Reject of the Race - Singapore 2024

[Londoner]

1. Daniel Ricciardo. An utterly miserable effort for what could potentially be his final weekend as an F1 driver. Get Lawson in there asap.

2. Sky commentators. An embarrassing amount of errors from Crofty, Brundle and Kravit this afternoon. Bin them all off and bring back Harry Benjamin and Karun Chandhok.

[You-Gee-Eee-Day]

1. Daniel Ricciardo - Not only was your performance today miserable, but it is representative of your entire career. Please stop coming back to the sport.
2. Sergio Perez - A guy in his third ever race in a Williams was barely 1.6 seconds behind you. You barely held on to 10th.
Honourable Mention - The Safety Car

[Ciaran]

1. David Crock. I'd almost take another race in a hellhole that gets away with ethnic cleansing if it meant that he wasn't on comms.
2. Sergio Perez.

[Ducktanian]

Another nomination for the Sky commentators but specifically the "Piastri has jumped the two Mercedes" bit was a very embarrassing [and funny] error worthy of this award.

Actually another nomination: Ricciardo's moustache

[rachel1990]

1. Daniel Ricciardo. I mean I am sorry that it will (probably) finish this way but still coming last and not having any pace again really shows why he is being dropped. F1 career is over for good this time.

2 Sky Commentary. I don't knownwhy but it was particularly bad this race. Awful from Croft and Brundle in particular.

Hm Lewis Hamiltons strategy. I mean it was different but it failed miserably didn't it.

Hm Perez. God help him if Lawson gets in the RB car and does something spectacular.

[mario]

1. Daniel Ricciardo. I mean I am sorry that it will (probably) finish this way but still coming last and not having any pace again really shows why he is being dropped. F1 career is over for good this time.

2 Sky Commentary. I don't knownwhy but it was particularly bad this race. Awful from Croft and Brundle in particular.

Hm Lewis Hamiltons strategy. I mean it was different but it failed miserably didn't it.

Hm Perez. God help him if Lawson gets in the RB car and does something spectacular.

It says a lot that the only benefit Red Bull got out of Ricciardo in that race was using him to spoil Norris's bid for fastest lap - if this was his last race, you're right that it very effectively underlined why he's on his way out of the team. That said, Tsunoda kind of flattered to deceive a bit - he'd been looking rather good in practice and qualifying, but faded in the race to fall out of the points.

I also agree that Hamilton's strategy was odd - I don't really see what the logic behind Mercedes's decision was, because the run to the first corner was too short to really make any significant benefit from picking the soft tyres and hoping to jump a rival off the line, and it guaranteed that he'd have to run a longer than optimal stint on the hard tyres. It just seemed to be a strategy where the downsides were much bigger than the potential gains - dare I say it, but the fact that it seems the team didn't want either driver to talk to the media after the race suggests they know they screwed up with their strategies?

As others have noted, Perez wasn't great - true, at that circuit, it's going to be hard to do a lot when overtaking is tricky and it's hard to generate a significant performance advantage, but equally he really shouldn't have qualified that far down. Had Ricciardo's own form not flopped quite as badly as it has, you'd have to wonder if Perez would still be there.

As an HM, I might suggest Ferrari - whilst Leclerc and Sainz did make up some ground, given this was supposed to be one of their stronger tracks in the tail end of the season, they really did fail to capitalise on it. To some extent, it felt like Ferrari got some of those places back because their opponents threw them away, rather than because they did that brilliantly.

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

As an HM, I might suggest Ferrari - whilst Leclerc and Sainz did make up some ground, given this was supposed to be one of their stronger tracks in the tail end of the season, they really did fail to capitalise on it. To some extent, it felt like Ferrari got some of those places back because their opponents threw them away, rather than because they did that brilliantly.

I don’t know about this, if I’m going to blame Ferrari for anything, I’m going to blame their drivers for their bad qualifying. They seemed on top of it in the race.

[James1978]

Between Checo, Hamilton's strategy and Ferrari for messing up qualifying which cost them in the race (and could have done with getting someone in between Lando and Max to close the championship up too)

[Spectoremg]

1. Ricardo- retire already.
2. The championship. Er, how did that turnaround happen?

[mario]

As an HM, I might suggest Ferrari - whilst Leclerc and Sainz did make up some ground, given this was supposed to be one of their stronger tracks in the tail end of the season, they really did fail to capitalise on it. To some extent, it felt like Ferrari got some of those places back because their opponents threw them away, rather than because they did that brilliantly.

I don’t know about this, if I’m going to blame Ferrari for anything, I’m going to blame their drivers for their bad qualifying. They seemed on top of it in the race.

I was somewhat uncertain about whether to suggest it or not - I agree that, during the race, the drivers did put in decent performances to make up for the situation they'd put themselves in on the back of qualifying, but it also felt like they shouldn't have been in that position in the first place. Leclerc's pace in clean air was pretty decent - if he'd started closer to the front, he might even have been able to fight for the podium, rather than just 5th. Similarly Sainz, at the least, probably could have beaten Hamilton given Mercedes have admitted in retrospect they went the wrong way with his strategy.

Ferrari did make some mistakes that hindered their drivers too - part of the reason for Leclerc's poor Q3 runs were that Ferrari made mistakes with their tyre blanket temperature settings. Those errors meant his front tyres were too cool, which meant he was then trying to push hard on the outlap and the start of his flying lap to try and bring them up to temperature, hence his mistake on his final Q3 lap.

That said, asides from the fact that those are errors in the sessions before the race, rather than the race itself (which was a decent recovery), I agree it's perhaps a bit harsh to pick on those points.

[Rob Dylan]

Nothing in particular came around as massively rejectful in comparison to others. Sauber being last all weekend from start to finish deserves a mention even if it happens every weekend. Ricciardo would probably be a candidate if he didn't receive the FL. If he had crashed into the wall on his final lap and not received the FL, then yes I would call that ROTR-worthy

The only major thing was Mercedes' strategy really. Since about 2022 or so, when things have started to go downhill in terms of their fortunes (as downhill as having the second- or third-best car at least), they have had the occasional blunder or two in terms of strategy. They used to be bulletproof in the championship-winning days, though I guess those days have now passed. Even Hamilton made a rare mid-race mistake by running wide into the marbles when trying to pass (I think) Tsunoda.

Oh speaking of poor memory in the race, I have to mention the people directing the race video. We missed most of the fighting action to watch people not fighting for P13. We didn't see a single incident when it happened, and replays were shown at full speed once. Lando Norris literally almost crashed into the wall of his own volition like three times, and if you were looking away from the screen, you would never have seen the replays. Like the jingoistic national feeds of old, we always seemed to be focussing on the wrong things.

[Jarvis]

There is no other option for me than Daniel Ricciardo. I wish him all the best with his life after F1.