Grand Prix Rejects

Barbazza wrote:I think the Sky commentary team deserve a mention as well. I lost count of the number of times that they called a driver wrong, especially in the first half of the race.
Crofty: "There's Ricciardo"..... Me: "No, it's clearly Vergne."
Crofty: "Vergne ahead of Raikkonen..." Me: "<Sigh> That's Ricciardo..."
etc etc

Yeah i get a bit irked when commentators get things wrong but we can't always be perfect. And hey unlike Jonathan Legard at least Crofty corrects himself and apologizes. The Toro Rosso's do look largely similar with the Red Bull backed helmets. And we though we'd have trouble telling Hamilton and Rosberg apart

Kimi-ICE wrote: And we though we'd have trouble telling Hamilton and Rosberg apart

Hamilton has a deep yellow helmet and Rosberg has a bright yellow one, for confirmation.

KimiICE, I know what you mean, but at the time Ricciardo was running at the front and Vergne was in about 16th - just by looking at the cars around them it should have been easy to spot which one it was!

Oh, and Jonny83 - you're spot on with that observation actually, that is the nub of the problem.

good_Ralf wrote:

Kimi-ICE wrote: And we though we'd have trouble telling Hamilton and Rosberg apart

Hamilton has a deep yellow helmet and Rosberg has a bright yellow one, for confirmation.

At the start of the year is when we would have trouble telling them apart but now it's easy.

That's why we also have the coloured T-Bars as well. Rosberg's is plain black while Hamilton's is yellow. I must admit that now the fluorescent Red has gone I love the look of all 22 cars instead of the 2nd car. Same for all the GP2 cars as well. I was never a fan of the fluorescent Red and i'm glad it's gone

1: Pirelli. 'Nuff said
2: The crowd. Not for the whole booing/cheering thing, but for many deciding to storm the toilets during the safety car period. I was up and down letting people past me like a yo-yo.

I dont want Pirelli to get the ROTR. The award implies that somehow the race was ruined or made lesser. But that was not the case, the blowouts added tremendously to the race. In fact, if you add in Vettel's dead 6th gear and Rosberg's left rear tyre that started to deform and was about to blow just as he snuck into the pits (following the safety car because of Vettel's stricken Red Bull), it was a fireworks display of unreliability not seen in ages!

Safety reasons change things but then the award should go to the debris that showered Kimi after Vergne's tyre blew out. Something hit him in the head and there was a piece that was smoldering on in his cockpit. Surely that is a craptacular ROTR moment.

As for the crowd cheering Vettel's retirement, we have to take into account the way he inherited the lead from favourite Hamilton. It seemed more like poetic justice than vitriol.

Sublime_FA11C wrote:I dont want Pirelli to get the ROTR. The award implies that somehow the race was ruined or made lesser. But that was not the case, the blowouts added tremendously to the race. In fact, if you add in Vettel's dead 6th gear and Rosberg's left rear tyre that started to deform and was about to blow just as he snuck into the pits (following the safety car because of Vettel's stricken Red Bull), it was a fireworks display of unreliability not seen in ages!

Safety reasons change things but then the award should go to the debris that showered Kimi after Vergne's tyre blew out. Something hit him in the head and there was a piece that was smoldering on in his cockpit. Surely that is a craptacular ROTR moment.

As for the crowd cheering Vettel's retirement, we have to take into account the way he inherited the lead from favourite Hamilton. It seemed more like poetic justice than vitriol.

The number of Pirelli tyre failures and DNFs was too damn high.

Sublime_FA11C wrote:I dont want Pirelli to get the ROTR. The award implies that somehow the race was ruined or made lesser. But that was not the case, the blowouts added tremendously to the race. In fact, if you add in Vettel's dead 6th gear and Rosberg's left rear tyre that started to deform and was about to blow just as he snuck into the pits (following the safety car because of Vettel's stricken Red Bull), it was a fireworks display of unreliability not seen in ages!

Safety reasons change things but then the award should go to the debris that showered Kimi after Vergne's tyre blew out. Something hit him in the head and there was a piece that was smoldering on in his cockpit. Surely that is a craptacular ROTR moment.

As for the crowd cheering Vettel's retirement, we have to take into account the way he inherited the lead from favourite Hamilton. It seemed more like poetic justice than vitriol.

So you're saying the crowd thought that it was Vettel's fault that Hamilton had a tyre failure?

Hound55 wrote:I think I am going to have to agree. Pirelli isn't entirely at fault, but I don't believe the teams are either. They made the call to keep the tires because it would hurt their competitiveness, but also because they felt that safety wasn't as big of an issue as claimed. I don't remember that many instances of tires exploding like that (Massa in Bahrain comes to mind, but I can't think of any others), so I can't blame the teams for their apprehensiveness. Pirelli saw the same number of catastrophic tire failures as the teams did, so its not like they were particularly expectant of what happened at Silverstone.

Nobody predicted that, so it can't be anyone's fault. But, if the teams and Pirelli choose to mud-sling as opposed to cooperate following this embarrassing fiasco, then we can apply blame to the parties involved.

I think people are confusing two different things. Sure Pirelli were asked to produce a tyre where the tread would wear out and it would lose grip after a few laps. We could debate the rights and wrongs of that but it is what they were asked to do. They were NOT asked to produce a tyre that randomly explodes at 200mph, and the fact that they are low grip tyres does not excuse the sort of structural failures that occured. In fact the tyres were exploding before the tread had worn out, its nothing to do with tyre wear. Whilst some teams did block the last tyre changes on performance grounds, that was only to be expected as the teams never all agree on anything. Pirelli and the FIA had the right, and the duty, to mandate tyre changes for safety reasons. This they did not do, and Pirelli for publicity reasons downplayed the safety issues with the tyres. It certainly is Pirelli's fault, and also the fault of the FIA for not decisively dealing with the issues of tyre safety and the need for testing before now.

wsrgo wrote:

Sublime_FA11C wrote:I dont want Pirelli to get the ROTR. The award implies that somehow the race was ruined or made lesser. But that was not the case, the blowouts added tremendously to the race. In fact, if you add in Vettel's dead 6th gear and Rosberg's left rear tyre that started to deform and was about to blow just as he snuck into the pits (following the safety car because of Vettel's stricken Red Bull), it was a fireworks display of unreliability not seen in ages!

Safety reasons change things but then the award should go to the debris that showered Kimi after Vergne's tyre blew out. Something hit him in the head and there was a piece that was smoldering on in his cockpit. Surely that is a craptacular ROTR moment.

As for the crowd cheering Vettel's retirement, we have to take into account the way he inherited the lead from favourite Hamilton. It seemed more like poetic justice than vitriol.

So you're saying the crowd thought that it was Vettel's fault that Hamilton had a tyre failure?

No, i'm saying they Vettel lucked into a near certain victory, and then lucked out of it. Hamilton's tyre is unimportant here. Does anyone belive that had Vettel passed Hamilton clean, then went onto to win that the crowd would boo him? He got boos for the Multi-21-gate and for winning to much. Maybe the F1 world would like a period where German aces aren't dominating so much. Germany being purely coincidental here . It would have been the same if Schumi and Vettel were Azerbaijani.

Ross Prawn wrote:

Hound55 wrote:I think I am going to have to agree. Pirelli isn't entirely at fault, but I don't believe the teams are either. They made the call to keep the tires because it would hurt their competitiveness, but also because they felt that safety wasn't as big of an issue as claimed. I don't remember that many instances of tires exploding like that (Massa in Bahrain comes to mind, but I can't think of any others), so I can't blame the teams for their apprehensiveness. Pirelli saw the same number of catastrophic tire failures as the teams did, so its not like they were particularly expectant of what happened at Silverstone.

Nobody predicted that, so it can't be anyone's fault. But, if the teams and Pirelli choose to mud-sling as opposed to cooperate following this embarrassing fiasco, then we can apply blame to the parties involved.

I think people are confusing two different things. Sure Pirelli were asked to produce a tyre where the tread would wear out and it would lose grip after a few laps. We could debate the rights and wrongs of that but it is what they were asked to do. They were NOT asked to produce a tyre that randomly explodes at 200mph, and the fact that they are low grip tyres does not excuse the sort of structural failures that occured. In fact the tyres were exploding before the tread had worn out, its nothing to do with tyre wear. Whilst some teams did block the last tyre changes on performance grounds, that was only to be expected as the teams never all agree on anything. Pirelli and the FIA had the right, and the duty, to mandate tyre changes for safety reasons. This they did not do, and Pirelli for publicity reasons downplayed the safety issues with the tyres. It certainly is Pirelli's fault, and also the fault of the FIA for not decisively dealing with the issues of tyre safety and the need for testing before now.

Thanks for the sensible assessment of the situation. As you say, this isn't a case of Pirelli making tyres that wear, it's a safety issue. The Grand Prix was lucky that there wasn't a more dangerous accident, as it could well have ended with the injury or death of a driver.

Sublime_FA11C wrote: Maybe the F1 world would like a period where German aces aren't dominating so much. Germany being purely coincidental here . It would have been the same if Schumi and Vettel were Azerbaijani.

Well with Rosberg having a breakthrough season I don't see Germany's sparkle wearing off anytime soon. As i mentioned in the German GP Thread Rosberg and Vettel combined have taken 6 poles 5 wins and 7 podiums this season so now we are probably happy Schumacher retired because who knows what he could have done in the car as he was doing better than Rosberg when the Merc became a crapbox last season.

I like to think of Rosberg as half-Finnish though.

I also must point out that I am not anti-German despite my current dislike of Vettel and the Schumachers before that (in fact I think I disliked Ralf more than Michael despite him being less successful!!). I liked Frentzen, Heidfeld and Glock when they were in F1, I like Rosberg and Sutil and don't mind Hulkenberg (though I do think his fits of anger are rather amusing).

James1978 wrote:I like to think of Rosberg as half-Finnish though.

I also must point out that I am not anti-German despite my current dislike of Vettel and the Schumachers before that (in fact I think I disliked Ralf more than Michael despite him being less successful!!). I liked Frentzen, Heidfeld and Glock when they were in F1, I like Rosberg and Sutil and don't mind Hulkenberg (though I do think his fits of anger are rather amusing).

Some people say here Ralf Schumacher is as boring as Paul Di Resta. I remember on one topic that someone said that Ralf Schumacher is there to fill the uncharismatic void should Di Resta become exciting all of a sudden

James1978 wrote:I like to think of Rosberg as half-Finnish though.

Barely. His father is Finnish (who was actually born in Sweden himself), his mother is German, he drivers under the German flag (admittedly while still holding a dual nationality with Finland), lives in Monaco and can only speak a couple of words in Finnish. Our media and F1 commentators always think he's a Finn when he's successful, and a German when something goes wrong...

Personally I think he's about as much a Finn as he's a Monecasque.

Nuppiz wrote:

James1978 wrote:I like to think of Rosberg as half-Finnish though.

Barely. His father is Finnish (who was actually born in Sweden himself), his mother is German, he drivers under the German flag (admittedly while still holding a dual nationality with Finland), lives in Monaco and can only speak a couple of words in Finnish. Our media and F1 commentators always think he's a Finn when he's successful, and a German when something goes wrong...

Personally I think he's about as much a Finn as he's a Monecasque.

So basically, he's Finland's equivalent of Andy Murray.

East Londoner wrote:

Nuppiz wrote:

James1978 wrote:I like to think of Rosberg as half-Finnish though.

Barely. His father is Finnish (who was actually born in Sweden himself), his mother is German, he drivers under the German flag (admittedly while still holding a dual nationality with Finland), lives in Monaco and can only speak a couple of words in Finnish. Our media and F1 commentators always think he's a Finn when he's successful, and a German when something goes wrong...

Personally I think he's about as much a Finn as he's a Monecasque.

So basically, he's Finland's equivalent of Andy Murray.

Hell yeah. British when he wins, Scot when he chokes.

East Londoner wrote:

Nuppiz wrote:

James1978 wrote:I like to think of Rosberg as half-Finnish though.

Barely. His father is Finnish (who was actually born in Sweden himself), his mother is German, he drivers under the German flag (admittedly while still holding a dual nationality with Finland), lives in Monaco and can only speak a couple of words in Finnish. Our media and F1 commentators always think he's a Finn when he's successful, and a German when something goes wrong...

Personally I think he's about as much a Finn as he's a Monecasque.

So basically, he's Finland's equivalent of Andy Murray.

Yes indeed.

Absolutely loved going to my first Grand Prix, will definitely be going again.

wsrgo wrote:5. THE BOOING BRITISH CROWD: Xenophobia reigns supreme as first Vettel is booed after a gearbox failure, and they then mete out the same treatment to Alonso because he deprived their darling of a 'heroic' podium finish (funny how people forgot Massa's charge, because IMO his charge was in no way worse than Hamilton's).

I was also cheering when Vettel went out (I was actually hugged by the woman next to me she was so overjoyed, to the chagrin of her husband), to say it was driven by xenophobia is clearly ludicrous considering the lead was taken by another German. There was some excellent racing between Pic and VDG at the back I tried to catch on camera as I knew it wouldn't be shown on TV (seems a shame), and will put it on youtube if it's watchable and anyone's interested.

Obviously ROTR goes to Pirelli, though Christian Horner runs a close second for looking (and sounding) so dissapointed despite one of his drivers coming second, and coming mere inches from a victory. He's clearly stopped bothering pretending he cares now Webber's announced he's retiring.

Also, I thought this forum was exaggerating 'Lewisteria'. It isn't.

EDIT - The idiots behind Coulthard/Jordan in the pit-lane on the round up are my ROTR.

Looks like we've got some feedback from Pirelli about the failures:
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/ ... 14748.html

I thought it was really rejectful during the race that the teams were seen pumping their tyres to give them a higher pressure....

My other ROTR nomination would be Mclaren who managed to finish behind both Williams (and unfortunately we know how badly their season has been)

My nomination: All of the factors that have culminated in the fiasco that shall now be known as Lexplodo Pirelli-gate* starting with:

Pirelli- according to Paul Hembery, they knew the teams were running the tyres in a way that put them at risk of catastrophically failing, yet just sat around and watched it happen. And then sling the mud, blaming everyone else. Pirelli should have taken a much firmer stance with the teams regarding this, and failing that, taken a firmer stance with the FIA and forced through the changes to the construction on safety grounds beforehand, hopefully making it less likely this would have happened. The PR damage from doing either, would almost certainly be far less than that which has been done now.

The FIA/F1 teams/certain fans- Since before the lights went out in Australia, someone or something has been pressurising Pirelli to toy with the tyres in some way to suit their desires, which continued well after the Bahraini Delamination Incident, instead of allowing Pirelli to focus on improving the areas of the tyre construction that needed to be improved, and also blocking the implementation of what they did have for an improved tyre. Now they scramble about trying to fix it, while slinging mud every which way.

Those are the two biggest ones I can think of off hand.

*- "Lexplodo" is a combination of Leopoldo(Pirelli) and explode, thought it would be a good(or perhaps really rejectful) pun. Feel free to come up with better -gate titles.

Nuppiz wrote:Barely. His father is Finnish (who was actually born in Sweden himself), his mother is German, he drivers under the German flag (admittedly while still holding a dual nationality with Finland), lives in Monaco and can only speak a couple of words in Finnish.

And I know what one of them is.

The Pirelli hate bandwagon is gonna end up turning me off F1 at the rate it's going.

East Londoner wrote:The Pirelli hate bandwagon is gonna end up turning me off F1 at the rate it's going.

Ignore it. Only stupid people blame Pirelli totally for the current problems. If people on this forum blame Pirelli totally for these current problems then they are stupid too.

You only have to read a small selection of articles on the internet to see there is no one party to blame but often stupid people dont do that.

Because they are stupid.

Have we determined who the Reject of the Race for Britain is yet so we may put it on the front page?

CaptainGetz12 wrote:Have we determined who the Reject of the Race for Britain is yet so we may put it on the front page?

No.

CaptainGetz12 wrote:Have we determined who the Reject of the Race for Britain is yet so we may put it on the front page?

I believe Enoch is currently somewhere in Eastern Europe, so I doubt we'll have a decision for a while yet. Patience, my good friend.

East Londoner wrote:

CaptainGetz12 wrote:Have we determined who the Reject of the Race for Britain is yet so we may put it on the front page?

I believe Enoch is currently somewhere in Eastern Europe, so I doubt we'll have a decision for a while yet. Patience, my good friend.

To be precise, he is in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina

OK, time for the long-awaited official decision ...

I'm going to go against the flow here and not give it to Pirelli, even though five or six blow-ups in the one race is certainly very reject-worthy. I think it's marginally different from, say, USA 2005 when Michelin brought a tyre that was actually unsuitable for turn 13. Here, apart from the impressive explosions, the rest of the tyres lasted and - it seems - were suitable especially if used at slightly higher pressures.

Instead, I'm going to join with those few voices who point out that the real culprit lies in how F1 got into this situation in the first place. To generalise I've decided to give ROTR to The Tyre Debate as a whole. Like I've talked about on other occasions, F1 has found itself in the invidious position where you've got fewer and fewer variables. You can't rely on cars breaking down and unreliability in general (notwithstanding Vettel's rare DNF here). Over-dependence on aerodynamics means overtaking remains difficult. Fuel stops were done away with. KERS and DRS can be effective to encourage overtaking, but not always.

And so it's come down to the tyres as the main way of spicing up the show, and Pirelli have had the poisoned chalice of trying to please everyone. And, as is their wont, every team would like the Pirellis to suit them. So we've been left in this stalemate where some teams have been groaning about the Pirellis all year; other teams have been groaning about the teams groaning about the Pirellis all year; we're left with the farce of NSSSMPTTG; teams were at loggerheads over whether the construction of the tyres could change; and yet it's still Pirelli with the egg on their faces after a few punctures.

It was just far too easy for Pirelli to be the scapegoat when the real issue is the disproportionate amount of attention being placed on those round black things this year.

eytl wrote:Like I've talked about on other occasions, F1 has found itself in the invidious position where you've got fewer and fewer variables. You can't rely on cars breaking down and unreliability in general (notwithstanding Vettel's rare DNF here). Over-dependence on aerodynamics means overtaking remains difficult. Fuel stops were done away with. KERS and DRS can be effective to encourage overtaking, but not always.

That means F1 needs to go back to the mid-1980s!
Or the 1970s, as statistically there were more different winners in that decade than any other.

good_Ralf wrote:

eytl wrote:Like I've talked about on other occasions, F1 has found itself in the invidious position where you've got fewer and fewer variables. You can't rely on cars breaking down and unreliability in general (notwithstanding Vettel's rare DNF here). Over-dependence on aerodynamics means overtaking remains difficult. Fuel stops were done away with. KERS and DRS can be effective to encourage overtaking, but not always.

That means F1 needs to go back to the mid-1980s!
Or the 1970s, as statistically there were more different winners in that decade than any other.

One thing that might be more pronounced when the new engines come in could be increased mechanical failure rates - Ross Brawn has indicated that he expects 2014 to see an increase in unreliability due to the increased complexity of the new drivetrain package (not just the engine and ERS, as the gearboxes are also being modified to eight speed units for 2014).
Although those parts are intended to have longer lifespans - five engine units for an entire season - he expects that some outfits might have difficulty reaching the full distance with the first iteration of these engines, so we may see an increase in breakdowns later on in the season as they approach the end of life of those engines.

mario wrote:

good_Ralf wrote:That means F1 needs to go back to the mid-1980s!
Or the 1970s, as statistically there were more different winners in that decade than any other.

One thing that might be more pronounced when the new engines come in could be increased mechanical failure rates - Ross Brawn has indicated that he expects 2014 to see an increase in unreliability due to the increased complexity of the new drivetrain package (not just the engine and ERS, as the gearboxes are also being modified to eight speed units for 2014).
Although those parts are intended to have longer lifespans - five engine units for an entire season - he expects that some outfits might have difficulty reaching the full distance with the first iteration of these engines, so we may see an increase in breakdowns later on in the season as they approach the end of life of those engines.

I read how 2006, being the first year in the V8 era, was also the most unreliable as teams were getting used to the new powerplants.
Hopefully 2014 will be a similar story, just with more Bianchi-style blowups. But then teams will handle the new tech better and super-reliability will return, re-slaying a major variable that can make F1 very unpredictable.

good_Ralf wrote:

mario wrote:

good_Ralf wrote:That means F1 needs to go back to the mid-1980s!
Or the 1970s, as statistically there were more different winners in that decade than any other.

One thing that might be more pronounced when the new engines come in could be increased mechanical failure rates - Ross Brawn has indicated that he expects 2014 to see an increase in unreliability due to the increased complexity of the new drivetrain package (not just the engine and ERS, as the gearboxes are also being modified to eight speed units for 2014).
Although those parts are intended to have longer lifespans - five engine units for an entire season - he expects that some outfits might have difficulty reaching the full distance with the first iteration of these engines, so we may see an increase in breakdowns later on in the season as they approach the end of life of those engines.

I read how 2006, being the first year in the V8 era, was also the most unreliable as teams were getting used to the new powerplants.
Hopefully 2014 will be a similar story, just with more Bianchi-style blowups. But then teams will handle the new tech better and super-reliability will return, re-slaying a major variable that can make F1 very unpredictable.

It depends whether or not you are the team that has just seen several million dollars worth of engine explode into pieces or not - given how expensive the new powerplants are going to be for 2014, a major engine failure would see you take a major hit to the wallet as well as your potential points haul. It might remove one variable from the picture, but it is one that most teams are unlikely to complain about.

eytl wrote:And so it's come down to the tyres as the main way of spicing up the show, and Pirelli have had the poisoned chalice of trying to please everyone. And, as is their wont, every team would like the Pirellis to suit them. So we've been left in this stalemate where some teams have been groaning about the Pirellis all year; other teams have been groaning about the teams groaning about the Pirellis all year; we're left with the farce of NSSSMPTTG; teams were at loggerheads over whether the construction of the tyres could change; and yet it's still Pirelli with the egg on their faces after a few punctures.

Not-So-Secret-Mercedes-Pirelli-Tyre-Testing-Gate?

FMecha wrote:

eytl wrote:And so it's come down to the tyres as the main way of spicing up the show, and Pirelli have had the poisoned chalice of trying to please everyone. And, as is their wont, every team would like the Pirellis to suit them. So we've been left in this stalemate where some teams have been groaning about the Pirellis all year; other teams have been groaning about the teams groaning about the Pirellis all year; we're left with the farce of NSSSMPTTG; teams were at loggerheads over whether the construction of the tyres could change; and yet it's still Pirelli with the egg on their faces after a few punctures.

Not-So-Secret-Mercedes-Pirelli-Tyre-Testing-Gate?

I'd say yes, but there's still an 'S' unaccounted for. What could it stand for... ?

Salamander wrote:

FMecha wrote:

eytl wrote:And so it's come down to the tyres as the main way of spicing up the show, and Pirelli have had the poisoned chalice of trying to please everyone. And, as is their wont, every team would like the Pirellis to suit them. So we've been left in this stalemate where some teams have been groaning about the Pirellis all year; other teams have been groaning about the teams groaning about the Pirellis all year; we're left with the farce of NSSSMPTTG; teams were at loggerheads over whether the construction of the tyres could change; and yet it's still Pirelli with the egg on their faces after a few punctures.

Not-So-Secret-Mercedes-Pirelli-Tyre-Testing-Gate?

I'd say yes, but there's still an 'S' unaccounted for. What could it stand for... ?

I have a feeling it's 'Secret' as in 'Not-So-Secret Secret Mercedes Pirelli Tyre Test-Gate'

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:

good_Ralf wrote:

Kimi-ICE wrote: And we though we'd have trouble telling Hamilton and Rosberg apart

Hamilton has a deep yellow helmet and Rosberg has a bright yellow one, for confirmation.

At the start of the year is when we would have trouble telling them apart but now it's easy.

That's why we also have the coloured T-Bars as well. Rosberg's is plain black while Hamilton's is yellow. I must admit that now the fluorescent Red has gone I love the look of all 22 cars instead of the 2nd car. Same for all the GP2 cars as well. I was never a fan of the fluorescent Red and i'm glad it's gone

The red T-Bar's always looked better in my opinion.

FullMetalJack wrote:

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:
At the start of the year is when we would have trouble telling them apart but now it's easy.

That's why we also have the coloured T-Bars as well. Rosberg's is plain black while Hamilton's is yellow. I must admit that now the fluorescent Red has gone I love the look of all 22 cars instead of the 2nd car. Same for all the GP2 cars as well. I was never a fan of the fluorescent Red and i'm glad it's gone

The red T-Bar's always looked better in my opinion.

They weren't bad between 2002-2006. It was only when the fluorescent yellow came in for 2007 that i didn't like it.

FullMetalJack wrote:The red T-Bar's always looked better in my opinion.

I think they looked better without colours, to be honest. But I prefer the fluorescent red since it made it easier to tell the cars apart. I mean, not that I have difficulty, it's just that fluorescent colours stood out much more.