Reject of the Race - Texas 2024

[Londoner]

1. Lewis Hamilton. Qualified 19th on merit, spun off two laps into the race and was the only DNF. Yep, that's a slam dunk ROTR.

2. Sky commentators. For the love of HWNSNBM, pension off Crofty and Brundle already and make Harry Benjamin and Karun Chandhok the new commentary booth.

[Rob Dylan]

Has to be Lewis Hamilton surely, though Aston Martin going backwards all race was quite bad. The whole turn 11/12 shenanigans that led to so many penalties needs to be changed for next year too - it could decide this year's championship (though we've said that about a few things now).

[Ciaran]

1. Lewis. Retire old man.
2. The FIA for yet again endorsing cheating by letting Max away with his Codemasters F1 strats.

[TomPryce]

Verstappen's dick driving being ignored felt like an inevitability.

I seriously hope RB get more consistent opposition from the very start of next season. I could not bear him being a 5 time champ.

[Ducktanian]

Sir Lewis Hamilton is the obvious choice.

But Albon was also pretty bad this weekend. Got completely outshone by Colapinto.

[takagi_for_the_win]

1. Hamilton, for reasons discussed.

2. The stewards, for their consistent “driving standards for thee but not car thirty-three” approach.

[Meatwad]

Stewards: Pathetic. Some drivers get penalized while one doesn't even get investigated for doing the same. Ruined a good race.

Dishonorable mention to Hamilton for one of his worst weekends, would have deserved ROTR on most weekends.

[rachel1990]

1. His Royal Highness King of Sky Sports Sir Lewis Hamilton.
Qualified 19th on Merit then his teammate had to save him by binning it in q3, got upto 12th on the first lap (Causing Martin Brundle to wet himself with excitement), then binned it by himself.

2. Alex Albon. Nowhere near the pace of his teammate, spun Ocon and then he only beat Ocon and the Saubers.

Hm Sergio Perez. Another weekend another useless result. Beaten by Russell. Who started in the pitlane. Took about 10 laps to get past a Williams who had 38 lap tyres on. (He had new tyres)

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

Tough to beat Hamilton for this one. Perez next and honorable mention to the bunch of weird penalties.

[dr-baker]

All of the 5 second penalties for track limits gets my vote alongside car 44 for not even getting to lap 4 and causing the first safety car in 10 races.

[Alextrax52]

Reject of the Race:

Aston Martin: The Adrian Newey era can’t come quick enough. Alonso started 7th yet faded to a lapped 13th while Stroll just Strolled around all race near the bottom of the midfield. Also what was that feuding between Alonso and Lawson?

Yuki Tsunoda: Started 9 places higher than Lawson, got undercut by half distance, got a time penalty, had a spin and finished a lapped 14th while Lawson scored points. Not exactly a great start to your audition for the main team is it?

Sergio Perez: Another limp display where he’s finishing over 30 seconds behind Verstappen. Beaten by a man who started from the pitlane was the cherry on top. Get him gone.

Reject of the weekend:

Lewis Hamilton: Oh jeez where do we start with this guy’s weekend? First Sprint Qualifying, he claims he’d have been on pole without yellow flags, I’ve seen a clip of that and he wasn’t even halfway down the straight when it came out for Colapinto’s spin and it had already cleared before he ballsed it up at turn 12 anyway leaving him 7th.

Then after an anonymous Sprint he qualified 19th on Merit, made a monster start up to 12th and then threw away that good work with a lazy spin into the turn 19 gravel which left him as the only DNF of the race and brought out our first safety car since Canada, Nice one Lewis. Pound for Pound his worst weekend since Imola 2022 when Verstappen lapped him on merit.

[IceG]

Comedy driver reject: Hamilton for binning it all on his own

Serious driver rejects: Albon for getting thrashed by the new boy, Tsunoda for getting thrashed by the new boy, and Perez for, well, being Perez

Race reject: commentators saying COTA is great because it promotes overtaking and COTA is crap because drivers go off the circuit when overtaking

[sswishbone]

1) Stewards - less consistent than a British train timetable

2) Tyre Trophies - what in the name of all that's holy and unholy was that?

[RAK]

1) Lewis Hamilton: He's had some good performances this year, but that was not one of them.

2) Sergio Perez: Perez is going to be the reason why Red Bull don't take the Constructors' Championship this year.

[dr-baker]

2) Tyre Trophies - what in the name of all that's holy and unholy was that?

There's more to this nomination. Apparently the original trophies were potentially in breach of copyright and so were withdrawn. On Saturday...

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/pirel ... /10665204/

[Salamander]

= 1. Everyone who forced someone else off the track
= 1. Stewards

Not that Hamilton doesn't deserve ROTR but holy crap driving standards are embarrassing to watch. Rather than have a good spirited wheel-to-wheel battle, any time anyone gets alongside someone else, they just run them off the road. It's such a talentless move, zero skill required to do that. We should expect better of everyone.

Also I refuse to believe the stewards are actually investigating anything on track anymore. They're so blatantly inconsistent they either literally do not understand what is going on on the track anymore, or are just arbitrarily handing out penalties after a random amount of time has passed.

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

2) Tyre Trophies - what in the name of all that's holy and unholy was that?

There's more to this nomination. Apparently the original trophies were potentially in breach of copyright and so were withdrawn. On Saturday...

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/pirel ... /10665204/

If the trophies at the link are an accurate picture, I can see why they were forced to drop them. They look like a combination of a Lego person and Mickey Mouse. Their marketing people should have known there was no possibility of those getting through. Disney especially is exceptionally litigious.

[James1978]

Hamilton, "The Max Verstappen rule", Aston Martin and Checo (especially with Lawson impressing) are all worth consideration.

Also Alpine's special liveries always end up in them looking like the clone of another car, in this case the McLaren (their pink at the start of last year was Force India/Racing Point and their red/black from Spa was last year's Alfa Romeo!)

[sswishbone]

2) Tyre Trophies - what in the name of all that's holy and unholy was that?

There's more to this nomination. Apparently the original trophies were potentially in breach of copyright and so were withdrawn. On Saturday...

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/pirel ... /10665204/

Good lord, where are Jaimie and Enoch when we need them?

[Jarvis]

Lewis Hamilton - He doesn't look interested in getting good results with Mercedes anymore and seems to be thinking about the next season with Ferrari.