Reject of the Race - Spain 2023

[Londoner]

1. McLaren. Converted their awesome qualifying session into a big fat zero on raceday.

2. Charles Leclerc. I don't care if the car was junk on Saturday, he never looked likely to score even one point today.

Honourable mention to Valtteri Bottas, who's getting to the point where we should start questioning his future in Formula 1. Utterly demolished by Zhou all weekend.

[Enforcer]

Em... everything? Everyone but Max? The entirety of F1?

Okay serious nomination: McLaren. One lap heroes.

[FalconCapelli]

Charl Leg fo the ROTR

Dishonourable Mention: Discord's API deserves Reject of the Month Award

[rachel1990]

1- Mclaren. One lap wonders. Spain is not the place to do it. Monaco Maybe. Not Spain

2- Discord Servers. How many blinkin times did we see the same message over and over.

Hm - Bottas. Another dreadful race with no pace.

[Hermann95]

Leclerc: poor qualifying, even if it was due to a damaged car, and nowhere all race.

[noiceinmydrink]

I'll second that Bottas nomination, for whatever reason he was miles off. Looked intensly mediocre all weekend.

But what trumps that in my opinion is this; while I enjoyed the race, it was promised by strategists to be this 3 stopper behemoth of a race with a little bit of rain. None of that occurred and to rub it in further, George Russell saw fit to give the falsest of false hopes since Boris Johnson's last colonoscopy by erroneously reporting rain at turn 5.

So while I'm sure you all have sound suggestions of your own and you're all entitled to your opinion, nothing was as grotesquely offensive as Russell's sweat.

[Ducktanian]

Bottas - Remember when Bottas came 8th in Bahrain? That seems so long ago now.

Russell's Sweat - Phantom Rain strikes when you least expected it. This is the kind of nonsense GPRejects lives for

Discord - Was a absolute laggy mess throughout the duration of the race.

Honorable Mention

Alonso - Easily the weakest he's been all season.
Leclerc - Zhou's P10 never looked in danger.
Perez - If Monaco hadn't happened literally the race before, this would've stood out more.

[mario]

Charles Leclerc had a real shocker this weekend - awful pace in qualifying, followed by similar lacklustre pace during the race itself. OK, even with a slightly odd strategy for Ferrari - not sure why they started him on the hard tyres, only to then pit for the softs so early on - he was still disappointingly slow.

McLaren also flattered to deceive - whilst Norris did lose time due to damage in the early laps, you'd have hoped that Piastri might have been able to hang on in the top 10, rather than also disappearing down the order.

In terms of dishonourable mentions, Hulkenberg was a disappointment in some ways too - he'd looked decent in practice and qualifying, but the race pace was a disaster by comparison.

Maybe, to some extent, Aston Martin were a bit underwhelming too - Alonso in particular, despite the hype going into this weekend, ended up in a pretty distant 7th, and the team as a whole were a bit anonymous.

[James1978]

Everyone but Max, or phantom rain

[RAK]

"Everybody but Max" is a strong contender, except that Mercedes did OK given their struggles earlier in the season.

[Meatwad]

Charles Leclerc: An awful weekend for him. While it's not rare for top team drivers to underperform dramatically (see Pérez on a couple of recent weekends), seeing the driver who is supposed to be Ferrari's number one 19th on the grid while his team mate gets 2nd is shocking. Even more disappointing that he failed to score a single point.

[Bleu]

1. Bottas

2. Leclerc

[dj_vicious]

1. Charles Leclerc: Where the bathplug were you today man? That was a midfielder run at best.

2.: Lance Stroll: Why, do you ask? Because Alonso decided to let you finish ahead because of nepotism. You're the star of a show bankrolled by your father, and you are REKT by your teammate.

[IceG]

(1) Leclerc - just nowhere throughout the race any tyre grade and barely able to overtake the F1.5 cars.

That's it for me.

[Batty]

1. George Russell for Rain in turn 5 when it was his sweat. That's peak rejectism. George Russell's Sweat

2. Charles Leclerc - Qualified P19, started from pitlane and finished P11

[noiceinmydrink]

I rescind my nomination for Bottas as it has been reported that he was suffering from floor damage - similarly for Leclerc who was suffering from car issues all weekend according to Ferrari. Underwhelming weekends for both but nothing spectacularly awful considering the circumstances.

[Alextrax52]

McLaren: An awesome qualifying but all hopes of a great result were over after just 2 corners

Russell’s sweat: thanks for fooling us all into believing we might have had some rain

[Wallio]

Dishonorable Mention to:

Lando Norris - Did a prerace interview saying McLaren only had a chance if it rained, so he was going to be patience and wait for it. He then crashed in Turn 2 and ran most of the race P20.

But the ROTR (surprisingly) goes to:

The F1TV Crew - DC proclaiming that George Russell "has no kinks in his armor whatsoever" was bad enough, but then the entire crew spent the last 10 laps or so absolutely shredding Alonso for not attacking Stroll. No, his father does not have some secret deal guys (yes they actually said that) Alonso was repaying Stroll for earlier in the year. Wtf.

[Rob Dylan]

Poll is now open at the top of the thread. I haven't added Valtteri Bottas in the wake of the news regarding his car damage. You have 48 hours to vote!