Unfortunately not every driver who deserves a crack at F1 makes it to the pinnacle of motorsport, particularly in recent years when the need to bring financial backing to secure a seat has dramatically increased.

That leaves some potential stars on the sidelines and those who follow the junior formulae pondering what might have been.

Britain's Adam Carroll is one such driver. He shone in GP2 and A1GP, but never had the chance to show what he could do on the big stage.

"The guy was just ridiculously talented. You knew whatever car you put him he was going to be quick right from the word go," said NBC's F1 reporter Will Buxton.

Born on October 26, 1982 in Portadown, Northern Ireland, Carroll quickly made an impact in single-seaters after graduating from karting in 1999. As a rookie driving a year-old car in the lower class of the 2002 British F3 championship, Carroll was still a front runner, even finishing on the outright podium.

GP2 - arrive in style, and sideways...

In 2005 he joined Super Nova for the inaugural GP2 campaign and immediately made his mark on the big stage.

"For Adam to win on the Sunday morning…the story of that first weekend at Imola was all about the car packing up with the electronics in the practice session, the brakes exploding in the first race and they changed from Carbone Lorraine to Brembo overnight," recalls Buxton who was working as GP2 press officer at the time.

"All the cars were fitted with Brembo brakes for the Sunday morning and all the drivers had to get used to these brand new brakes that actually worked. Ernesto Viso threw it off on the lap from the pits to the grid because the brakes were so much better.

"Adam raced a beautiful race for Super Nova and I will never ever forget the move that ultimately got him the win. It was coming through the old chicane onto the start finish straight and he was coming up behind Alex Premat in the ART and he was putting Premat under pressure for so many laps.

"They got to the chicane and Premat out-braked himself and straight-lined the chicane and went over the grass and Adam just flipped the thing left, flicked it right, there was no way he braked enough, he was carrying so much speed through there. As he came out of the second part of the chicane the back end of the car was almost on the straight before the front end - he was sideways, with the rear wing almost brushing against the outside wall.

"But he held it on opposite lock, just floored it and emerged ahead of Premat who had straight-lined the chicane. It was the most ridiculous move and he went on to win the race.

"That was the moment for me GP2 arrived because it was just the most exciting thing I had ever seen and it was the moment for me that Adam arrived and I really knew what I could expect out of this guy which was total commitment, really exciting to watch and an unbelievable star."

And the move impressed Super Nova boss David Sears as well: "I have that picture up on my wall still! That was a really good year. I like Adam and he did deserve to have a go at Formula 1."

Monaco madness

Carroll will go down in history as the first GP2 victor in Monaco, although his win came courtesy of an unusual driving move.

"What made his win astonishing is he hit the wall very early on in the race and he set the steering off," recalls Buxton.

"So after a lap and a half he realised 'I can't do the rest of the race like this' and he deliberately knocked the car on the other side and hit the barrier on the other side and that straightened the steering up.

"And that summed Adam up. Brilliant - crazy - but brilliant."

F1 test seat

After impressing in his maiden GP2 campaign, Carroll was signed as a test driver by Honda, but never had the opportunity of a race seat.

"He got himself into an F1 car with Honda, but when you look at the background of the test, he never got a fair crack at it," said Mark Gallagher who ran Carroll in A1GP.

"It is a pity that Formula 1 didn't get to witness Adam's talents."

Title success in A1GP

The closest the world came to seeing Carroll race an F1 car was in A1GP, where the car for the 2008-2009 season was based on the Ferrari F2004.

"Winning the A1GP title the way he did in a car that was basically an F1 car, Adam was just inspired in that championship," says Buxton.

"People often pour scorn on A1, but in reality it was a good championship, with good drivers on real proper tough racing tracks. You don't win a championship unless you are good."

Gallagher, his boss at Team Ireland, was equally impressed.

"It is not often a race driver delivers exactly what you expect of him and that is exactly what Adam did for us in A1GP," he said.

"We did A1GP for four years, the first years we had Richard Lyons, Ralph Firman and Michael Devaney, I wanted Adam, but he was racing in GP2 at the time and his management didn't want the distraction. Finally he became available and he was immediately a lot stronger to work with in a number of different ways.

"We set around building the team around Adam and in the second year we did something radical and appointed a new race engineer and I involved Adam in the interviews."

No room at the top table

Carroll's A1GP title success came just as the world was gripped by economic recession. Honda, BMW and Toyota all pulled out of F1 in quick succession and sponsorship money was becoming harder to find for the teams that remained.

The Ulsterman held talks over an F1 seat for 2010 with new squad Virgin Racing, but couldn't raise the 4m Euros to secure the seat, telling Sky Sports later that season "I tried my nuts off". Carroll was also reported to have had talks with fellow new entry HRT and Lola whose entry was rejected. He was close - but not close enough.

F1's loss?

So could Carroll had starred in F1?

"I look back now and think if he had been given a shot in F1 he would have been phenomenal because he was just magic," says Buxton.

"You saw that when he had the right people behind him there wasn't anything he couldn't achieve anything."

Gallagher added: "It is Formula 1's loss that a driver like Adam didn't get the opportunity to come there. I would almost say he was kind of old school in that he had a prodigious speed, but he also had this aggression that almost Mansell-esque.

"I would never say he was like Nigel out of the car, but it was that kind of aggression and that ability to channel his aggression into speed. He wouldn't overdrive the car, he would just go out and deliver absolutely the performance that you needed and that would have been great to see in Formula 1. He would have been an asset. I think a top LMP1 team would be doing a sensible thing to have him their car."

F1's loss is sportscars gain and Carroll continued to show his pace in the European Le Mans Series in 2015 with Gulf Racing and is set to contest the Le Mans 24 Hours this year with the GT squad.

But we could yet see the 33-year-old in single-seaters once more with the Northern Irishman repeatedly linked with Formula E. Carroll flew to the Buenos Aires ePrix to provide cover for Nick Heidfeld at Mahindra Racing, but ended up also having seat fittings with the Abt Audi Sport and DS Virgin teams after Daniel Abt and Jean-Eric Vergne fell ill.

All three were declared fit to race, but it again showed how highly Carroll is regarded among the teams. Not entirely lost yet then?