Reject of the Race - Qatar 2021 (POLL)

[Londoner]

1. Race Control. Another absolute shambles of a weekend, it's pretty evident decisions are being delayed and spiced up for Netflix nowadays. Calling a VSC after Latifi's car had been stranded for several laps, which (intentionally or not) locked in the fastest lap point for Verstappen, is only going to fuel the fire.

2. Pirelli. Yeah, that's not on. If you're saying your tyres can only last 30 laps, then they should hit a cliff, not delaminate.

Honourable mention to AlphaTauri, no points after a front row start.

[Shadaza]

Alpha Tauri, Gasly P2 and Tsunoda inside the top 10 to start.

Melted away to absolutely nothing and with Alpine 3rd and 5th. Look like they won't be finishing ahead of them in the WCC now.

Christian Horner

Throwing a tantrum at unpaid marshals is really poor taste. Get some self-respect, man.

[RAK]

1) Pirelli: Too many punctures for their own good. As much as it added excitement to an otherwise mostly dull race, it's a massive safety hazard for the tyres not to be able to live up to their expected lifetime.

2) Losail International Circuit (and Qatar in general): Yes, that circuit was as bad as everybody was expecting. Upsetting that we'll have a chain of three of the worst circuits in the sport to cap off what would otherwise be an exciting season.

Dishonourable Mention: Alpha Tauri - where did their pace from Saturday go?

[Enforcer]

Alpha Tauri lol wtf was that? Looking like best of the rest all through practice and qualy and then an atrocious race.

Tire Drama
We always love to see multiple delaminations in the last few laps don't we? Pirelli will blame the teams as they told them they didn't think 1 stop would be possible. The teams will blame Pirelli as the tires delaminated spontaneously with no sign of a problem right up until the tire decides it's done and bails out.

[mario]

Well, there are a whole host of potential nominees this weekend:

1. Christian Horner - whilst the mud-slinging between himself and Wolff has not painted either in a great light, the interview he gave where he lashed out at a "rogue marshal" for Verstappen's penalty and lashed out at Masi and the FIA for "not having their marshals under control" was a step too far.

That, frankly, came across as an utterly petulant tantrum, especially when compared to Bottas and Mercedes going "it's out fault and we've just got to take it on the chin". It's at times like this that you really wish somebody would tell Horner to, as Woody Allen once said, go forth and multiply, but in not quite as many words...

2. Tyre failures - as Enforcer notes, it's quite likely that we'll see a lot of finger pointing between the teams and Pirelli, although it does have to be said that there really did not seem to be any warning that the tyres were about to let go. We had Bottas, Russell and Latifi all have fairly catastrophic failures, and Norris being lucky to get away with his tyre letting go slowly, letting him get away with a more conventional pit stop - not a great look either way.

3. Alpha Tauri - they looked great on Saturday but performed dreadfully in the race, managing to turn top 10 starts, with Gasly on the front row, into 11th and 13th. How did they manage to underperform quite that badly?

Half tempted to give Mick Schumacher a dishonourable mention for the somewhat wild way in which he came back onto the track in front of Alonso - wasn't the smartest bit of driving there. Similarly, as Shadaza notes, Ricciardo had a weekend to forget too, starting and finishing outside the top 10 - indeed, as a whole McLaren ended up in a situation where they could have picked up a decent haul of points, but instead managed to end up losing more points to Ferrari with Norris having to pit and Ricciardo just being absent from the fight to begin with.

[Edit] Well, it sounds like Horner did end up pushing things too far - the FIA have now ordered Horner to appear in front of the stewards for attacking the FIA in that manner, and may potentially charge him with misconduct for his remarks.

[Meatwad]

Pirelli: The old blowouts are back – they did make the race more exciting, but it's not something I like to see. Thankfully it didn't have a big effect on the results (apart from Bottas' race getting ruined).

Dishonorable mention: Race control: Especially their handling of the Gasly incident was extremely strange. Single yellow, green, double yellows, green... Having green flags while a car was stopped on the straight was something I didn't expect even in the Masi era!

[Alextrax52]

AlphaTauri: 2nd and 8th on the grid and yet an awful strategy means no points. Alpine’s performance seals the deal and probably 5th in the championship too.

Daniel Ricciardo: I feel like we’ve timewarped back to before the summer break. Where was he while Norris was on course for a top 5?

Pirelli: They’ve been in F1 for a decade and we’re still putting up with tripe like this.

Race Control: Insert the word control into inverted commas. They’ve lost all of it. How are we waiting this long for decisions to be made and penalties to be confirmed? I’m another who thinks it’s all for DTS and Max Verstappen is absolutely right not to get involved in it IMO. The way Liberty media run the sport almost makes me miss Max and Bernie

[IceG]

(1) Pirelli tyres - that is how not to sell your product.

(2) Football - no-one gives a damn whether Beckham was watching something from somewhere. Is Crofty paid by the "celebrity" name-drop (he probably is which makes it worse)?

[Miguel98]

1. AlphaTauri - Front row start with Gasly and a top 10 start for Yuki turned into no points from them. Horrible.

2. Christian Horner - Good grief Christian, what the hell were those comments?

Honorable mention to the tyre failures and for Daniel Ricciardo.

[IceG]

(1) Pirelli tyres - that is how not to sell your product.

(2) Football - no-one gives a damn whether Beckham was watching something from somewhere. Is Crofty paid by the "celebrity" name-drop (he probably is which makes it worse)?

Forget that.

I've just seen what Horner and Marko said. - slam dunk for ROTR

[Barbazza]

1. Christian Horner - whilst the mud-slinging between himself and Wolff has not painted either in a great light, the interview he gave where he lashed out at a "rogue marshal" for Verstappen's penalty and lashed out at Masi and the FIA for "not having their marshals under control" was a step too far.

That, frankly, came across as an utterly petulant tantrum, especially when compared to Bottas and Mercedes going "it's out fault and we've just got to take it on the chin". It's at times like this that you really wish somebody would tell Horner to, as Woody Allen once said, go forth and multiply, but in not quite as many words...

I have always been happy to volunteer for this task. Any time, anywhere.

[Rob Dylan]

I was left with an overall feeling of dullness and nothingness after that race - the race was a bit dull and empty, bar from some end-of-race Pirelli shenanigans. I'm going to have trouble remembering this race in 24 hours' time, I'm very sure. 2021 Qatar Grand Prix gets my vote for that.

And yes, what a second half Alpha Tauri are having - best performances on the grid to worst performances within the same triple header. 5000RGR results are quite funny, but it's kind of insane how they couldn't translate a front-row start into even points. Hell, even Toyota got points in 09 Bahrain...

As I say, the race was quite dull, and I have little to add to that.

[Fetzie]

1. Christian Horner and Helmut Marko

How about you grow up and start acting your age? Hopefully the FIA throw the book at both of them and they get a wake-up call. They've been pushing their luck all year.

2. AlphaTauri

They spent the race going backwards, with Gasly going from 2nd to outside of the points.

DHM to Race Control and the Stewarding. The grid was finalized less than 100 minutes before lights out. They green-flagged Q3 with a car stationary on the home straight. They delayed the announcement of the appeal until Netflix started filming a press conference (a carry-over from race control's shenanigans in Brazil).

[mario]

1. Christian Horner - whilst the mud-slinging between himself and Wolff has not painted either in a great light, the interview he gave where he lashed out at a "rogue marshal" for Verstappen's penalty and lashed out at Masi and the FIA for "not having their marshals under control" was a step too far.

That, frankly, came across as an utterly petulant tantrum, especially when compared to Bottas and Mercedes going "it's out fault and we've just got to take it on the chin". It's at times like this that you really wish somebody would tell Horner to, as Woody Allen once said, go forth and multiply, but in not quite as many words...

I have always been happy to volunteer for this task. Any time, anywhere.

You might find a queue of people wanting to take on that job...

[James1978]

Think most of the Red Bull stable was pretty poor TBH - not only Horner's antics and Alpha Tauri dropping like stones but also Max for missing the double-waved yellow, Perez for missing Q3 and also he should never have finished behind Alonso (his strategy always seemed to have him in traffic), and also Marko for influencing Gasly before the start. He should he allowed to run his own race!

[rachel1990]

1- Pierrli- Tyres should not explode like that after 30 laps. It wasn't like they were driving on hot lava or over broken glass

2. Race Control. Thye cannot even follow their own rules these days- They just want to 'ramp' up the drama by leaving us all in suspense (which meant very little in the end since Verstappen went to the clean side of the grid)

HM Red Bull group as a whole. Threw away 3rd, Horner and Marko getting their Karen moments in and the junior team having a mare. Ouchie

[Spectoremg]

The C4 team for being totally partisan as usual.
A so called racetrack with a long straight and lots of crap bits.

[went]

1- Alpha Tauri: That was a pisspoor performance for a P2 starter. I don't know what is Tsunoda's reason to drive that car at this point, and Alpine's form only made it even more painful.

2- Race Control: How many times did they show and withdraw and redeploy yellow flags this weekend? If there's a stopped car that is very definitely not going to restart on the third sector with time already over, just leave the yellow flag standing or show a straight red, it's not like anybody is going to be able to improve. But don't show green flags- the TV graphics very clearly showed that the track was green flagged by the time Verstappen came in, which was absurd. Also seen during the race, after the tyre failures, with flags that came and went and a VSC several laps after Latifi parked well outside of the racing line. And the late penalties. Just make up your damn minds and, in case of doubt, err on the side of safety.

3- That Schumacher rejoin with a few laps left, without looking at what was going on on the actual racetrack. He almost drove the P3 driver out!

[UncreativeUsername37]

1. Just kind of the general handling of F1. The Brazil decision conveniently coming out when it did, the contradictory flag signals....
2. Pirelli, for the unnecessary random element they provided to the results. (I also nominated the punctures for IIDOTR, I know)

[Batty]

1. Horner and Marko - Bruh comments ain't good.

2. Alpha Tauri - Ouchie.

I am not going to blame Pirelli. They told teams that the tires wouldn't last and they didn't listen.

[Nessafox]

certain team managers dudes we got a good championship on our hands, quit the whinging.
Race control now what exactly do you guys want? Haven't you people ever heared of, i'm just suggesting, a proper rulebook?
dishounorable mentions: Alpha Tauri, Williams luck and the crusade against Pirelli.

[IceG]

I am not going to blame Pirelli. They told teams that the tires wouldn't last and they didn't listen.

The tyres did not gracefully degrade, they did not drop off a cliff, they failed catastrophically with no warning.

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

Are we sure the tires were the problem? I mean the track literally cracked an F1 chassis.

[mario]

Are we sure the tires were the problem? I mean the track literally cracked an F1 chassis.

In the case of Norris, the tyres should have been within what Pirelli reckoned was possible for them - his tyres were 24 laps old when they failed, but Pirelli had reckoned the hards could last for around 33 laps before there was any significant drop off in times.

In practice, with Bottas, Norris, Russell and Latifi, their times had stabilised before the tyres blew, but you wouldn't have expected there to be anything wrong from that - Russell's times were even slightly improving just before his tyre failed.

[Rob Dylan]

Poll is open at the top of this thread! You have 48 hours to decide your Reject of the Race

[James1978]

Can never resist the temptation of giving Messrs Horner and Marko a RotR!