He is ‘one of the worst Grand Prix drivers ever’ who started more than 100 F1 races but never finished on the lead lap

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The 2025 Formula 1 season looks set to be the closest in the 75-year history of the sport.

McLaren star Oscar Piastri leads the drivers’ championship by 10 points over Lando Norris.

At the last race in Spain, Yuki Tsunoda set the slowest time in qualifying but was within a second of the Australian’s best time in Q1.

Tsunoda has been struggling at Red Bull since his promotion, but in previous eras of Formula 1, his gap to the fastest driver would have been enough to start on the front row of the race.

In the 1980s and 1990s, there were far more teams in F1 so drivers frequently had to go through pre-qualifying just to try and be included in the fastest 26 cars which took part in each Grand Prix.

Drivers were frequently seconds off the pace in qualifying and it wasn’t unusual for the likes of Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Damon Hill to win races with only a handful of drivers finishing on the same lap.

Frenchman Philippe Alliot knows that feeling all too well, having started more than 100 Grand Prix during his career without ever finishing on the lead lap.

READ MORE: He is the F1 driver Ayrton Senna considered ‘the best of the best’ and once declared was his ‘boyhood hero’

Who is record-breaking former Formula 1 driver Philippe Alliot?

Philippe Alliot was born in Voves, France, a village south-west of Paris, on 27 July 1954.

The 70-year-old started racing relatively late in life, giving up his political science studies to take part in the Formule Renault Nationale, winning the championship on the third attempt.

Alliot then spent years racing in various Formula Three series across Europe, before making his Formula 1 debut in 1984.

Martin Brundle and Ayrton Senna’s rivalry was the big talking point out of the rookies that year, but Alliot earned his spot on the grid with RAM.

He achieved a best finish of 10th but technically wasn’t classified in the championship, having failed to score a point.

Alliot had to wait until 1986 to score his first F1 point after joining French team Ligier, before driving for Larrousse for the following four seasons.

Ligier signed Alliot in 1990 but after a fourth point-less season, he lost his seat, before a fifth and final year with Larrousse in 1993.

The 1993 San Marino Grand Prix saw Alliot achieve his best result in F1, coming home in P5, although he was still two laps down on eventual winner Prost and Benetton’s Michael Schumacher.

He made a one-off appearance for McLaren in 1994 before bowing out of Formula 1, fittingly with Larrousse at the Belgian Grand Prix that year.

READ MORE: All you need to know about McLaren F1 Team from team principal to engine

Ron Dennis calls Philippe Alliot the ‘worst’ F1 driver he ever worked with

Journalist Matt Bishop was speaking on the And Colossally That’s History! Podcast, and incidentally Alliot’s name came up when discussing former McLaren boss Ron Dennis.

He said: “When I was McLaren’s comms and PR chief, which was a job I did from 2008 to 2017, I remember once asking Ron [Dennis], who’d been his most favourite driver and who’d been his least favourite driver.

“He came up with two answers, actually, instantly. Quote, the worst was Philippe Alliot.”

Incidentally, Dennis named Mika Hakkinen as his favourite driver after helping him recover from one of the worst crashes in Formula 1 history at the 1995 Australian Grand Prix.

Alliot officially started 109 Grand Prix during his career, but in that time, he never finished on the lead lap of a race.

Remarkably, he still managed to score seven points despite that record and eventually retired from racing in 2006.

Alliot compared the late improvement in his career to Nigel Mansell in an interview with Grand Prix in 1993 stating: “Sport is all in the head and you cannot really explain the change, but it is what Nigel Mansell had last year.

“Something happened with Nigel that made him so fast and I think a little bit of the same thing has happened to me.

“I am in a different situation: he was Williams and I am with Larrousse.”

Known primarily for his ability in qualifying, Alliot was once described by James Hunt in his commentary for the BBC as ‘one of the worst Grand Prix drivers ever to drive a Grand Prix car.’

When asked about this quote by Supercars, Alliot explained: “It wasn’t just James Hunt, Nigel Mansell said it too!

“At first, it’s not something that gives a driver any satisfaction at all. However, all things considered, I think they are probably right, and what they said is probably true.

“I could put ten or so laps together. My mind would wander to other things after that, before going into a second phase of race concentration.”