Reject of the Race - Brazil 2022

[Londoner]

1. Daniel Ricciardo. A certified "Retire Old Man" moment and an brilliant demonstration of instant karma.

2. Stewards. They forgot to give Tsunoda the command to unlap himself during the SC, galaxy brain stuff.

[Aerond]

1. The stewards for forgetting Tsunoda is pure comedy gold and classic ROTR territory.

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HM -
Ricciardo - pls

[Aislabie]

Alpine - lost 22 places in 24 laps in the Sprint

Max Verstappen - burned relations with his teammate for P6

[Enforcer]

Stewards. See Londoner's entry.

This eejit:


Max Verstappen: Not letting Checo back through.

[RAK]

1) Daniel Ricciardo: A terrible move from a driver that has not been covering himself in glory as of late.

2) Max Verstappen: Sloppy overtaking attempt against Lewis Hamilton - who, to be fair, recovered well - followed by petulance against his teammate who has been a compliant number 2 throughout the season.

Dishonourable Mentions: Lando Norris - almost destroyed Leclerc's race; the stewards - why didn't they let Yuki Tsunoda unlap himself?

[Wallio]

Daniel Riccardo - Seriously just bathplug right off with that shite.

Driving Standards - Was this a Saturday night dirt track or the Brazilian GP? I've run club races with less contact. Best drivers in the world my arse.

Alpine - what in the world is going on in that dumpster fire?

HM: Mick Schumacher - You can actually try you know.

[Har1MAS1415]

1. Danny Ric: Way to go spoil a weekend that had started so shockingly well for K-Mag and Haas.
2. Max: Can't you just leave Lewis alone for once? You call yourself a Double World Champion?

[dr-baker]

McLaren for a double DNF

Verstappen for not making as much progress as I would have expected even with a damaged car and relying on the safety car to have made as much progress as he did.

Verstappen for not being a team player and letting Perez have a few more points for his fight in the WDC

Same for Sainz and Leclerc

[Alextrax52]

The Stewards: How can you forget to let a car unlap itself? I swear to god if that confusion costs Carlos his podium…

Daniel Ricciardo: That just sums up his season though I do love a taste of Karma

HM: Alpine: I know their Sunday was great but that self implosion yesterday was almost galling to watch. 2 drivers clearly at war with each other and it’s there for all to see.

HM: McLaren: Well done on losing 4th in the constructors.

I’m not even going to discuss a certain incident because you probably all know what my take is on it. That said Verstappen not letting Perez back through deserves a mention.

[rachel1990]

1 Daniel Riccardio- Well what can you say apart from Instant karma. Another attempt for the RoTY trophy! Shame K-mag had to be the victim of such stupidity though

2- The Stewards- too many issues again. Firstly the gap between yellow flags and a VSC- far too long again and how on earth did they forget about Yuki daft!!

Hm Alpine team relations-One suspects it's not going to improve next year with Gasly vs Ocon

HM, Max Verstappen as a team player. thought the Hamilton incident was 50/50 so I'm not going there but ignoring orders to let Perez through despite how many times Perez has done that. You do wonder who is in control at that team. Just waiting for Horner to blame hammy and insist on a lifetime ban.

Hm- Williams and Hard Tyres- They would put them on the car then pit the drivers about 6 laps later- Latifi and Albon had no chance!!

[Meatwad]

Max Verstappen: Good recovery drive, but to mess up the relationship with your team mate over two points and a sixth place is ridiculous. Very childish and selfish, even if team orders are never nice.

Dishonorable mention to McLaren for pretty much losing their chances to get 4th in the WCC.

[James1978]

If Danny Ric's first-lap contact with K-Mag hadn't been so clumsy then Max would have got this for me - if he needs Checo's help in a tight championship fight next year will Checo be so quick to help him again? All for a 6th place. Talk about burning bridges.

[James1978]

I will add that I can't say the same about Ferrari not getting Sainz to let Leclerc though at the end - Alonso and Verstappen (though he should have been dropping back to let Checo through) were too close to Leclerc for Ferrari to switch easily.

[dj_vicious]

Not doing anything different here.

1. Daniel Ricciardo: A painful end to a promising F1 career. Vetter is doing a swan song while Ricciardo is washing up on a beach across the ocean.

2. Max Verstappen: Not playing the team game. He owes championship(s) to Perez, and won't return the favour for a couple points.

HM: Lance Stroll: His driving in the sprint race was awful.

[James1978]

I also don't get this theory that Max's refusal to let Checo back through was about Monaco. I had to look at the race results again and it was a Ferrari front row. Why would Checo deliberately crash if he was behind both Ferraris? Was hardly a Rosberg in 2014 situation where only he or Hamilton could have been on pole.

[IceG]

Covering both sprint and race...

Why is everyone so down on Danny? He misjudged a braking point on the first lap and lightly touched KMag - like so many other drivers. Everything after that was just fate.

(3) Leclerc for demanding to be let through when Sainz was on for a podium - just rude

(2) Vestappen for behaving like a child when given team orders to let Perez through - just rude

but

(1) Race Control forgetting to let a lapped driver through - just ROFL

[Miguel98]

1. Max Verstappen - I'm sorry but this is the dumb stuff rejects are made for.

2. Race control - For not doing Tsunoda and then the justification being rather... weird.

Honorable mention to Daniel Ricciardo

[Batty]

Turns out the stewards were correct in what happened to Yuki because of the timing screen and how Interlagos is set up. That being said it's still my 2nd ROTR just because like guys common sense. It's obvious that Yuki was lapped.

My 1st nomination is Alfa Romeo for that one dude (Was that Vasseur?) who cost the team a fine because he decided to just stand in a dangerous place. Bruhhhhh

[FalconCapelli]

Daniel Ricciardo, he has ruined kmags race...

[Forti]

Max Verstappen - Normally he always WINSLOL, but not the case here with the collisions here and there throughout the weekend and to top it all off, the team order shenanigans. Way to go for ensuring that Red Bull never gets a 1-2 in the WDC
Race Control - Don't forget about Yuki!
Daniel RIcciardo - He's in "retire old man" mode, it will be a shame if his final race ends in another silly mistake like this

[takagi_for_the_win]

Has to be Team Verstappen for me. A silly, possibly even petulant, crash with Hamilton wouldn’t normally be enough to earn a nomination personally. However, our boy Max saved the best for last by refusing to adhere to team orders, pissing off his loyal number 2 in a big way. Not content with this, his entourage decided to double down, accusing his teammate of engineering a crashgate entirely of his volition back in Monaco. All went a little bit nuclear, which is an odd way to end a season in which you’ve won both titles.

Honourable mentions for:

Race Control - there’s only at most 20 drivers competing at any one time, surely it’s not that hard to keep an eye on all of them?

Ricciardo - why is anyone bothering at this point?

[Fetzie]

1. Max Verstappen.

He couldn't even give Perez 6th place. He couldn't keep his wheels out of Hamilton's. He ignored multiple direct orders to cede position. All in front of Mateschitz Jr.

2. Ricciardo

He's already on the beach.

3. Race Control

How many laps are you going to wait before sending out the safety car? I thought you were trying to learn from your mistakes?

[Rob Dylan]

Four classic candidates in the reject repertoire for all you voters out there. They can be voted on in the poll at the top of the thread, and you have 48 hours to do so!

[James1978]

Genuinely in a quandary here between Max (seen some very worrying nasty personal traits in him lately. Having it against Hamilton is one thing but Checo quite another), and missing Yuki (the sort of thing Reject Gold is based on).

Danny Ric was just clumsy but he's more in running for ROTY at this point I'd say.

[noiceinmydrink]

Genuinely in a quandary here between Max (seen some very worrying nasty personal traits in him lately. Having it against Hamilton is one thing but Checo quite another), and missing Yuki (the sort of thing Reject Gold is based on).

Danny Ric was just clumsy but he's more in running for ROTY at this point I'd say.

I was feeling the same way. the thing that tipped it in Max's direction for me was how remarkably petty and short-sighted it was; because even if you're looking at it primarily from a selfish perspective, he gained absolutely nothing from finishing ahead of Sergio and it only served to anger the guy who had to sacrifice a lot to get him the championship this year and wouldn't even be in with a whiff of a chance last year if Checo hadn't held up Hamilton.

Even the most ruthless paid their teammates back later in the season, your Sennas and your Schumachers. Holding on for a few irrelevant points at this race could cost him a larger number and contextually more important points further down the line. Not smart.

That's a shame about Yuki though, any other race and he would have been shoo-in!

[mario]

Genuinely in a quandary here between Max (seen some very worrying nasty personal traits in him lately. Having it against Hamilton is one thing but Checo quite another), and missing Yuki (the sort of thing Reject Gold is based on).

Danny Ric was just clumsy but he's more in running for ROTY at this point I'd say.

I was feeling the same way. the thing that tipped it in Max's direction for me was how remarkably petty and short-sighted it was; because even if you're looking at it primarily from a selfish perspective, he gained absolutely nothing from finishing ahead of Sergio and it only served to anger the guy who had to sacrifice a lot to get him the championship this year and wouldn't even be in with a whiff of a chance last year if Checo hadn't held up Hamilton.

Even the most ruthless paid their teammates back later in the season, your Sennas and your Schumachers. Holding on for a few irrelevant points at this race could cost him a larger number and contextually more important points further down the line. Not smart.

That's a shame about Yuki though, any other race and he would have been shoo-in!

As you note, Max's behaviour throughout that incident seems really weird.

His insinuations that Perez deliberately crashed in Monaco seem to have come out of nowhere, given that there were no signs that he was on bad terms with Perez until now. It also raises the question why he's decided to now take it into his own hands to retaliate six months down the line, particularly since most observers had dismissed the incident as an accident given the context (variable weather conditions and the fact that a deliberate crash at that point would help the Ferrari duo more than it would have helped either Perez or Verstappen).

What also comes across as a bit odd is the way in which Max's mother followed up those complaints with a rather personal attack on Perez. She has since deleted the post, but on Instagram she made a comment about Perez "then cheating on his wife in the evening" during the Monaco GP in response to criticism about Max's behaviour in Brazil. It comes across as a very crass attack that seemed to be written to imply that, if Perez were to cheat on his wife in Monaco, so he would also be prepared to cheat on the track - which is a very low blow to strike.

What is the point in antagonising Perez in that way, particularly given how co-operative he's been with the team and with Max? And what's the point in stirring up more trouble around himself and the team over something so inconsequential too?

[Londoner]

Championship under lock and key and yet he still fancied more...like a ROTR award!