Reject of the Race - Italy 2015

Post by **Miguel98** » 06 Sep 2015, 13:29

Nominations in!

Aguaman · Post by **Aguaman** » 06 Sep 2015, 13:30

The Cars - Just don't suit Monza or

The Track - Can't remember a memorable Italian GP since 2008 and even that was just because of a STR winning.

But for me

ROTR - Toro Rosso for the whole Verstappen body work flying out during qualifying.

Post by **Miguel98** » 06 Sep 2015, 13:37

Rosberg's Engine - Title race over.
Toro Rosso - Manfred still has nice employment there, and the shenanigans with Max's car in qualifying were just appaling.
Kimi Raikkonen - The one weekend where you have the chance to beat Sebastian and you blew it. Great fuggen job Kimi.
Lotus - They lasted a combined time of a lap before they both retired. Through no fault of it's own drivers.
Felipe Nasr - No where all afternoon long. Getting stomped by Marcus is not the way to go Felipe..

But ROTR must clearly go to:
DAMS - From running 1-2 to screwing up your pitstops in such a way Gasly had to retire and Lynn droppped back. Then Lynn had a brain fart and forgot brakes are a thing in cars. Then they started from pitlane in race 2 and they still we're nowhere. Yep, clearly ROTR. Yes, the race was that boring.

good_Ralf · Post by **good_Ralf** » 06 Sep 2015, 13:39

If I could: the race itself. Hamilton wins as usual, Vettel fails to miss the podium and in general until Rosberg's DNF, the top 3 teams were running in their usual spots.

Worst of all, in 2012-4 those pitting late and switching to the softer tyre made the races more interesting in the closing stages, Perez in '12, Hamilton in '13, Ricciardo and Kvyat in '14. But this year that didn't really happen, so as a result nothing special happened, although Ricciardo at least gave it a go.

Plus Rosberg retired so even I have to admit that's it for this season's title fight.

My main vote will go to Lotus, who were the only retirements for most of the race as they continue to throw away points finishes so often that alone puts them on my provisional ROTY podium. Still yet to have a maximized race result this season.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 06 Sep 2015, 13:45

Spa 2013 in many ways symbolised the end of the opposition's hopes of catching Vettel in the championship, but what did he do before this race? He dyed his hair blonde. It won ROTR. Monza 2015 looks to be a similar end to the opposition's hopes of catching up with Hamilton as he is now over 50 points ahead of his nearest rival. Hamilton too dyed his hair blonde before this event. Therefore, to bring things full circle, I nominate Lewis Hamilton's blonde rinse as ROTR.

Fetzie · Post by **Fetzie** » 06 Sep 2015, 13:45

If Hamilton loses first place because of tyre pressures, Mercedes AMG.

went · Post by **went** » 06 Sep 2015, 14:04

I'll wait for the outcome of the stewards' investigation, but if someone is disqualified here because of tyre pressures, the decision should be a no-brainer.

Dj_bereta · Post by **Dj_bereta** » 06 Sep 2015, 14:08

good_Ralf wrote:My main vote will go to Lotus, who were the only retirements for most of the race as they continue to throw away points finishes so often that alone puts them on my provisional ROTY podium. Still yet to have a maximized race result this season.

I'm pretty sure Maldonado retired because Nasr crashed into him in the first corner. So, I don't think Lotus deserves the prize.

I'm going to nominate Nasr. Missed the brake zone in the first lap, crashing with Maldonado and damaging his car. Spent the rest of the race battling with Mclarens and was destroyed by Ericsson, who got some points. Third race in-a-row that Nasr finishes behind Ericsson.

Special mention for the stewards. It's the third time in this season that Nasr destroyed someone's race (Maldonado two times and Raikkonen) and again, no punishment for him.

GerhardTalger · Post by **GerhardTalger** » 06 Sep 2015, 14:10

If Mercedes will be disqualified, it should be obvious.

Otherwise I guess Lotus will be my choice. The THIRD time.

Waris · Post by **Waris** » 06 Sep 2015, 14:27

1. Mercedes
2. Lotus

Post by **mario** » 06 Sep 2015, 14:35

Dj_bereta wrote:
good_Ralf wrote:My main vote will go to Lotus, who were the only retirements for most of the race as they continue to throw away points finishes so often that alone puts them on my provisional ROTY podium. Still yet to have a maximized race result this season.

I'm pretty sure Maldonado retired because Nasr crashed into him in the first corner. So, I don't think Lotus deserves the prize.

I'm going to nominate Nasr. Missed the brake zone in the first lap, crashing with Maldonado and damaging his car. Spent the rest of the race battling with Mclarens and was destroyed by Ericsson, who got some points. Third race in-a-row that Nasr finishes behind Ericsson.

Special mention for the stewards. It's the third time in this season that Nasr destroyed someone's race (Maldonado two times and Raikkonen) and again, no punishment for him.

In fact, Nasr helped take out both Lotus drivers in that collision - not only did he break Grosjean's suspension, he pushed Grosjean into the side of Alonso who, in turn, was pushed into Maldonado, which was the reason why he ended up going over the kerbs and breaking the floor of his car.

AxelP800 · Post by **AxelP800** » 06 Sep 2015, 14:36

Nasr

if Hamilton disqualified, Mercedes

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 06 Sep 2015, 14:45

How can it be that there's so much head-on-wall rejectfulness flying around with stewards, tyres, engines and George "Dude, Where's My Films?" Lucas that something that actually flew around, i.e. Max Verstappen's engine cover yesterday, is not guaranteed to swipe the ROTR award unhindered?

Either way, I wait to see what will happen with a "revised result" that I've come to expect over these last few years.

Alextrax52 · Post by **Alextrax52** » 06 Sep 2015, 14:59

Now Simtek Vettel's blond rinse only won ROTR for Spa because I mentioned it. Otherwise Enoch actually struggled to find a standout candidate for that race

Press_Play2002 · Post by **Press_Play2002** » 06 Sep 2015, 15:05

Felipe Nasr: Not only did he escape punishment for taking out both Lotus' in a single corner he also became anonymous for the rest of the grand prix. Finishing a desolate 13th.

Mercedes-Benz: http://marinapearson.com/wp-content/upl ... ening1.jpg Told countless amounts of times about the tyre pressures throughout the weekend and yet, out of sheer blissfulness ignore Pirelli's reccomendations and FIA ruling. Not to mention contaminating Rosberg's new engine at the start of Quali.

Lewis Hamilton's hair: http://cdn.images.autosport.com/special ... eneuve.jpg Need I write more.

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 06 Sep 2015, 15:06

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:Now Simtek Vettel's blond rinse only won ROTR for Spa because I mentioned it. Otherwise Enoch actually struggled to find a standout candidate for that race

I'm not suggesting otherwise. I just think it's a barely noteworthy enough coincidence that should have Hamilton's hair win here too

Post by **Londoner** » 06 Sep 2015, 15:41

Regardless of the steward's decision, Hamilton's powered his way into ROTR contention for his behavior during the silence for Justin Wilson, and now this pathetic response.

novitopoli · Post by **novitopoli** » 06 Sep 2015, 15:55

I'll pick Hamilton fans on Twitter complaining about how he wouldn't need to justify himself for his behavior. Honourable mention for some guy calling for a conspiracy against Maldonado.

Press_Play2002 · Post by **Press_Play2002** » 06 Sep 2015, 15:55

East Londoner wrote:Regardless of the steward's decision, Hamilton's powered his way into ROTR contention for his behavior during the silence for Justin Wilson, and now this pathetic response.

I thought that was the tifosi chanting "SAVE MONZA" all across the main straight (or at least, that's what I could only hear on live T.V).

Fetzie · Post by **Fetzie** » 06 Sep 2015, 16:02

With Mercedes facing no punitive action over tyre pressures, I'm going back to whoever forgot to screw on Verstappen's bodywork in quali.

Dishonourable mention to Williams, who let BOTH of their cars get taken by the undercut.

WeirdKerr · Post by **WeirdKerr** » 06 Sep 2015, 16:04

the valve caps on Lewis's car.....

AxelP800 · Post by **AxelP800** » 06 Sep 2015, 16:19

Changing my nomination to STEWARDS for the "consistency"*

*Mitch Evans' tweet reference

Post by **mario** » 06 Sep 2015, 16:25

Well, given the details we are now getting on Mercedes's tyre pressures, I think that I would have to cite the FIA for their incompetence in establishing a tyre pressure measurement procedure and their failure to understand the gas laws - if you're measuring the pressure of a gas, you have to take the temperature of the gas into account.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 06 Sep 2015, 16:29

I'd say the stewards/FIA, for how awfully they've handled this weekend. That covers not giving a sufficient penalty to Toro Rosso for the extremely dangerous bit where the engine cover fell off their car (thank goodness nobody was behind Verstappen at the time), which was entirely the fault of the team, and now this whole brou-hah-hah over tyre pressure which turned out to be a complete red herring.

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 06 Sep 2015, 16:53

I'm edging towards the FIA as well. In the case of Verstappen, they penalised the driver instead of the team, which is bizarre given Verstappen did nothing wrong, and it is the team's responsibility to make sure the car they send out is correctly maintained, not the driver's responsibility. This, compounded with a mistake on the part of their own technical delegates that led to an unnecessary investigation into the race winner. Come on guys, if you are going to demand extreme precision on the part of the teams, you must adhere to the same standards in patrolling those standards. If you don't define exactly which moment the pressures must be set at, you can't enforce them effectively.

Faustus · Post by **Faustus** » 06 Sep 2015, 18:00

The FIA technical delegate and the race stewards.
It sounds to me like the cars were illegal and the FIA just backtracked because they didn't want to be seen to penalise a team and promote Ferrari to a race win in Monza.

tc3j3r · Post by **tc3j3r** » 06 Sep 2015, 18:01

Lewis Hamilton's hair. Awful.

Spectoremg · Post by **Spectoremg** » 06 Sep 2015, 18:15

The stewards for under-inflating their spines.

Zergon · Post by **Zergon** » 06 Sep 2015, 18:32

First of, I try to keep my nominations about teams/drivers so FIA/stewards get a pass this time though they would well deserve to be nominated.

I was going to nominate Lotus for the double retirement but since reports say it wasn´t really their fault (I didn´t get good enough look to pass my own judgement) I´m going with Felipe Nasr instead for not only crashing with Lotus but also because there would have been points for him to take as his team mate demonstrated..

Post by **mario** » 06 Sep 2015, 18:35

Faustus wrote:The FIA technical delegate and the race stewards.
It sounds to me like the cars were illegal and the FIA just backtracked because they didn't want to be seen to penalise a team and promote Ferrari to a race win in Monza.

I'm not sure whether it was just that, or because of the fact that Pirelli wanted to rush in a change to the inflation pressures following what happened in Spa and nobody really thought through the implications of the hurried change.

We know that Pirelli started to complain about teams overheating the tyres in the blankets in Hungary to circumvent the restrictions on the minimum tyre pressure, and then in Spa they appear to have leaned on the FIA to send a more strongly worded technical directive to encourage the teams to stick to their recommendations.

However, the problems really only seem to have kicked off here in Italy following Pirelli's investigation into the tyre blowouts in Spa. It was only after that event that Pirelli seems to have insisted on spot checks on the tyre pressures, having previously been content to rely on the engineers they have had embedded within the teams to monitor the tyre data.

Now, the issue here is that there doesn't seem to have been any consensus between the FIA and Pirelli on how the tyre pressures would be measured - Pirelli seems to have proceeded to measure the pressures of the tyres whilst they were sitting in the tyre blankets in the garage, whilst the FIA decided to measure them on the grid in uncontrolled conditions and without specifying a standard temperature at which the pressures would be measured. As far as I am aware, nobody agreed to a standard protocol on measuring the tyre pressures and it looks like they essentially screwed up the implementation of the test as a result.

Peteroli34 · Post by **Peteroli34** » 06 Sep 2015, 19:25

i have to give it to the stewards if drivers were disqualified from GP2 qualifying for under inflated tyres surely Mercedes should have been

DOSBoot · Post by **DOSBoot** » 06 Sep 2015, 20:09

1. Lewis' Hair: Just pretty much summed up how awful this weekend was. :facepalm:

2. The FIA: For the tire incident. :facepalm:

Dishonorable Mentions:

Lotus: Terrible start for them after their brilliant 3rd last race.

George Lucas: Worst podium interviewer ever! That was almost as bad as the prequel trilogy.

McLaren: You wonder how long Button, and Alonso are going to put up with this?

Post by **mario** » 06 Sep 2015, 20:15

peteroli34 wrote:i have to give it to the stewards if drivers were disqualified from GP2 qualifying for under inflated tyres surely Mercedes should have been

I might be mistaken, but I believe that teams do not use tyre warmers in GP2 - am I correct?

If so, then it should be borne in mind that the tyres will be at the same temperature as the ambient conditions - unlike the Mercedes duo, where the pressure would have started dropping as soon as they switched off the blankets (Hamilton's tyre would only need to have dropped by about 7ºC to explain the pressure drop), the tyres on a GP2 car would be in equilibrium with the environment and therefore should not have been significantly fluctuating in pressure.

Fetzie · Post by **Fetzie** » 06 Sep 2015, 20:27

peteroli34 wrote:i have to give it to the stewards if drivers were disqualified from GP2 qualifying for under inflated tyres surely Mercedes should have been

Mercedes did nothing wrong. Or at least, the FIA could not prove that Mercedes had intentionally under-pressured the tyres because the FIA and Pirelli had not established a clear time at which the tyre pressure was to be measured.

The tyres come out of the blankets at about 110°C. Hamilton's tyres were about 100 degrees when they were measured, Rosbergs even cooler. As a tyre cools, the pressure goes down (because a gas takes up less space when cooled - http://chemistry.bd.psu.edu/jircitano/gases.html). Thus the reduction in pressure below the limit set by Pirelli was judged not to have been the fault of the team, but the fault of the measurement procedure which is why Mercedes were not punished.

We can expect a much more stringent and precise procedure for checking tyre pressures in the next races. Whether or not Mercedes would have been punished under more precise regulations is, however, neither here nor there.

James1978 · Post by **James1978** » 06 Sep 2015, 20:27

Simtek wrote:Spa 2013 in many ways symbolised the end of the opposition's hopes of catching Vettel in the championship, but what did he do before this race? He dyed his hair blonde. It won ROTR. Monza 2015 looks to be a similar end to the opposition's hopes of catching up with Hamilton as he is now over 50 points ahead of his nearest rival. Hamilton too dyed his hair blonde before this event. Therefore, to bring things full circle, I nominate Lewis Hamilton's blonde rinse as ROTR.

Also Rosberg's engine going was very Webber-esque too!

I'm stuck between that, the whole tyre mess-up and McLaren - whenever they were shown, it seemed to be them being passed easily by a Red Bull/Toro Rosso/Sauber, the latter two teams they should be easily ahead of!!

Dan B · Post by **Dan B** » 07 Sep 2015, 01:53

As much as I want to nominate the entire race;
The Stewards and rules about the tires: Set a guideline, follow it, and stick to it. If they have to be measured while in their blankets or whatever, so be it and freaking agree on it. Because really what comes from this is that either Mercedes did underinflate their tires and there is no way to check them reliably or that this whole fracas happened because of someone mixed up numbers and there was no issue to begin with. Completely mishandled.

Kimi Raikkonen: Sure it's the clutch. Performed one of the worst starts if not the worst start I have seen in F1 since 1994 and while he did move up through the field it still meant he blew a podium. Look, I get it that he has had a fair share of mechanical issues this year but every time he screws up nowadays it's always something else.

Lewis Hamilton: Probably has the worst fashion sense of anyone on the grid. Imitating Jacques Villeneuve is not a good idea; he did not look good with bleached hair and neither does Hamilton.

Felipe Nasr: Managed to take out an entire team and then did nothing.

Monza: Yes the track has history but the race sucked. And when races suck here they suck massively. Maybe it's time to take off the rose tinted nostalgia glasses and really think about how to either improve the track, improve the cars (here's hoping 2017 will fix this), or move elsewhere. As it stands with these cars, Monza does not work for F1 and this race is a clear example.

So in the end, I'm nominating The 2015 Italian Grand Prix for creating one of the most boring races with one of the most useless post-race brou-ha-has this season.

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 07 Sep 2015, 05:49

The FIA - At the very least to save face they could've given Hamilton a time penalty of twenty seconds thus giving the appearance of competence.

razta · Post by **razta** » 07 Sep 2015, 05:54

You know when a raced sucked when Crofty literally ran out of things to say.. even as a HamFanBoy that he is..

Shizuka · Post by **Shizuka** » 07 Sep 2015, 08:38

I have to say the FIA.

Other contestants would be Felipe Nasr (this might be the reason why Lotus might not finish 5th in the WCC), Hamilton's hair, George Lucas for the awkward interview and also STR for Verstappen's bodywork.

DanielPT · Post by **DanielPT** » 07 Sep 2015, 09:45

Lotus for reject of the race. The FIA for the second nomination.