Your Reject of the Race - Turkey

[Ross Prawn]

Actually it appears that KERS is the reject of the race --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 088272.stm

[thehemogoblin]

Totally copping your "world champions" answer, Ross.

[watka]

I'll add another vote for Rubens, everything just seemed to go wrong for him whether it be his own fault or the teams, and he was just well off the pace of Button.

2nd place for me goes to Bourdais; last in qualifying, and last in the race. Toro Rosso seemed to have just been overtaken by everyone now, and I think Bourdais has done enough for everyone to agree that he'll never do anything special in F1 (I don't think he did that bad last year).

3rd place goes to Hamilton, simply for being outqualified by Force India's Sutil. In the race, he was slow as well, but you can expect that with as car as crap as the McLaren, and a full fuel tank.

Finally, would anyone like to see Piquet in another team? I'd say he could definitely go faster in a Williams or BMW Sauber simply because he'll get more attention.

[nit]

Barrichello is the obvious choice, but I'm going to take an easy shot here and nominate Giancarlo Fisichella for yet another early exit from Istanbul.

Give some credit to Giancarlo he did manage not to mess up the first corner!! rotr hmmm its a hard one but i want to say my chair as it broke it was such a good chair!!! but the rotr has to be............................................... the williams pit crew for messing up on Kazuki Nakajima pit stop as he was dead certain to finish in the points.

[Yannick]

Dropping KERS for 2010 makes perfect business sense as part of the cost cutting model. Dave Richards will be relieved by these news. It's a very strong statement in favor of awarding the Reject Of the Year award to it, which would be the first time an object, or rather a concept receives it.

As for ROTR, has there been any memorable performance by a Renault driver during this race? No, they were THE anonymous midfielders today. Even McLaren, though really bad for their standards, showed their capability when Barrichello tried to bounce back. Instead, he bounced into the back of Sutil, scoring a point in the Nosecone Destruction Championship. But this was just the icing on the foul cake. Clutch troubles at the start and a badly configured gear shift with effectively no 7th gear on a track with quite a few long straights meant he was not to recover from his bad start. Bad luck. It makes him the most obvious candidate for ROTR, because this result severly compromises his drivers championship hopes, just like the Monaco result did to Vettel's campaign.

Another strong looking nominee for ROTR would be "Overtaking - or a lack thereof". As good results as the overtaking working group's efforts have shown in all previous races of this season, especially Australia, there was seemingly nothing left of it anymore in Kurtkoy. No going back and forth whilst racing in packs of 3 or 4.

As always, Enoch and Jamie, you must decide for yourself, and I'm pretty sure you hand out the award to just the right entity.

[TomWazzleshaw]

ROTR: Reubens Barichello for his rather poor performance but as Brundle said the guys he was fighting should have given him a bit more racing room. His car didn't help either with the crappy start and the gearbox problem. McLaren were a close 2nd. 13th and 14th with one of their drivers lapped isn't normal for a team that was in the championship hunt last year.

[Captain Hammer]

I have to go with Piquet because he just doesn't seem to want to try to be anything more than mediocre.

Yes, because holding an aggressive dive around the outside of the reigning World Champion and then setting yourself up so that you'll get the position two corners later is the very definition of medioce. While it smacked of bravado, that was one of the best moves of the year, even if Piquet minced it going through turn tirteen (but that set him up to have the racing line into fourteen, so it's foregiveable).

Th above just adds weight to my theory that people nominate Piquet based on his past performances rather than the one he just gave.

[DonTirri]

Sure Barrichello drove bad, but I am nominating Team McLaren[/b] not only as RotR thanks for another unexplainably bad performance (They weren't this bad even during the bad days of post-senna), but I am also voting McLare as RotY.

[LukeB]

Th above just adds weight to my theory that people nominate Piquet based on his past performances rather than the one he just gave.

If ROTR isn't about petty minded vindictiveness against drivers we take a dislikeing to, then what the hell is it about?

[Captain Hammer]

If ROTR isn't about petty minded vindictiveness against drivers we take a dislikeing to, then what the hell is it about?

Petty-minded vindictiveness against drivers we take a disliking too based on their woeful performances, moments of brain fade or sheer idiocy on-track and off. Aside from a brake failure and having a bit of a nothing race, Piquet did nothing wrong, and made up for it with his pass on Hamilton and by doing so well in third practice. The fact that he's Nelson Piquet is not grounds enough for Reject of the Race; sure, he might be a poor driver, but I believe that is more Flavio Briatore's fault than Piquet's. There were bigger mistakes in Istanbul than Piquet's performance: Fisichella, McLaren, Barrichello, Vettel's strategist, etc.

[StoneColdSpider]

Piquet Jr??... naa he pulled off the overtaking manouver of the race and maybe even the season so far...
Rubens Barrichello??.. naa hes getting the 2nd best of everything these days like when he drove for Ferrari

i vote McLaren another pointless race and another race that see Hamilton getting lapped... he also got overtaken by Piquet Jr to rub salt into the wound....

[CarlosFerreira]

Captain Hammer mentioned Vettel's strategist; I've been thinking about it as well. It's at least the second time Vettel loses out and finishes behind Australia's Mark Webber on the grounds of strategy. And Vettel himself has been a little too feisty, too racy for his own good. All the talk about fighting for the WDC is getting to those guys! But I'm still voting for Barrichello this time around, based on my own petty dislike of him.

[Sitorimon]

Although there's been some great mentions I'll toss another one in: Bourdais - last almost all the way and completely anon all weekend. He's not helping himself

[Jack O Malley]

My votes for Barrichello (enough said), McLaren (no pace, no improvement) and Bourdais (for running last all the weekend)
...and to Fisichella, for NOT screwing it at the first corner, delivering us an absolutely dull, boring race.

Vettel's strategy is a good candidate as well, that made him lose even the 2nd place.

[CarlosFerreira]

...and to Fisichella, for NOT screwing it at the first corner, delivering us an absolutely dull, boring race.

Actually, Sutil should get that one. Starting from 15th, he had greater possibilities to cause a one mighty trouble, had he tried hard enough.

[bigslydoc]

Quite a few you could nominate this race. My top three would be:

In third: Rubens Barrichello
Button starts second and wins, Rubens starts third and ends up in about 15th before his car prevents the ignonimity of finishing that low. I don't know if Brawn has any kind of orders or preferential treatment yet, I suspect not, but Rubens can certainly expect them soon if he doesn't pick his game up.

Runner up reject: Vettel's pitwall
For trying to out-brawn Ross Brawn.

Reject of the race: McLaren-Mercedes
They looked more competitive in the first couple of races than they have of late. Not even Hamilton can buff up that piece of rubbish now.

[Nin13]

McLaren Mercedes haven’t scored in the last three races.
That hasn’t happened since 2004, when David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen finshed out of the top eight in Spain, Monaco and Canada.

So reject should be MCLAREN.............

[Captain Hammer]

I'm going to add The Organisers to the list, because they barely managed to fill 28% of the seats: just 36,000 people over three days at a circuit that can old up to 130,000.

[FullMetalJack]

[quote="Captain Hammer"]Barrichello is the obvious choice, but I'm going to take an easy shot here and nominate Giancarlo Fisichella for yet another early exit from Istanbul.
quote]

Fisichella's early exit wasn't his fault, he retired because of brake troubles. It has to be Barrichello, anything that could have gone wrong did. Webber and Vettel are catching up as well now.

[FullMetalJack]

McLaren Mercedes haven’t scored in the last three races.
That hasn’t happened since 2004, when David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen finshed out of the top eight in Spain, Monaco and Canada.

So reject should be MCLAREN.............

You mean Europe, Kimi and DC finished 5th and 6th respectively at Canada after the disqualifications.

[lostpin]

Definetly Barrichello. He was a whiner from the start of the championship, he's been filling the press with poor excuses, team mistakes and bad luck as if he's not the one who's making all the crap. Why Button never has any problems with the clutch? I don't see Button slamming into other racers or spinning around... This race sums it all up and a rotr is fully deserved..

[Alianora La Canta]

I'd like to nominate Max Mosley for continuing his ridiculous 2010 regulations, but that's not really Turkey-specific.

Instead, I will nominate Bernie. At a track he owns, he couldn't get the necessary people and systems in place to even half-fill the stands. At least he will do better than that at Paul Ricard if it gets the French Grand Prix - having no spectator stands, it is guaranteed to be 100% full!

[minrdi]

Sebastian Vettel's strategist is definitely a worthy candidate for not switching him to a 2nd-place-winning twop-stop satrategy. Quite why they thought they'd be able to make the margin needed over Button on a three-stopper (when historically this has never been possible at Turkey) is questionable indeed...

However, Rubens gets my vote for the race.

The accident with Kovalainen could easily have been avoided: Rubens had spent several laps behind the Finn and Heikki was clearly using it every lap along the back straight to defend against Rubens' advances into the final sequence of corners. On the lap prior to the collision, Heikki had to deploy KERS exiting the final corner and along the main straight to keep Rubens behind and would have pretty much exhausted KERS for when he needed it along the back straight. All Rubens had to do was wait and get him into the tight left-hander at the end of the back straight. Instead he attempts a clumsy move into Turn 9 from too far back and Heikki was always going to close the door. Rubens spin and drops further behind.

Faced with Sutil - not known for being overly cooperative being passed - he again sticks the front wing into a space it doesn't belong and promptly loses the end faring. Later a gearbox fault, and game over.

I feel sorry for Rubens in that the cards haven't fallen his way and that he feels unlucky. Luck in the F1 business is self-made through self-belief, and I haven't seen much of that from him. His recovery drive smacked of desperation, and he looked like an accident waiting to happen. I've seen other BRILLIANT drives from Rubens when he's been really on the money and just backed himself every which way: Britain 2003 immediately springs to mind. This wasn't a race where he demonstrated that at all: he looks and drives like a beaten man at the moment.

[TomWazzleshaw]

happen. I've seen other BRILLIANT drives from Rubens when he's been really on the money and just backed himself every which way:

Hockenhiem '00 springs to mind.
And I have to agree with you. He really is desperate to get out of Button's shadow and it showed... in all the wrong ways.

[Ross Prawn]

If you read this article http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/75948 it seems that Ross Brawn has some doubts about the cause of Ruben's clutch problem. He implies it may be more of a foot problem.

Rubens for ROTR.

[Cynon]

I vote Barrichello for ROTR for throwing away what was a sure podium -- it was a comedy of errors that was the main interest in the race for me.