When a journeyman driver's F1 career lasted just 800m

The majority of the 2025 rookies had a nightmare first race of the season with Isack Hadjar, Jack Doohan, Gabriel Bortoleto and Liam Lawson all crashing out. Back in 1993 though, Marco Apicella was an F1 driver for just 800m before a first corner fracas ended his career. Here’s the story of his very short time at motorsport’s pinnacle

This article was originally published on 4 April 2021

All racing drivers dream of making it to Formula 1. They dream of a once-in-a-lifetime invitation to motorsport’s most exclusive table and, once there, emulating the greats in their quest for champagne, championships and commendations.

What they don’t dream of is finding their way to F1, crashing out of the race metres before the first corner, and never dining at the motorsporting equivalent of the Ritz ever again. Alas, it was the fate that befell Marco Apicella, who had barely put the odometer at 800 metres before his time in F1 came to an anti-climactic end.

In this article

Jake Boxall-Legge

Formula 1

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Author Jake Boxall-Legge

Jake studied engineering at university, as his original ambition was to design racing cars. He was bad at that, and thus decided to write about them instead with an equally limited skillset. The above article is a demonstration of that. In his spare time, Jake enjoys people, places, and things.