Comeback Kings: six F1 champs who just couldn't quit

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,” was Pacino’s lament in The Godfather III. 

Of course, his business was a trifle less legal than F1 racing, but the power of organised crime / top-tier motorsport appears to be all but irresistible. 

Recent returner Felipe Massa is really just the latest in a long line of drivers who’ve come back to Formula 1 after ostensibly retiring forever. How he’ll fare over the coming season, or seasons, is anyone’s guess. 

What we can do, however, is rate the careers of F1 stars who’ve taken off their helmet for the 'final time', only to dust it off, again and again...

Left: 1981
Returned: 1982
Comeback rating, in a word: Brief

There’s no arguing with Andretti’s talent. Even though his name became a byword for speed, it was his ability to extract the most out of any car he got into that really made him a force to be reckoned with. 

Whether he was driving in IndyCar, NASCAR or F1, he was immensely quick. That said, towards the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, Andretti became increasingly disillusioned with brutish, crude cars he was driving and decided to leave in 1981. 

In 1982, however, he was lured back for a drive in a Willliams for the US Grand Prix, before Enzo Ferrari himself asked Andretti to fill in for Didier Pironi. Andretti managed to claim a pole position and third place overall at Monza.

But that was the extent for Andretti’s return – he’d go on to put in a 12-year stint in IndyCar (basically an American-only open-wheeled racing series) and tackle endurance racing at LeMans. 

Photo: Hans van Dijk

Left: 1981
Returned: 1983
Left: 1983
Returned: 1985
Comeback rating, in a word: Sporadic

A lot of F1 drivers come into the sport, riding oodles of money. 

Jones… didn’t. Moving to the UK with only a few quid in his pocket, he scratched and scraped until he could fund his own Formula Ford entry. From there, he raced on a shoestring until finally getting into F1 in the mid-1970s. Reaching the top of his game (and the top of the drivers’ championship) in 1980, Jones then retired – quite abruptly – a year later, even though he nabbed a respectable third place in the 1981 season. 

He finished on a high with a win in the last race of the season, and that was pretty much that. Except it wasn’t. 

Jones got a call from Ferrari to take on a few races in the 1982 season, but was enjoying a life of comparative leisure in Australia too much. Instead, Andretti took the job, scoring a third place at Monza. Unfortunately for Jones, Ferrari’s 126C3 – which he could have had access to, had he taken the gig – was the best all-round package of 1983, taking the constructor’s championship. 

In 1983, he came back for a couple of drives in an Arrows F1 car, showing he still had pace with a third place at Brands Hatch. Even so, he only had two races with the team in 1983. And that was pretty much that. Except it wasn’t.

In 1985, Jones returned with Team Haas (the original one), but delays in the turbocharged Ford engine’s development meant he had to race on an unreliable and underperforming Hart engine. In 1986, with the Ford V6 finally in place, Jones managed to get as high as fourth place in Austria. Then Haas’s major sponsor pulled the plug ahead of the 1987 season. 

And that was pretty much that.

Photo: Jerry Lewis-Evans

Left: 1979
Returned: 1982
Comeback rating, in a word: Triumphant

After he chose to retire from the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix after just two laps, Lauda’s relationship with Ferrari started to sour. Never mind the fact that torrential rain – a Japanese GP speciality – had made the track conditions exceptionally sketchy. Or the fact that his flame-seared tear ducts made his eyes water incessantly and he couldn’t actually blink. Or the fact that he was back in a car at all, considering the horror he endured at the Nurburgring just weeks earlier. 

In 1977, Lauda returned with a vengeance, outscoring second-placed Jody Scheckter without even contesting the final two races of the season. But Lauda didn’t get along with either Ferrari or new teammate Carlos Reutemann (who also earned the ire of Alan Jones when they both drove for Williams) and announced that he’d quit the team at the end of the year. He left before the season was over, as Ferrari had recruited Gilles Villeneuve to race in a third Ferrari in Canada. 

Then, after two seasons in a thoroughly unreliable Alfa Romeo-powered Brabham, Lauda retired and started up an airline.

But the itch wasn’t scratched for the two-time champion. After scoring a seat with McLaren for 1982, Lauda showed he hadn’t lost his knack, with strong finishes in 1982 and 1983. But 1984 was his swan song – beating Alain Prost by just half a point to claim the drivers’ championship.

Photo: twm1340

Left: 1992
Returned: 1994
Comeback rating, in a word: Fleeting

Mr Mansell, it seems, it one tough nut. His win in the 1977 British Formula Ford Championship came only after he sold most of his possessions to fund his career, and despite a broken neck, courtesy of an accident at Brands Hatch. The story goes that a doctor told Mansell he’d come perilously close to quadriplegia and would never race again. Mansell, being the possessor of a stiff upper lip (underneath that majestic moustache), decided to sneak out of hospital and continue racing. 

Then, after selling his house, enduring a broken back and second-degree burns, and driving rather quickly, Mansell scored a job with Lotus F1 as a test driver and then a racer. Moving to Williams, Mansell was consistently quick without ever taking the championship title, and consistently quick to start a feud with other drivers, teammates, team bosses and journalists. 

In 1992, shortly after he was crowned as the F1 world champion, Mansell announced that he was going to quit. He was fed up with Williams and infuriated by the prospect of Alain Prost (who’d manoeuvred into a position as Ferrari’s golden boy when they were teammates at the Italian team) as a teammate for 1993. Williams offered him everything under the sun to stay, but Mansell had already defected to IndyCar, where he became the 1993 champion.

But it wasn’t over. in 1994, Williams enticed Mansell to return for the last four races of the F1 season, and Mansell once again tasted F1 success with a win in Australia.  

But that was as close as Mr Moustache ever got to F1 success again. After a season in a severely off-the-pace McLaren in 1995, Mansell left for good. 

Photo: Stuart Seeger

Left: 2009
Returned: 2012
Comeback rating, in a word: Bwoah

In terms of capitalising on success, Raikkonen is a man apart. Of course, drivers such as Senna and Alonso could take dynamically and mechanically compromised cars and do exceptional things – and for that, they’re basically gods in our book – but Raikkonen only really works when the car does. 

The reticent racer excels in good cars – finishing as a runner-up in 2003 and 2005, for instance – and flounders in bad ones. In 2007, he took the F2007 (a wondrous machine) to victory from pole position in his first ever race in a Ferrari. He then campaigned against seriously quick drivers – Alonso and Hamilton – both driving well-sorted McLaren-Mercedes. But Kimi’s ability to make the most of a good thing meant he edged out both drivers by just one point to claim the 2007 title.

After conceding his title to Lewis Hamilton in 2008 with a third-placed finish in the driver’s championship, and a disappointing sixth the following year, Raikkonen agreed to leave Ferrari to make way for Alonso. Kimi was going to sign with McLaren but negotiations failed, Mercedes signed Schumacher and Rosberg instead and Toyota’s offer of a slow car and (comparatively) small salary meant Raikkonen was out of F1.

The monosyllabic driver then turned to rally and even truck racing in the US of A, but the F1 bug wasn’t out his his system by a long shot. Returning with Lotus in 2012, he left to return to Ferrari for the 2014 season. Unfortunately, the F14 T was a bit rubbish, which meant that Kimi was as well. Alonso was able to drive around the worst of the Ferrari’s foibles, registering a sixth-position finish in the 2014 championship, but Kimi wasn’t, claiming 12th position overall.  

But, as Ferrari clawed back Mercedes’ advantage, Kimi’s results started improving. And, if Ferrari’s 2017 car can keep up the momentum, we could be hearing a lot more taciturn post-race interviews…

Photo: Craig Dennis

Left: 2006
Returned: 2010
Comeback rating, in a word: Brave

Even if you’d never seen an F1 race, you’d still know the name of Michael Schumacher. He is, by almost any metric you care to use, the most successful F1 driver of all time. 

He’s won more races than any other driver. He’s also won more championships than any other driver, as well as more consecutive championships than anyone else. In 2004, he took 13 wins from 18 races – still the most of any season. And, while Vettel also claimed 13 wins, in the 2013 season, he took 19 races to do it. In fact, of the 308 races Schumacher entered (a number equalled only by Jensen Button and beaten only by Rubens Barrichello), there was a better than 50 per cent chance that he’d be standing on the podium at the end of the race. And, if that wasn’t enough, he was instrumental in transforming Ferrari – which hadn’t won a constructor’s championship since 1983 – into a dominating force.

So, he was putting quite a legacy at stake when he rejoined F1 in 2010. Schumacher’s record before starting with Ross Brawn’s new Mercedes GP team was almost unimpeachable. And, where so many would rest on their laurels and enjoy their millions, Schumacher wanted back in the thick of it.

And okay, it wasn’t that successful, especially compared to his heyday, with just one podium finish in three years. But the Schumacher magic was still there – qualifying fastest in the 2012 Monaco GP, for instance, even if a penalty from a previous race relegated him to sixth on the grid – and we’re glad he scratched the itch.  

Photo: Cord Rodefeld