I always liked that version of the 96 Ferrari.

It was the later season version I didn't like:
[pic edited out]
The high nose never worked, imo

Verstappen was our most successful F1 driver but even he is a midfield driver, at best.

Even midfield drivers sometimes manage to score wins in the right car. Hell, Massa managed to occupy a seat in a good car for years.

I'm not saying he's the greatest driver ever but his career could have been a lot different with a different manager or if the Honda project wasn't canned. Where "could" obviously is the key word.

Is that a 2010 car with 2014 nose?

It's a 2014-style nose but it's not the one that's on the E22 exactly.

It's an R25 chassis.

Wanna go back to 2014?

But how can we describe his '94 season then?

But how can we describe his '94 season then? I didn't watch F1 until '98 but was there really such a big difference in performance from both Benetton cars?

Rottengarter was a shitty manager indeed. But that can't be the only reason he was overlooked by F1 teams? When he drove for Arrows, Pedro De La Rosa managed to promote to Jaguar with Jos as a teammate, and Justin Wilson managed to get the Jaguar seat in 2003. Can't be all due to Huub.

Is there a non-Twitter/Facebook/Blog link to it? Blocked at work unfortunately (thanks in advance)

According to rumors he could have signed for Jordan in their better days. Eddie gave them an offer and Huub demanded that a extra 0 was added to the salary. Eddie send him away and never talked to him again.
He doesnt have to drive for free but in his position asking 10x more was also insane.

Williams wanted him as a replacement for Zanardi but wanted a results clause. They refused and Williams went for Button.

Verstappen could have gotten a few nice seats but he and Huub grossly overestimated themselves.

Verstappen went straight from F3 to F1 in 1994 and was only due to be Benetton's test driver until Lehto's pre-season testing crash. To say there was a big performance gap is ignoring a lot of facts.

His first test in an F1 car for Footwork in late 1993 was very good, though - it's what the hype was built upon. It probably would've made more sense to stick a more experienced driver in the car rather than Jos, like Zanardi or McNish, but they went with him because he was genuinely very quick at the time. And he picked up two podiums in a shit iteration of the car too. His performances at Simtek the following year were impressive as well - after 1995, you'd have thought he'd be on for a decent career

The seasons that bring up question marks for me were 1996-98. He started 96 well and it can't have been easy for him with the change of ownership. But it tailed off into crashes. Then he was beaten quite comfortably by Salo at Tyrrell and didn't do an awful lot alongside Rubens at Stewart

Clearly he wasn't without ability - nobody gets to the verge of a podium or even winning in a Minardi without talent. I just think that he couldn't hack the pressure on track on raceday, which was probably a result of being rushed through the ranks

I think you misunderstand my post, which is purely referring to Mika Kimi's comment about Verstappen's 1994 season and the performance gap between him and Schumi.

Verstappen definitely deserved his place in F1 and his performances in 1995 and onwards showed why. 1994 was always going to be an uphill struggle considering his F1 experience was very limited and wasn't helped by the focus the team had on Schumi (understandable) and a second rate car (as you mention) given to him. That's my point.