Reject of the Race - Bahrain 2024

[Londoner]

1. Alpine. What the hell happened during the off-season?

2. Nico Hulkenberg. Qualifying hero to first corner zero.

Dishonourable mention to the state of Formula 1. The sport simply cannot afford another season like 2023 and yet it looks like that's the most likely outcome. The other nine teams should hang their heads in shame.

[FalconCapelli]

Charles Leclerc.

[sswishbone]

1) Alpine - what the bath plug was that?

2) RB Visa Cash App - terrible driver swap order which achieved nothing

[RAK]

1) Alpine: Only not bolted to the bottom due to pitstop and driver error respectively. Slow and unimpressive.

2) Everybody but Red Bull: Yet another case of Verstappen flying off into the distance and Perez making up ground from a not-great qualifying.

Dishonourable Mention - The new Sauber logo just looks silly compared to all of the rest. A petty complaint, but it's distracting against the more subdued logos of other teams.

[Ciaran]

1. Alpine. What the hell happened during the off-season?

2. Nico Hulkenberg. Qualifying hero to first corner zero.

Dishonourable mention to the state of Formula 1. The sport simply cannot afford another season like 2023 and yet it looks like that's the most likely outcome. The other nine teams should hang their heads in shame.

We need BOP for some franchise value.

Anyway, my votes go to:

1. Warmed-Over Renault.
2. MasterCard Revolut Minardi RB EDIT: Yuki Tsunoda for throwing a 150km/h tantrum.

[rachel1990]

1 Alpine. God that car looked dreadful. No pace. They need an upgrade quickly

2. Charles Leclerc. Not quite believing that so many offs could be because the 'car was broken'

Hm the state of f1. What an absolute Joke. Verstappen was 20 seconds in front of his own teammate and 23 seconds in front of every other car. Liberty Media can not cope with another Max wins lol season. They are going to get it.

[Aislabie]

1. Formula One - I've never been so utterly disengaged from the whole shebang.

2. Me - For sitting through the whole thing, and for having hope of something interesting at the start of the race.

[IceG]

(1) The state of F1: fell asleep at one point during the race.

(2) VisaCashAppRB/Scuderia Alpha Tauri/Scuderia Toro Rosso/Minardi giving Haas a place or two.

[dr-baker]

(1) The state of F1: fell asleep at one point during the race.

You’re not the only one. Although in my case, I’m having a blood test to investigate the tiredness…

Alpine has to be a nomination, but if this form is not a one-off, this would become a contender for Reject of the Year. Sargeant also has to be considered for ROTR.

[Rob Dylan]

"What year is it?": as the first race back from the holidays, I had a distinct feeling from this whole race that it's still 2023 and the previous season hasn't really ended yet. Max winning by a country mile, the rest of the frontrunners floundering around a bit. AND to top it all off, the top five teams occupied all top 10 positions and were the exact same teams as last year. Yawn!

HMs would have to go to:
- Mercedes: as the Sky commentators remarked, even with the issues both drivers had, the car didn't really look all that quick regardless. Hamilton especially was hyped for the whole race by the commentators that he would zoom through the field, but his only overtake from my memory was the inevitable one on Piastri after the latter's crap pitstop.
- Yuki Tsunoda: it was almost nostalgic hearing 2021 Yuki back on the team radio, whining and whining "woe is me" for what in my opinion was a perfectly sensible team order, only screwed over by Yuki himself moving over at least a lap too late and deliberately sabotaging Ricciardo with the blue flags.
- ??? gosh it wasn't an exciting race, was it?
- Logan Sargeant: the only notable "crash", per se.

[Wallio]

3.) Logan Sargent - Does he stay in the seat until Miami?

2.) Zak Brown - The way he cried all winter, you swear the VCARBZ would be 3/4 every race. Instead, they can't pass a Haas, and the Mclaren's looked slow.



1.) Yuki Tsunoda - Trying to crash into Riccardio twice on the cool-down lap? Really? He was probably gone in '26 once Honda leaves anyway, but will he see '25?

[James1978]

Suppose it's gotta be Alpine - serves them right for such a terrible livery (their pink livery at the start of 2022 and 2023 looked great!).

DHM to everyone but Red Bull as this is going to be a LONG year as Max's winning margin was ever more than last year.

Also DHM to the team formerly know as Minardi - I don't even know what they're called now

[Meatwad]

Bottas' pit stop: True old-fashioned rejectfulness!

[Enforcer]

Alpine.

[dr-baker]

Just watched the race highlights on the Formula One YouTube channel. They showed Bottas having a 52 second pit stop, but showed nothing as to why Sargeant finished so far behind Bottas. That’s rejectful in itself if you ask me.

[Wallio]

Just watched the race highlights on the Formula One YouTube channel. They showed Bottas having a 52 second pit stop, but showed nothing as to why Sargeant finished so far behind Bottas. That’s rejectful in itself if you ask me.

Logan had an extra stop to change steering wheels, which coupled with his off, placed him behind Bottas.

Word now is that both Albon and Sargent had wheel issues during the race, pertaining to both the screen itself and the brake bias adjuster. They seem to be having trouble adapting to moving the screen to the wheel, which considering some teams have done that for nearly a decade now, is a rather biting indictment of how far Williams has fallen.

[Loadsamoney]

1. Yuki Tsunoda for attempting Pearl Harbour on Daniel Riccardo. Too soon? IDK probably not. Minus points for driving for post-emo phase hysteria Toro Rosso because VCARB sounds like a cheap sports drink.
2. Valtteri Bottas’s pit crew for that pit stop. Minus points for putting the sponsor name ahead of the team name like the egotistical bastards they are. Kick Sauber sounds like a protest group and Stake F1 Team makes me hungry.
3. Nico Hulkenberg for crashing in the first turn or whatever and not rebounding like Stroll. No minus points for driving for Haas, I have no strong opinions on this team.

[Spectoremg]

1. C4F1 for concentrating on the F1.2 race and avoiding Max's ridiculous domination.
2. That hideous green and black livery

[dj_vicious]

Wow this is a tough one because there are several nominees. This is the exact predicament we want for this thread!

1. Alpine. Can we really give the ROTR aware to anyone else? Completely off the pace in their own time zone. Ugly, non-existent livery to boot.

2. Charles Leclerc. Hold those flaming papayas for a second! He was Max's challenger yesterday. He is going to be sharing the team lead with Lewis Hamilton next year whiles his ostensibly less skilled teammate becomes a free agent. Completely cracked under pressure, fell backwards, raced his teammate hard when he should have let him through for an attack on Perez, and just looked sloppy all race. Perhaps the #2 nomination comes because we know what CL is capable of, but meltdowns like these put a black mark on his overall quality. Charles, watch an learn from Sainz before he leaves, because your current form is not how you win championships.

EDIT: After learning Leclerc actually had braking issues, I am rescinding my nomination for Leclerc. I have left my comment up for my own embarrassment and I will welcome the flaming papayas with open arms.

[Bleu]

The race was so much about the winner's dominance so my nominee is:

1. Everyone else but Red Bull.

[Forti]

Tsunoda: Not cool, Yuki. Intra-team squabble always gets a ROTR nomination.
Alpine: They used to be in the "no man's land" between the best of the rest and lower midfield, but their new "no man's land" is at the back, doing even worse than the unfancied Haas. Here's our new late 2010s Williams.

[Batty]

Alpine are just dire.

Although Charles Leclerc having a montage of him locking up by Lap 19 is pretty damn funny. So, I'll go with that.

[Alextrax52]

Alpine: The pace was slow, the livery is crap, the axe was wielded yet again. No direction, no hope it seems

Tsunoda: A pretty petulant display both during and after the race with those team orders. Would Ricciardo have stolen the last point had he cooperated? Who knows but Yuki didn’t exactly give him half a chance

HM: Bottas’s pitstop: Easily the 2nd worst stop of his F1 Career

[noiceinmydrink]

Some fair nominations, some baffling ones quite frankly but to disqualify my latter statement I'm going to nominate Absolutely Everyone, INCLUDING Red Bull.

The other teams simply haven't done a good enough job to keep the Red Bulls in sight but quite frankly this situation regarding Horner has not been well handled at all. The fact that this story isn't over by now is fairly damning, whether this is a hit job from Corporate and Verstappen or Horner has been up to no good. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but if those leaks are deemed a fake and Horner's been falsely accused, why hasn't he sued the relevant parties (including entities such as De Telegraaf) for defamation and libel? If someone falsely accused me of something as serious as that you damn well better bet I'd be going after them twice as hard. Now however we're at a point where NO ONE looks good, not F1, not Red Bull.

I think Julianne Cerasoli made an excellent point on Twitter (imagine that!) saying essentialy this is now more about a manhunt than acutally getting justice for women in motorsport. I just think this whole situation stinks - there's of course a certain amount that can't be said because of litigation but the utter lack of transparancy of the situation is just not good enough.

[Jarvis]

It won't be the only time when Alpine is going to be mention in "Reject of the Race" threads on this forum.

[Rob Dylan]

Reject of the Race is open for the Bahrain Grand Prix! Vote via the poll at the top of this thread - you have 48 hours to do so.