Reject of the Race - Bahrain 2022 (RESULTS)

[Londoner]

1. Red Bull. Both cars retiring from the podium in the last five laps? What year is this, 1985? Shambolic effort from Milton Keynes given their almost bulletproof reliability in 2021.

2. McLaren. Absolutely robbed of ROTR here. Did they bring the 2017 McLaren to Bahrain by mistake?

[Aerond]

1.- Red Bull
2.- McLaren

HM - Aston Martin

[RAK]

1) Red Bull: Decent pace, but that means nothing if both your cars go out with mechanical gremlins. Gifted Hamilton a podium and helped Ferrari win its 1-2.

2) McLaren: Seriously lacking competitive pace this year, it seems, a major drop from last season.

[Enforcer]

Honourable mentions are McLaren and Aston Martin for being absolutely abject. But Red Bull have won this for going from 40 points to none in 2 laps.

But you're all to vote McLaren to get me a prediction point.

[Ciaran]

1. Red Bull.
2. McLaren.

Dishonourable mention: Aston, if I were Seb I'd be on the phone to Stellaris or whatever FCA are called now asking for a seat at Maserati's FE team. At least Aston are wasting Saudi blood money.

[rachel1990]

1. Mclaren. Added Chrome to the cars. Got Internet explorer instead. Just awful.

2 Red Bull. To finish first, first you must finish. Red Bull need to remember this. Not good.

Hm Aston Martin. Vettel must be thinking I would rather stay at home. Just dreadful

[went]

1 McLaren: The tests were last week.
2 Red Bull: What a disaster.

HM: Aston who?

[IceG]

(1) Red Bull Powertrains - if Gasly's failure is power unit related too that would be a 75% failure rate on their debut and worthy of their Honda antecedency

(2) Mclaren - the new Williams?

[Vassago]

1. Red Bull - two engine-related DNFs in the last three laps of the race. Ugh! They stole ROTR at the line!

2. McLaren - no pace, no nothing. Well, at least they finished. Bwoah!

[Alextrax52]

Red Bull: Just how is that possible?

McLaren/Aston Martin: Both as rank as each other. Danny Ric’s probably wishing he hadn’t bothered coming back and Seb Vettel’s probably relieved he got the enforced lay off

Pierre Gasly’s engine: How ironic that the B-Team’s engine combusting prolonged the race and set up the senior team’s downfall

Mercedes: Toto Wolff will be under no illusions despite that ending. 45 seconds off the pace until the SC is embarrassing for anyone let alone the Mercedes juggernaut

[Meatwad]

McLaren would have been the obvious pick, but Red Bull deserves it for those last couple of laps. From pre-season title favorites to being last in the WCC.

[Fetzie]

1. RBR:

Three Red Bull Powertrains engine DNFs in the last ten laps of the first race, and we're racing again next weekend. There's going to be a few long nights in Milton Keynes.

2. McLaren:

Just nowhere.

[mario]

(1) Red Bull Powertrains - if Gasly's failure is power unit related too that would be a 75% failure rate on their debut and worthy of their Honda antecedency

(2) Mclaren - the new Williams?

Perhaps an MHU-H issue given that Gasly lost all electrical power on his car, but I wouldn't be surprised if the damage caused by the subsequent fire means that the whole power unit has been lost.

Red Bull and McLaren are definitely going to be getting a lot of nominations - to therefore go a little off piste, Aston Martin deserves a mention given that much of the weekend was a disaster (Vettel struck down with covid and the team as a whole being far off the pace).

[Hermann95]

HM: Bottas's first lap. Loosing 8 positions on the start is just dreadful. Aston Martin, PNowhere all weekend.

1. Red Bull: two DNF's in the final laps is just a terrible for a team that wants to fight for both championships.

2. McLaren: from a suspect top 4 team in the first test, to absolutely nowhere in a few weeks is very much not ideal.

[dj_vicious]

1. Red Bull: I wanted to give it to Mclaren, but retiring with engine problems with laps/corners to go is ROTR material we've come to celebrate in this community.

2. McLaren. You were saved by Red Bull's end of race failure. What the eff was that?

[James1978]

Red Bull get this hands down, but for everyone saying McLaren, it might be more appropriate to say Mercedes-powered cars in general, as the works team were a clear third, and the 3 customer teams filled the last 6 places on the road (obviously the Red Bulls were classified behind them). Maybe only Williams was the only team you'd expect to be among the tail-enders, especially with no Russell.

[Rob Dylan]

I agree with all the nominations. I'll also give an honourable mention to Mick Schumacher, who was absolutely outclassed by a dude who was parachuted in last week. Very slow, and with no solid excuse to back it up, honestly.

Daniel Ricciardo specifically was again way off his teammate's pace. We all know McLaren were slow, but Ricciardo also needs to get within some kind of pace ratio to Lando, because this is getting depressing.

I do understand that ROTR is partly to do with expectations, but Nicholas Latifi was also behind Albon the entire weekend, and Albon had a year out in DTM and had no experience of Williams before. This is Nicholas' third season now, which is more seasons than other, far more talented drivers have got in the last few years. Giovinazzi "being worse" was a valid excuse, but now I have to direct my ire somewhere else

[Spectoremg]

McLaren. Rejects of interpreting the regulations. Character building for Norris.
Red Bull. Really?

[mario]

Red Bull get this hands down, but for everyone saying McLaren, it might be more appropriate to say Mercedes-powered cars in general, as the works team were a clear third, and the 3 customer teams filled the last 6 places on the road (obviously the Red Bulls were classified behind them). Maybe only Williams was the only team you'd expect to be among the tail-enders, especially with no Russell.

I guess the question is going to be whether that is definitely a Mercedes issue, or if it may be more a case of those teams having other factors that are hindering them.

With Mercedes, there does still seem to be the persistent porpoising issue that is forcing them to run a higher ride height than they want, sacrificing performance, whilst drag also seems to be higher than expected with their current design.

McLaren has had the brake issues that cropped up in the second test, where they have had to improvise new parts - it seems that, given those issues cropped up with less than a week to go, they've had to weld some improvised ducts together, and it seems that they're stuck with a compromised brake cooling package for at least a couple of races whilst they try to put together a permanent fix.

As for Aston Martin, their preparation for this weekend was rather disrupted by Vettel's positive covid test. Added to that, there has been speculation from the start of testing that the aerodynamic package Aston Martin have put together wasn't performing as well as hoped. Piola in particular was very negative about their design, and there were rumours that Fallows, when joining the team, also didn't like the aero concept of the car and thought it was going in the wrong direction.

[Batty]

Pretty easy.

1. Red Bull - 2nd and later on 3rd, gone just like that. Reliability issues.

2. McLaren - Ooft they are not good. Also some weird strategies backfired.

I agree with all the nominations. I'll also give an honourable mention to Mick Schumacher, who was absolutely outclassed by a dude who was parachuted in last week. Very slow, and with no solid excuse to back it up, honestly.

Ocon damaged his car on Lap 1 which Ocon said was his fault.

[Rob Dylan]

Oops yeah I somehow forgot that incident...

[kronatherm]

1) M. Schumacher: comfortably outdriven by someone who had done zero testing, wasn't seen as a future star, and hadn't driven an F1 car for over a year. All the predictions that he'll end up in a Ferrari are looking less likely by the race.

2) Mercedes powertrains: there's an engine freeze until 2025, and if they're giving up that much pace down the straights for 3+ years I can't see them being competitive unless "reliablilty upgrades" help them out.

HM: Mercedes strategy. Ran the hards, a tyre other teams avoided assiduously, for less than a stint other managed on the mediums. At one point they were slower than Norris in 20th.

[Nessafox]

Honourable mention to Red Bull, also mercedes customers pace in general looks worrying, but this one goes to McLaren for me.

[Bleu]

Red Bull and McLaren deserve top two placings, but seeing this rule change package a big chance for team like McLaren, they deserve #1 spot.

[Miguel98]

1. Red Bull - Double retirement in the final two laps of the race? That is the kind of rejectful stuff I live for.

2. McLaren - Would have been an easy ROTR if Red Bull hadn't produced that ringy dingy nonsense. Truly awful showing. Pace was horrible and their strategy was absolutely terrible.

[Ataxia]

As for Aston Martin, their preparation for this weekend was rather disrupted by Vettel's positive covid test. Added to that, there has been speculation from the start of testing that the aerodynamic package Aston Martin have put together wasn't performing as well as hoped. Piola in particular was very negative about their design, and there were rumours that Fallows, when joining the team, also didn't like the aero concept of the car and thought it was going in the wrong direction.

Giorgio hates everything though, unless it's from the '70s or the Red Bull RB5...

[mario]

As for Aston Martin, their preparation for this weekend was rather disrupted by Vettel's positive covid test. Added to that, there has been speculation from the start of testing that the aerodynamic package Aston Martin have put together wasn't performing as well as hoped. Piola in particular was very negative about their design, and there were rumours that Fallows, when joining the team, also didn't like the aero concept of the car and thought it was going in the wrong direction.

Giorgio hates everything though, unless it's from the '70s or the Red Bull RB5...

That said, the way that the car performed in Bahrain does indicate that he had a point...

[Rob Dylan]

And the poll is up! Get your vote in for the first Reject of the Race Award for 2022. You have 48 hours to decide

[billyoswarit]

As i reset pw lately, so I misses the vote.

Personally, I would award McLaren for shockingly terrible pace.

RB was 2nd for Double DNFs

3rd for me was Nico Hulkenberg, although he had cooling issue, but to keep F1 seat alive, finishing dead last wasnt ideal at all.

[Rob Dylan]

And the results are in! Sorry for the delay in these articles, but they will be back on track very soon, I assure thee