Reject of the Race: Bahrain 2018

[This Could Be You]

Well, someone had to make the threads.

ROTR:
1. Red Bull: Double retirement in the first couple of laps= slam-dunk reject of the race
2. Williams: Somehow even worse than in Melbourne, and the only pointless team (in more ways than one) after Bahrain.
DHM:
Sainz: PNowhere
Whoever operates the release button for the Ferrari pitcrew: Obvious reasons...
Grosjean: Shades of de Cesaris on Caffi in 1990
Hartley: Wasted points scoring opportunity with silly errors lining up on the grid

UPDATE: Ignore my opinions, read Biscione's post below

-----POST COMANDEERED BY BISCIONE-----

[Enforcer]

1st Williams: Oh dear.

2nd McLaren: Two points finishes yes, but a lap down and behind a Renault, a Haas and a Torro Rosso. The noises from the McLaren camp after dropping the ostensibly lame duck Honda engine were that they'd be 'best of the rest' after Mercedes, Ferrari & Red Bull. So with both Red Bulls and one Ferrari out, one would've expected Alonso to be lurking just outside the podium positions. That wasn't the case.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

As Biscione has announced last week, the voting procedure for ROTR and IIDOTR will be changed, so until we hear from him (hopefully soon, don't want this to be too disruptive), I'm locking the thread.

[DemocalypseNow]

Hello all, apologies, this was on my to-do list but fell to the bottom of the pile as things cropped up. I haven't actually watched the race yet, which gives you an idea of what my Sunday has been like!

We want to turn ROTR into a discussion, instead of having someone manually slog through the points nominations, instead we'll have a debate centred around the choices of a 'panel' of 'judges'.

1st and 2nd picks, 10pts and 6pts respectively has been binned. Now, our editorial contributors will put forward their choices for ROTR and IIDOTR respectively, and a poll will be created at the beginning of the thread, where everyone can vote to declare an outright winner.

This change is to address two primary problems;

1. Time. Counting votes manually is time consuming. This is much quicker!
2. It avoids posts containing only put "1. Pleb A, 2. Pleb B" that doesn't contribute much to the ROTR and IIDOTR discourse.

There will be five panel members at any given time. Four will be rotating editorial contributors. The fifth will be the winner of the previous grand prix weekend's Predicament Predictions forum game. Once those five have made their sole ROTR / IIDOTR picks and the rationale behind it, they'll all be added to a forum poll, to be voted on over the next 48 hours. We'll still want to know who you voted for and why on the thread though!

So, thread unlocked, let's hear your arguments and see what we collectively decide!

[tommykl]

I'll open up the debate with the conventional wisdom (or so it seemed over the chatroom during the race) and vote for Red Bull Racing. In a race that seemed eminently winnable as Ferrari and Mercedes appeared to get their strategies wrong, Daniel Ricciardo's gearbox failed on just the second lap, while Max Verstappen was involved in a silly accident, resulting in another mechanical failure. Surely, having both cars eliminated so early in the race is a slum-dunk Reject of the Race.

[Miguel98]

I do nominate Red Bull for a slam dunk ROTR, as both cars lasted 3 laps before they were parked on the same area of the circuit with similar problems. Ricciardo suffered a total electronic failure on his car, while Max - after he made a mistake on Hamilton (again, too agressive, please control him Marko) - suffered a gearbox failure. So while some fault can probably fall to Renault for the engine (and on the bright side, Honda should be on board for 2019), Red Bull had a double retirement and lost valuable points in the end.

But we have to discuss Williams performance today I believe as a contender as well: I didn't expect much from Williams this weekend (or this year, for that matter). But what we witnessed today was one of the worst performances I remember seeing from a team, pace-wise, since the new teams from 2010 joined the grid. It was so bad, that Sirotkin was legit 20 seconds behind the pack on pure pace at one point, and the fact that Sirotkin ended just behind Stroll showed the russian's pace.... although the Williams were almost 20 seconds adrift of Grosjean, who had to do another pitstop due to the damage to his car. Embarassing performance, and if it goes on like this, they'll finish dead last on the constructors easilly.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

As in Australia, I have to continue to disagree with Williams as a candidate for ROTR. What we saw in these two races is sadly looking to be the norm for the season, and could very well lead to them winning the ROTY award. Red Bull is the obvious choice here.

I thought about proposing pit-lane traffic light systems, but discovered through some brief research that those are just as prone to human error as the old lollipop man was (thought it was more automated than it actually is).

I'm instead going to go straight for the joker candidate and say Gerhard Berger. If his handshake is as limp as his flag-waving, I don't know how he ever got ahead as a businessman.

[Spectoremg]

1. Williams blah blah etc for half a page zzzzz.....
2. Red Bull see above zzzzz.....

[Alextrax52]

While I think Williams's weekend was dreadful it looks like they are going for a ROTY nomination instead so it'll get quite boring putting them in ROTR discussions. But that said they deserve one here for being the only team not to score a point with just 2 rounds gone

Red Bull: Both cars out after 5 laps ended what could have been a race winning chance. The car is clearly much closer to the ultimate pace but in both Australia and here they've lost track position and been caught up in incidents which means we haven't seen the race pace that they clearly posess.

Romain Grosjean: OK he suffered a damaged floor which meant an extra stop but that doesn't excuse his failure to get out of Q1 with seemingly no problem which put him into the pack to suffer said damaged floor. Add into that his seeming refusal to get out of Magnussen's way nearly costing the Dane a top 5 and it's a weekend that Romain will want to forget

[Aislabie]

1. Williams blah blah etc for half a page zzzzz.....
2. Red Bull see above zzzzz.....

What 'e said

[WaffleCat]

Eh, I'm scraping the barrel here. Williams look like a shoo-in for ROTY, so unless they do something really stupid like taking each other out or running over their pitcrew, they're not going to be an ROTR nomination for now at least.

Instead, I'm going to nominate Force India. A pick outta left field, I know. But even though Haas has stepped up to the plate as the surprise package this year with Toro Rosso snapping at their heels, one would expect Team BWT to, at the very least, give them a challenge. Especially given how they consistently had a shout for a top-5 finish in every race they were in last season.

Instead, they looked shaky. Dangerously shaky. Yes, Perez climbed up well from his initial off, but Force India never seemed to crack the top 6 this race, something even Marcus freakin' Ericsson managed to do. Oconsistency was Oconstantly gaining zero ground in his midfield battles, and even though Perez did get punted around on Lap 1, once he caught up to his teammate, it felt like he just stopped doing any more climbing, like giving up at the base camp of Mount Everest.

Maybe its indicative of their season, who knows. But for this race, Force India looked like a far cry from the top-5 challengers that they were last season.

[SuzukiSwift]

1. Williams drivers. Sirotkin and Stroll are completely lost, and as of right now don’t look like they can pull the team out of it’s funk. They look awful, and in turn the car looks awful. It’s hard to say where Williams even are because of the two duffers driving it.
2. Verstappen. Idiot maneuver. Hamilton’s post race comment was 100% spot on.

HM
Bottas: Failed to catch and pass Vettel despite having fresh tires. He’s gonna be gone at this rate.
Riccardo’s Red Bull: I’d expect this from TR-Honda. Not you.
McLaren: “ Top 4 Chassis”. My ass. They aren’t better than the Haas or Renault.

[TomWazzleshaw]

I raise all your suggestions, and present to you what should be the slam-dunk ROTR: Sergio Perez and Brendon Hartley for excellence in tomfoolery on the warm-up lap

This is a blood feud for 12th position for Christ's sake

[Benetton]

1. Red Bull - Everyone knew Williams was going to struggle. But the fact that both RBR cars were out of the race after ca 5 minutes is disappointing!

2. Romain Grosjean - Soundly beaten by Magnussen in qualifying (Q3 vs. Q1) and his race wasn't any better. Didn't do any favors for the team by holding up Magnussen after KMag had pitted the last time.

[RAK]

Going to be obvious and state Red Bull to be my ROTR. With Williams having two pay drivers of questionable skill along with a car that doesn't look the part, I think backmarker status should be expected over the year. On the other hand, Red Bull's performance this weekend was far more disappointing, between Ricciardo's mechanical failure and Verstappen's over-zealous overtaking performance. A dismal weekend for a team that should be among the front-runners.

[sswishbone]

For me the reject of the race has to be Williams, it was embarrassing to see them plodding along so far off Saubers, Toro Rossos and Mclarens. I know a lot view them as slam dunk for reject of the year... Doesn't stop them from being reject of the race!

[takagi_for_the_win]

For me, it has to be Red Bull. Yes, Williams were plain up rubbish, but the whole idea of Reject of the Race is to go with something or someone that is laughably bad. A crash in qualifying, a DNF on lap 2 and another DNF on lap 4? That's ROTR material for me.

[Rob Dylan]

It will probably be for the best to tell people who the editorial people are each weekend, just so that folks know.

For me, it quite strongly has to be Red Bull. The reasons have already been given: they had good pace; the front-runners weren't on top form today with strategy and luck. But the most memorable moment of the race for me was showing one Red Bull car driving with a puncture, and then switching immediately to a different Red Bull car retiring on the other side of the track. Rubbish, they have to do better than that next weekend.

However, Williams were very slow, though they didn't embarrass themselves any further with silly mishaps and shenanigans. Räikkönen's pit stop was certainly a mishap, and I'm just glad the mechanic is fine. Otherwise Bahrain was certainly a race more populated by feelgood IIDOTR nominations, and so I feel Red Bull has to take it for being just so far ahead of their competitors in rejectfulness.

[yannicksamlad]

I was rather thinking of Brendon Hartley for a what seemed a real misjudgment on lap 1 ( this wasnt a small tap ) and the bonus silly penalty. I'm not convinced there'll be many points opportunities for Brendon this year , and this was one of them.

Red Bull - what do they do to their power units?

I was thinking of singling out Max, but he was good on lap 1. To be honest I'm not sorry to see the aggressor in the 'run them off road' manoeuvre lose out. It's not really racing if you just edge your rival off track deliberately when you're not ahead.

[DemocalypseNow]

Hello all,

We've discussed the best picks for ROTR at Bahrain - now time to choose one!

Head up to the top of this thread for the polling options.

I picked Brendon Hartley, simply because no-one really stood out as a slam dunk ROTR aside form Red Bull Racing (and tommykl already took that!), so getting tangled up in shenanigans with Sergio Perez while team-mate Gasly was off nailing the perfect weekend didn't look too good in comparison.

[Aguvazk]

Well, i vote for Red Bull, but Williams was my first choice, they look like idiots, according to Sirotkin. Really was a awful weekend for them, and the future Is looking more awful.

[Rob Dylan]

And the results are in! A bit late I know, but we shall get this smooth and streamlined in the coming races.

As the poll is over, Red Bull are our runaway winners, for the disaster that befell both its drivers less than three laps into the race. Verstappen's accident with Hamilton was followed almost immediately by gearbox disaster by Ricciardo, and the tv coverage really laid it on thick. With the team hoping to challenge for the title this year, taking no points out of this weekend was obviously the last thing they wanted, which makes them the official Reject of the Race.