The world of motorsport is built on perfection and precision, with every gear ratio, every aerodynamic winglet, and even every ball bearing needing to be precisely engineered and placed to maximise a team’s chance of winning.
This laser focus on precision can lead to a degree of ruthlessness when it comes to driver selection, as whilst there are some drivers who have managed to nurture impressively long careers, others have been cut short far more quickly.
Quite a few people will remember the short four-race career of Yuji Ide, an otherwise relatively successful Japanese sports car driver who lost his superlicence after an atrocious crash with Christijen Albers. However, some race careers were far shorter than this.
When people are asked about the shortest careers in motorsport disciplines of people who actually started a race, many will speak the unfortunate name of Marco Apicella.
Mr Apicella was a promising Formula 3000 driver who got a chance at his home race at Monza in 1993. He qualified in 23rd place and managed to make it around 800 metres before getting caught in a multi-car crash at the start, breaking the steering arm of his car and retiring from his only race.
Whilst he is generally considered to have the shortest career ever, in reality, he only has the shortest career that we have footage of.
Ernst Loof was the designer of the BMW 328 sports car in 1932 and founded a tuning company by the name of Veritas to turn them into Formula 2 racing cars.
Unfortunately, by 1953, Veritas had already gone bankrupt, and he entered his car into the Formula One German Grand Prix that year at the Nurburgring in an attempt to get attention and potential sponsorship to save the company.
This plan lasted a grand total of two metres before the fuel pump broke and the car retired. It was his only entry into Formula One and is easily the shortest racing career outside of unfortunate drivers such as Perry McCarthy and Vincenzo Sospiri who never qualified for a race.