Reject of the Race - Mexico 2022

[Londoner]

1. Mercedes strategists. Utterly dismal choice to switch both cars onto hards, looking at how Ricciardo went on the softs surely they should have left Russell out on the mediums and bolted on softs for the last 20 laps. I think Red Bull had enough in the tank to cover, but when Brackley are three races away from a winless season, roll the dice for god's sale

2. Haas. This really is their bogey track isn't it, at not one point did they seem competitive today.

Honourable mentions to Aston Martin and Ty Gibbs, I'm still angry about the Xfinity race at Martinsville last night.

[Shadaza]

1. The Hard tire strategy.

Everyone that tried it went bad. Seeing Ricciardo blitz the entire midfield on it and Russell didn't go on that strategy.

2. The season. Can it be over now?

HM. Latifi was lapped by Albon, if the car wasn't sick then that was a dire drive at the back. Haas, they Mexican't.

[Ciaran]

1. Ferrari, for yet again coming 3rd in a 2 horse race.
2. Ted Kravitz for his crap Spanish.

[RAK]

1) The race itself: A borefest even in a season of VERSTAPPENWINSLOL.

2) Daniel Ricciardo: Clumsily shunted Tsunoda off; he might have got a haul of points, but it came with ruining another driver's race.

[Fetzie]

1. Meaningless penalties. 5 second penalty for driving somebody off the road -> served when 15 seconds up the road. 10 second penalty for crashing -> served when finishing the race 11 seconds ahead of the driver behind.
2. Ricciardo
3. Hard tyre choice.

[Aerond]

1. Latifi - Over 50 secs behind the next car

2. Ricciardo - Stupid "overtake" over Tsunoda

----

HM -

Mercedes strategery: Overly conservative. Should have taken risks with one of their cars
Alpine's lelrel: Doing a great effort keeping the battle for 4th WCC alive
Haas: Were they on track today?

[Hermann95]

Daniel Ricciardo, good performance today but it was a bit rookie loke how he crashed out Yuki.

Ferrari, absolutely nowhere all weekend.

Mercedes strategy, the hard tyre was just awful as shown by pretty much anyone that used it.

[takagi_for_the_win]

Danny Ric - fair play to him for overcoming the pathetic penalty given out to him, but an atrocious attempt at an overtake that put Tsunoda out. A far cry from the man who once demolished prime Vettel.

Merc’s strategists - possibly the first time this season that Merc have had a car even in the same ballpark as the Red Bull, and they surrender the victory meekly less than half an hour into the race by taking the most safety first strategy option going.

Dishonourable mentions

Whoever metes out the penalties - at risk of sounding all “things were better when I was a child” here, I miss the days when doing something stupid on track earned you a penalty that ruined your race. These days, apparently you can punt someone off into the scenery, and the worst you’ll get is a steward giving you a time penalty that is simply the gap to the next car behind you, rounded to the nearest 5 seconds.

Lewis Hamilton- I’m not sure why yet, I haven’t had time to think of justification yet. Give me time, I’ll come up with something. I’m sure he complained about his tyres at some point, so we’ll go with that for the time being.

The season - dunno. Just totally apathetic about it. We’ve gone from Vettelwinslol to Hamiltonwinslol to Mekshwinslol in the space of a decade. At least we had those few brief years with Rosberg and Vettel’s Ferrari to spice up the title fight, but this is yet another season that’s just dragging on endlessly.

[Enforcer]

Mercedes Strategy
"Maybe not the right tire choice" - Toto Wolff

I think it was worse than that though. To be fair Max was always going to be hard to stop today, but starting on mediums and then only running a couple of laps longer than Red Bull defeated the purpose of starting on mediums. So they were clowning before they bolted on the hards.

It appeared to me that their strategy today relied on outdragging Verstappen (who has the fastest car in a straight line) to T1. Once that didn't happen, they forgot that it's easier to save tires when you're out front in clearer air, and later in the race when you've burned fuel off.

Riccy proved long medium into soft was viable. They should've tried it with at least one of their drivers.

[Vassago]

1.Mercedes tyre strategy - Imagine of they had Ricciardo's pace in the closing laps?

Overall this race track is really bad with the new layout. The stadium section spreads the cars out so much the S/F straight can't make up for it. Barcelona 2.0.

[rachel1990]

1- Merc tyre strategy- looked at one point that they could win the race- nope they put both cars on the hard tyre and promised both drivers that the hards would come alive and the mediums would fail on the red bull. Neither happened. When George Russell has to say that he has a puncture to try to get rid of these tyres you might want to listen to the drivers

2- Daniel Ricciardo- Yes he did drive well after he punted off Yuku but, he punted off Yuki!!! it was a daft move

Hm Haas- god this track never gets better for them does it

Hm The Race- total snore fest (I blame Merc and Perez)

HM Latifi- 50 seconds off the next-placed car. FFS

[Har1MAS1415]

Mercedes, do they want to win a race this year or not?

[Forti]

Merc strategists - "In hindsight, maybe not the right tire choice" said Toto Wolff.
2022 Mexico City Grand Prix - Not that exciting honestly

[dr-baker]

Ricciardo, for obvious reasons as stated already by others.

And time penalties. Why not just replace them with place penalties? 5 second penalty becomes a one place penalty on crossing the finish line. 10 second penalty becomes a 2 place penalty. This means that regardless of field spread and safety cars, the penalty means something and is fair. Unless.you finish last, in which case neither penalty means anything, but the finishing place penalty could then automatically become a grid penalty in the next race. Same if the penalised driver DNFs.

[James1978]

Merc strategy. At least split it! If they're trying to catch Ferrari for 2nd in the constructors then that would cost them 2023 wind tunnel time.

Ferrari You would not think they had a 46-point lead at one point, it feels like they've just given up now.

I agree with the penalties for being too lenient all round too.

[Alextrax52]

The race itself: Definitely the worst of 2022 in a season where I don’t think any race had been bad up until now

Merc Strategists: You’d think for a team that’s staring at it’s first winless season since 2011 with a lead driver staring at a first winless season ever that on the first weekend that they’ve looked like genuine contenders for a win (i.e no penalties or bad luck to help) they didn’t push the envelope out with nothing to lose. Put it this way if a certain Red team had chosen that strategy they’d be crucified for it. Once both cars put that hard tire on Verstappen may as well have gone to autopilot.

Ferrari: Just weren’t at the races all weekend. I think this level of performance was just a one off and they did have engine woes. But even so it was a performance that made you think “were these really challenging for a world title this year”

Haas: See Ferrari minus the wondering about the title bit

Daniel Ricciardo: As much as I praised his incredible performance on Soft Tires, that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about the Tsunoda incident which was very clumsy and ruined AlphaTauri’s hopes of passing Haas.

Aston Martin: From being the best of the rest at Austin to the 2nd worst team here. I thought the Merc was bipolar but that’s something else

Nicolas Latifi: Got lapped by Albon who was on the fringes of the points in the worst car on the grid. Williams have turfed him out for this as much as the accidents.

[James1978]

Lewis Hamilton- I’m not sure why yet, I haven’t had time to think of justification yet. Give me time, I’ll come up with something. I’m sure he complained about his tyres at some point, so we’ll go with that for the time being.

You made me laugh with that one. Yes he did complain about the hard tyres but so did Russell.

This end of season is very 2011/2013 and Perez is firmly in Webber territory too.

[Meatwad]

For the lack of better nominations, I'll go with Ferrari. So far behind both Red Bull and Mercedes, they're lucky that the rest of the field was even slower.

Not nominating Mercedes strategy, as I never thought they'd have a chance of beating Verstappen on any strategy.

[golic_2004]

1. The race: uninspiring almost throughout except for
2. Ricciardo for that moment with Tsunoda.

[Batty]

Latifi - How come y'all not picking him

Finished nearly a minute behind Haas and is going to the stewards for driving too slow on the recon lap. Like dude was too slow even on the recon lap! That's rejectful!

Hard tires, strategy and all that stuff isn't as rejectful cause like whatever

[Ferrim]

Race strategists -by lap 25, my grandma could see that soft/medium and medium/soft were viable, but some people took on hards anyway. Hello Alpine, Alfa Romeo, and of course Mercedes.

20+ races seasons -16 is ideal. I can live with 18. 20 and over is too much. We'll get more and more of those "dragging on" ones and less and less "down to the wire" ones.

[IceG]

(1) Ferrari - why did they decide to miss out on this race?

(2) The race was pretty boring for a hyperfast street circuit with no surface grip.

[cg12]

The Race - Got to be a contender for the most boring race of 2022 at a track which hasn't produced an exciting race since Tilke butchered it

Latifi - Miles off

DHM - Ricciardo for a move which was never on. Saved from overall nomination by the fact that he made a few other good moves

[Spectoremg]

Some great comments here already.
1. This excuse for a circuit. Having a stadium section is great for a baseball game, but it isn't a baseball game. I understand the reasons for modifying the last bend but the cars are tippy-toeing around to screw up a DRS section.
2. Today's procession.
HM. Seasons that drag out after the DWC is decided.
HM2. Haas. Another shout for them to get the Toyota award for making up the numbers.

[Miguel98]

1. Everyone who put the hard tyre on - Lol. What a horrible strategy.

2. Daniel Ricciardo - For that clumsy move.

HM for the regulations, for failing to improve racing around this track.

[Wallio]

Mercedes Benz - What the bathplug was that? Did they even run the medium at all during practice? Because if they did, they would have realized that the "approaching fall off" was simply not a thing. Also Merc, Pirelli themselves said the medium could go 46 laps so.......

Mario and I once had a spirited debate about when a season becomes a runaway bore. I told him I know one when I see one. And guess what? We're close now Mario, damn close. The only thing keeping me from declaring it is that out of the 16 RBR wins, they really should "only" have 11. Ferrari and Mercedes are just that bad on the pit wall. When was the last time two teams just flat-out gave away races like this? 2004?

HM goes to Alpine. They said at launch they wanted 4th in the WCC. So why won't they bother to wrap it up?

[Rob Dylan]

Three quite sensible and even candidates for the award this time. One vote and 48 hours to do so. Get your Reject of the Race candidate in by voting in the poll at the top of this thread

[Alextrax52]

I can’t believe Mercedes strategists didn’t make the final cut. Especially considering I’ve just discovered that they apparently looked at Latifi’s data (or all people) to justify why they put that hard tire on

https://t.co/LFU67UmTcu

[takagi_for_the_win]

I personally think it was moot what strategy Merc went for. If they’d been a bit braver they could’ve at least spiced the race up a bit, but given the inherent pace advantage Verstappen has had this season over the Mercs I struggle to see how they could’ve beaten him regardless of strategy.

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

I personally think it was moot what strategy Merc went for. If they’d been a bit braver they could’ve at least spiced the race up a bit, but given the inherent pace advantage Verstappen has had this season over the Mercs I struggle to see how they could’ve beaten him regardless of strategy.

This 100%

[James1978]

I totally get why Merc did that strategy with Hamilton; they needed to do it to avoid being undercut by Checo. Russell on the other hand had nothing to lose; he had a massive gap to the Ferraris and nothing to lose by rolling the dice. Only thing it might have done was upset Hamilton

[Londoner]

A very "sport is dead" grand prix gave us some predictable ROTR candidates