Hans Binder made appearances for the struggling Williams/Wolf team (left), another 1976 reject was Kazuyoshi Hoshino (right), seen here in his Tyrrell.

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Add to that a huge number of unsuccessful drivers, private entries and one-off appearances, which gave us all of the following: Conny Andersson, Ian Ashley, Harald Ertl, Bob Evans, Divina Galica, Boy Hayje, Ingo Hoffman, Loris Kessel, Lella Lombardi, Brett Lunger, Damien Magee, Jac Nelleman, Patrick Neve, Karl Oppitzhauser, Larry Perkins, Alessandro Pesenti-Rossi, Ian Scheckter, Alex Ribiero, Otto Stuppacher, Tony Trimmer, Emilio de Villota and Mike Wilds.

Worse still, there were the Japanese teams and drivers, including Kazuyoshi Hoshino for Tyrrell, Noritake Takahara for Surtees, the Maki team and the controversial efforts of the Kojima outfit and its driver Masahiro Hasemi (whom FIA records inaccurately say set the fastest race lap at the Japanese GP at Fuji). Their efforts would set a benchmark which their countrymen haven't looked like improving by much.

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Aguri Suzuki failed to pre-qualify at each of his 16 attempts. Here he is in Germany (right), trying to create a detour through the stands. Pierre-Henri Raphanel was hardly any luckier, qualifying his Coloni just once, before leaving the team. Here he tries his luck in a Rial at Belgium (left).

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As a result, 1989 was a top year for rejects. It saw the greatest number of entries per race ever (39), but in order to raise standards it was also the year of the pre-qualifying lottery, when 9 drivers would not pre-qualify and 4 more would not qualify. As a result, underprepared teams such as Onyx, Rial, AGS, Osella, Zakspeed, Coloni and EuroBrun all struggled to make the grid with any regularity. EuroBrun never made it at all, and Zakspeed only twice.

Their drivers, by and large new and inexperienced, also struggled as a result. Try out this list of rejects: Olivier Grouillard, Luis Perez Sala, Bernd Schneider, Yannick Dalmas, Gregor Foitek, Piercarlo Ghinzani, Volker Weidler, Pierre-Henri Raphanel, Joachim Winkelhock, Enrico Bertaggia, Oscar Larrauri and Paolo Barilla. These guys contributed 106 failures to qualify or pre-qualify, not to mention Gabriele Tarquini, who DNPQed 8 times, and Aguri Suzuki, who was gone by Friday afternoon at every single meeting.

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While Pacific trundled away (left) at the back of the grid, ultimately wasting Paul Belmondo's time, most other teams were searching high and low for pay drivers. Larrousse went back to the future with Phiilippe Alliot and Yannick Dalmas (right).

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Add to that the difficulties faced by the Simtek and Pacific teams, and 1994 would prove to be a year of opportunities either limited or cut short. And, as a result, rejects galore. Whilst the two teams mentioned above would be the only teams to be considered 'reject teams', the list of drivers considered as 'reject drivers' is enormous, in size and above all quality (or lack thereof).

Pedro Lamy's F1 career was sidetracked by a leg-shattering testing crash - and Lotus also had to resort to the service of Philippe Adams twice - meanwhile David Brabham, Alessandro Zanardi and Olivier Beretta struggled with their cars. Franck Lagorce never got a proper chance, while Paul Belmondo had to pay for a fruitless Pacific drive, and Simtek had to opt for (wait for this) Andrea Montermini, Jean-Marc Gounon, Mimmo Schiattarella and Taki Inoue. Larrousse also had to plumb some depths, going with Yannick Dalmas, Hideki Noda and (the clincher) Jean-Denis Deletraz towards the end of the season. As Frank Sinatra would say, 'it was a VERY good year'.

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