Reject of the Race - Abbie Dabbie 2024

[Londoner]

1. Valtteri Bottas. A brilliant Saturday effort which was all for nothing by the end of lap 1. Two crashes and confirmation that he will go pointless in 2024 is not the way he should be ending his F1 career.

2. Red Bull drivers. Verstappen tried his usual zero skill move on Piastri and finally got his just desserts, Perez's likely F1 swansong lasted 3/4s of a lap. Meanwhile at the sister team, Tsnuoda botched the start and Lawson's race was a tragicomedy.

Honourable mention to the Sky commentary booth, it really is time for Crofty and Brundle to be put out to pasture.

[Salamander]

1. Sky commentary booth - God, were they dreadful. David Croft mixed up names about as often as late-career Murray Walker did, with none of the charm, and Martin Brundle continued to exude the aura of the grumpiest, most bored old man you've ever met.
2. Valtteri Bottas - I really still think Bottas deserves to be on the F1 grid. Boy, he made it hard for me to keep justifying that opinion to myself today, though.

[mario]

1. Valtteri Bottas. A brilliant Saturday effort which was all for nothing by the end of lap 1. Two crashes and confirmation that he will go pointless in 2024 is not the way he should be ending his F1 career.

2. Red Bull drivers. Verstappen tried his usual zero skill move on Piastri and finally got his just desserts, Perez's likely F1 swansong lasted 3/4s of a lap. Meanwhile at the sister team, Tsnuoda botched the start and Lawson's race was a tragicomedy.

Honourable mention to the Sky commentary booth, it really is time for Crofty and Brundle to be put out to pasture.

The first one could be widened out to be "drivers in their last race" - Bottas had his troubles, Zhou also managed to get a penalty, Magnussen had a botched pit stop that dropped him down the order and probably ruined Haas's chances of beating Alpine in the WCC.

As for Colapinto, being hit by others and having to retire from the race was not the way he would have wanted to go, and potentially also dented his hopes of being picked up by another team next year. As for Perez, although it's not been confirmed, the expectation is that Perez is out at Red Bull, and his race also did not end particularly well.

[Ciaran]

1. Sky Sports. That's it, that's the tweet post.

[rachel1990]

1- Valtteri Bottas- Yes it could be extended to drivers in their last race but his sins deserve placing of their own. He did an outstanding quali but it was all for nothing when he took Perez out (it could be his final race as well) dropped down the field, got a 10-second penalty then hit k-mag by locking up (memories of Hungary 2021) and wrecked the car

2- the other drivers in their final race, K-mag and Zhou also had days to forget but k-mag did get the fastest lap. worthless but still. Colapinto also went out very early. (Perez was taken out but he is still claiming he has a 'contract' for 2025. Must have the spice girls held hostage or something)

hm Sky Sports commentary - 'Its been a long season' (despite both Croft and Brundle missing races) was said plenty of times and yet there were plenty of mistakes (how many Yuki's were on track??)

[dj_vicious]

Have to agree with the others here

1. Valtteri Bottas : Sloppy Sunday driving/

2. Red Bull: Verstappen apparently took out Piastri for funsies. Perez was spun around but managed to cook his clutch once again. The junior team drivers didn't fare much better.

[sswishbone]

1. Sky commentary booth - God, were they dreadful. David Croft mixed up names about as often as late-career Murray Walker did, with none of the charm, and Martin Brundle continued to exude the aura of the grumpiest, most bored old man you've ever met.
2. Valtteri Bottas - I really still think Bottas deserves to be on the F1 grid. Boy, he made it hard for me to keep justifying that opinion to myself today, though.

Regarding 1. Alex Jacques and Alex Brundle did even worse in F2, bigging up Isaac Hadjar challenging for second... when he didn't get off the line

[James1978]

Even though he's done an amazing job this year (as it's clearly now him and not the car given how much Checo has struggled) I'm saying Max for that first corner move - he was basically reckoning McLaren would jump out of the way for him the constructors to worry about.

DHM to Bottas for ruining two other drivers' possible last race in addition to his own - though it's true we don't know about Checo yet but can't really blame him for that one.

Also Sky commentators have been mentioned - one that stood out to me was Brundle saying Alonso had DRS battling Petrov in 2010 - no it was brought in for 2011 Martin!! (And Ted Kravitz also just said this was the first non-Ron constructors championship for McLaren - WRONG! 1974 they won pre-Ron)!

[TomPryce]

I'm sorry, but all the nominations for the commentators are actually making me quite annoyed.

The complaints here basically revolve around "um akchually" comments about human error, something that Murray Walker was not only celebrated for but cemented his legend status. Mistaking Marti for Hadjar I think is totally understandable in the melee of the start, and Brundle not remembering DRS rules 14 YEARS AGO is such a tiny thing.

If anything, nominating Croft would be understandable given the fact Abu Dhabi 2021 is STILL being mentioned, or overhyping certain drivers, or the quite pointed talk when Verstappen hit Piastri.

In short, shitting on the commentary team over and over again is so boring.

My noms:

Final Race drivers: Bottas would be the top of this list for his clumsy move.

Verstappen: such a stupid move, really.

[Salamander]

The complaints here basically revolve around "um akchually" comments about human error, something that Murray Walker was not only celebrated for but cemented his legend status.

The reason it cemented Murray Walker's legend status is because he had the charm, enthusiasm and genuine love of the sport, and that was why such errors were easily forgiven. Croft and Brundle always have the air of know-it-alls, and often don't actually sound like they're enjoying themselves. As such, any faults in their commentary are a lot more grating.

[RAK]

My ROTR candidates are the final race drivers - none of them had a good performance and of them, only Colapinto really looks like he could be excused with any chance of a decent drive in the future.

[Meatwad]

Valtteri Bottas: A disaster, shame to see his career end on such a low.

Dishonorable non-F1 mention to Eurosport for cutting off the Formula E broadcast to show bathplugging cycling. They should let someone who actually cares about the series have the broadcasting rights.

[Wallio]

One again all of the nominations for the dreadful Sky crew prove once again why I pay for F1TV when I can watch the Sky feed for (mostly) free.

As for real nominations there is only really one for me -

Bo77as - Threw away the best Friday/Saturday Sauber had all year, and then worse to me, shite all over the team afterwards, calling his Sauber stint "a mistake" and claiming he regrets it. My guy, only other team that wanted you was Williams, you made the right choice. That said, he would still be my choice to pair with Herta at Caddy.

[Alextrax52]

Bottas for me as well sadly. I was so hoping that a 9th place on the grid achieved on merit in a Sauber was going to yield one final brilliant performance that resulted in points. Instead those hopes went up in smoke after hitting Perez on the first lap and then god knows what he was thinking when he harpooned Magnussen like that which quite rightly got him a penalty that just like Jenson Button he’ll probably never serve.

[Har1MAS1415]

Bottas: Last race for Sauber and quite possibly of his F1 career. Backs up his team-mate scoring the team's first points of the season in the previous race by qualifying in the Top 10. He blew it!