Reject of the Race - Baku 2023

[Londoner]

1. Nick de Vries. An excellent Giovanni Lavaggi tribute act all weekend. I'd be surprised if he makes it to the summer break at this rate.

2. Alpine. Nul points, a ton of damage and questionable strategy.

Honourable mention to Ted Kravitz for gleefully talking up the possibility of Red Bull ordering Perez to let Verstappen by. You could almost hear Crofty and Karun sigh in the booth.

[RAK]

1) Nyck de Vries: Just generally poor and sort of confirming why nobody was looking to take a punt on him before, despite his Formula 2 and Formula E success.

2) Alpine: A last-lap pitstop is... unorthodox, to say the least and had the potential to be very dangerous as well. The team never looked competitive all weekend.

[Enforcer]

FOM / Race Organisation: As unusual as it is, Ocon is allowed pit on the last lap. The lane should've been kept clear.

Alpine / Haas: The run long and pray for an SC strategy didn't work.

[Ciaran]

1. Race control. Someone's going to be woken up at 3am tonight for bringing shame upon the glorious and peaceful nation of Azerbaijan.
2. Ted Kravitz for his usual bullshit.

[Shadaza]

1. Nyck De Vries. Crashed in qualifying, crashed into his team-mate in the sprint, crashed in the race. Generally, slow when not crashing. Looking like bust of the season. First 1/10 performance of the year.

2. Allowing photographers and other personnel onto a live pitlane. Whoever is responsible for this decision is in for a caning.

[kronatherm]

Pirelli: The soft and medium tyres barely lasted 10 laps, and the hards could have done about 300.
Nyck de Vries: Worst weekend I've seen in a while

[rachel1990]

1. Allowing photographers and other personnel onto a live pitlane. That was horrifying to see and could have killed someone . Shocking.

2. Alfa Romeo. Bottas last again. Zhou out with car problems. Awful all round.

HM- Nyck de Vries caused the safety car that cost his fellow countryman the win. Another very poor weekend.

[Bleu]

1. Pit lane shenanigans during Ocon's pit stop
Caused a dangerous situation.

2. Nyck de Vries
Awful weekend all the way.

[Alextrax52]

The photographers being on the pitlane when it was still in race conditions: Slam Dunk ROTR for me, how many more careless actions are we going to see until the proverbial hits the fan?

De Vries: Looking like an early ROTY candidate. Basically everything Shadaza said. It once again casts doubt about the F2 title against a weaker field and the Formula E title coming in an unpredictable manner.

HM: Alpine: Lacked pace all weekend despite a big upgrade. On top of that Gasly had a messy weekend and Ocon had to start from pit lane twice

HM: Alfa Romeo: Completely invisible and lacking pace

[tBone]

The photographers being on the pitlane when it was still in race conditions: Slam Dunk ROTR for me, how many more careless actions are we going to see until the proverbial hits the fan?

De Vries: Looking like an early ROTY candidate. Basically everything Shadaza said. It once again casts doubt about the F2 title against a weaker field and the Formula E title coming in an unpredictable manner.

HM: Alpine: Lacked pace all weekend despite a big upgrade. On top of that Gasly had a messy weekend and Ocon had to start from pit lane twice

HM: Alfa Romeo: Completely invisible and lacking pace

Seconded.

[Meatwad]

That near miss with Ocon and those people in the pit lane: How did they not realize there was one lap left of the race? Could have ended really badly, thankfully they all had fast reflexes.

Dishonorable mentions to Nyck de Vries for a completely horrible weekend, Alfa Romeo likewise.

[IceG]

Just when I thought that Race Control could have a clean weekend, that last lap and Ocon looking to play photographer-skittles in the pit lane - just awful. Now lets see them try and penalise Red Bull for the mechanics on the fence celebrations.

Driver: Nyck de Vries - just poor and under-performing.

Team: Which of the teams with naems starting with Al will it be this week - let's go for Alfa Romeo for 18th and 19th place.

[James1978]

The pitlane shenanigans at the end is a deal-clincher but DHMs to Alfa, Alpine, Haas and De Vries.

And Max for his pathetic rant about Russell and Horner for condoning it Max had a face like a slapped arse all weekend TBH

Let's face it no other team can challenge RB at the moment so good on Checo for stepping up and making it a championship fight. Though Checo is a street circuit specialist so not too hopeful it stays that way once we get back at normal circuits.

[Spectoremg]

1. The procession - dull.
2. The talk of possible safety cars, like it's a tactic.

[Wallio]

It is tempting to nominate the end of the race pit lane mishap for being just that stupid. As we have seen with multiple early checkered flags, the FIA has a bad habit of forgetting how many laps a race actually has. Likewise George Russell deserves the nod for putting the championship leader in the wall, then hitting him twice more, all in the same lap (something even NASCAR penalizes). He then did his usual party trick of acting holier than thou and completely disappearing on a Sunday.

But the real reject is still The Sprint Race Format. While this new style is at least better in that it does not affect the Grand Prix at all, it is still utter shite. Ditch it immediately.

[Forti]

Ocon's Pitstop - that's not how you repeat an Albon Australia '22 maneuver...
DHMs:
Nyck de Vries - now we see why nobody wanted him in an F1 seat after his F2 victory...
Alfa Romeo - Audi will have some work to do if they want to be good here as they were in Le Mans...

[James1978]

I think De Vries got mega overhyped after his performance at Monza last year - it was one race on a circuit which suited the Williams and it was only Latifi in the other car so probably just luck rather than anything else. But Yuki is wiping the floor with him!

[Batty]

The shitshow that was Ocon's pitstop - so basically FIA Representatives in charge of Parc Ferme end of race stuff.

Not actually race control's fault cause they summoned FIA to the stewards lol

[mario]

That near miss with Ocon and those people in the pit lane: How did they not realize there was one lap left of the race? Could have ended really badly, thankfully they all had fast reflexes.

It's not just that there was one lap left, but the FIA's own officials should have known that Ocon had to make a pit stop and would therefore be entering the pits on that lap.

In the investigation by the stewards, they mention that "it is not uncommon" for the photographers to usually be moved into place to get shots of the drivers passing the flag and then the shots of the podium afterwards. Whilst they've kind of gotten away with it for now, since there's not been any cars retiring in the last 1-2 laps recently, it sounds like it was perhaps an accident waiting to happen for a while.

Just when I thought that Race Control could have a clean weekend, that last lap and Ocon looking to play photographer-skittles in the pit lane - just awful. Now lets see them try and penalise Red Bull for the mechanics on the fence celebrations.

There were a few people wryly noting that Red Bull's mechanics were ignoring the instructions not to do that - however, with the focus very much on the Ocon incident, it seems that the FIA may be quietly ignoring Red Bull's actions.

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

There were a few people wryly noting that Red Bull's mechanics were ignoring the instructions not to do that - however, with the focus very much on the Ocon incident, it seems that the FIA may be quietly ignoring Red Bull's actions.

I thought that might kind of happen. Horner is probably happy to pay any fines related to breaking the rule, the photo op is just too good.

[mario]

There were a few people wryly noting that Red Bull's mechanics were ignoring the instructions not to do that - however, with the focus very much on the Ocon incident, it seems that the FIA may be quietly ignoring Red Bull's actions.

I thought that might kind of happen. Horner is probably happy to pay any fines related to breaking the rule, the photo op is just too good.

Some have suggested that, alternatively, Sulayem was perhaps also using the threat of a penalty as a way of throwing the FIA's weight around (i.e. the threat itself is sufficient for the FIA).

[noiceinmydrink]

I totally think Alfa Romeo should get it for being retired and last.

Come on, throw me a bone will ya?

[FalconCapelli]

Nick Debries

The ex-Formula E champion that knows street tracks well, fumbled quite hard in Baku

[Londoner]

Bowling for ROTR awards