher to make our list, Yuji Ide is the only entrant to have lost his FIA Super Licence as a result of his poor driving. In fact, the Japanese driver was so bad that he saw just four races in one season before getting the sack.

But he wasn’t always bad. Before he entered Formula 1 as one of the series oldest rookies at 31, Ide won two kart championships, Japan’s Formula Dream series and the Super Endurance Race Class 3 Series, plus a handful of podium places.

However, it all went downhill when he joined the Super Aguri F1 team in 2006. In his first race he failed to finish, in his second he retired. In his third, he apparently dawdled in front of Rubens Barrichello during qualifying and sent him to the back of the grid.

But it was at Imola that Ide was deemed unsafe to continue in the Championship, after causing a first lap crash with Christijan Albers that sent the Dutchman rolling. His licence was revoked in May 2006, ending his short-lived F1 career.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.