ROTRs outside F1

[good_Ralf]

The ultimate in Winter Sports fails and you all know it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPCOin3l8OY

A certain ROTR for LJ. When I read that post I first thought you were taking about Eddie the Eagle.

[watka]

The ultimate in Winter Sports fails and you all know it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPCOin3l8OY

A certain ROTR for LJ. When I read that post I first thought you were taking about Eddie the Eagle.

A reject - yes, a failure - no.

[go_Rubens]

Random collage of ROTR for Le Mans:

1969 - Porsche 917 - Every one of the Porsches retired, and there were how many? Like, 19? It left an old 908 to fight with the GT40. Honorable mention to the Le Mans start.

1980: Any prototype team other than the Rondeau M379B. Admit it, the competition was weak, but Jean-Pierre Jassaud and Jean Rondeau just walked it in the end.

1984 - All bar Joest Racing - Joest creamed everyone, that's a fact.

1985: Rothmans Porsche - You bring new cars with factory backing, only to lose to 2 privateer teams with your old cars!

1991 - Peugeot - The cars can't win if their fragile, and the reliability blew everything apart.

1994 - The ACO - For calling off Group C racing, and essentially letting a Porsche 962C race. Even more egg in the face when the 962C won the race overall.

1995 - The prototypes - Should have won far ahead when all more or less failed, and a GT1 got the overall win.

1997 - The fires at Mulsanne - The marshalls were in a perilous spot in those 20 minutes.

1999 - Mercedes - It's obvious. Honorable mention to Ukyo Katayama's punctured tyre.

2000 - Cadillac - The factory cars succumb to mechanical problems and then their real chance in DAMS went up in shredded suspension bits on the track.

2001 - The weather - Well, an exciting race, yes. But for it to rain for 20 hours in a 24 hour race and cause chaos at the worst of times is very reject worthy.

2002 - The ACO - Why was there a need to add that curve between the chicane and the esses? Took away a good overtaking spot.

2003 - Audi R8s - Bentley, with Audi's own engine and drivetrain, simply creamed the R8s, despite Bentley's delays.

2004 - Panoz - The car was just poor.

2005 - #16 Pescarolo gearbox - Took away a certain win for Pescarolo, one they sorely deserved.

2006 - Anyone finishng behind the GT1 winner - Corvette so happened to finish 4th overall, and beat every LMP2 and most of the LMP1s, not to mention all the GTs. That's not supposed to happen!

2007 - Peugeot - Had every chance to win and blew it. Finished behind a Pescarolo, which the 01 wasn't really too good to begin with.

2008 - Spyker C8s - Both C8s out within 1000 km.

2009 - Audi - 2 cars fail and another delayed. Lucky to finish 3rd behind 2 Peugeots. Honorable mention to the marshalls for not removing that Porsche from the Mulsanne since hour 4 to well after the race.

2010 - Peugeot - Qualify 1-2-3-4, not one finishes.

2011 - Aston Martin AMR-One - Both cars out in 4 laps. Altogether 6 laps completed with 2 cars.

2012 - Pescarolo - For purchasing an Aston Martin AMR-One and rebranding it the 03. The car was still out within 20 laps anyway.

[watka]

Would have gone with JLOC in 2007 and 2009 myself, hopelessly ill-equipped and completed only one lap not once, but twice! Which is still more than Apicella managed in F1...

I'd put Allan McNish in for 2011 for THAT crash. Completely unnecessary incident, especially as it could have been his team mate that he hit and not the Ferrari.

[go_Rubens]

Would have gone with JLOC in 2007 and 2009 myself, hopelessly ill-equipped and completed only one lap not once, but twice! Which is still more than Apicella managed in F1...

I'd put Allan McNish in for 2011 for THAT crash. Completely unnecessary incident, especially as it could have been his team mate that he hit and not the Ferrari.

1) True, but I thought Peugeot could have done much better in 2007 even if it was the first year of the 908 HDi FAP, and they had multiple opportunities that went to waste. They finished 13 laps down, which is quite depressing to read considering they started on pole. 2009 in my opinion was Audi because the R15 should have been a contender but the drivers and Audi themselves did squat with it, and didn't deserve a podium after all their troubles.

I for one do agree that the McNish crash is 100% his fault. If he wanted the lead of the race that badly, he'd surely have waited until the Mulsanne straight? It was a horribly ambitious maneuver being only 50 minutes into the race. He probably knew the Ferrari was in front of the #1 car, but if he was overtaking in the Dunlop curve, he surely didn't know or could see where the Ferrari was, and expected Beltoise to move over? It's good he's okay and can live happily in retirement, but te incident was his fault. We could nominate Rob Kaufman in the #71 Michael Waltrip Ferrari for putting Rockenfeller in the #1 Audi in such a dangerous place and caused that massive shunt. It was the right decision to exclude him from the race for ignoring 10 yellow flags and causing that accident, as he should have seen the Audi coming up behind him. Rocky is very, very lucky to walk away from that, and that caused about a 3 hour delay to repair about 10 meters of completely destroyed barrier and recover every single piece of the Audi, as the car basically split in half and disintegrated from there.

But, even if the causes of the Audi accidents in mind, they don't really surpass the failure that was the Aston Martin AMR-One. The best car in qualifying was 22 seconds off the pace, and slower than the fastest LMP2 cars on a good day. The car was 12 seconds off pace compared to the old Lola B09/60 being run by Kronos Racing. The car had hideous reliability problems as well. With both cars from a factory LMP1 team being out within 4 laps of the 24 Heures du Mans is quite simply unacceptable and just plain disappointing. Disgusting, in a way, to see such a poor performance. 6 laps total from both cars combined because of mechanical problems quite simply will give you Reject of the Race.

The fact that Pescarolo were desperate enough to buy an old AMR-One, rebrand it the 03, and modify it, still with horrid reliability is exactly why they get ROTR for 2012. Anyone in their right sense of mind would have stayed away from buying a customer AMR-One to race at Le Mans unless it was modified and proven to be much more reliable car than before. The fact that Pescarolo tried to make it more reliable when the whole project was really failed at the start and caused Aston Martin themselves to trash the cars halfway through 2011 is quite simply bad. ROTR by far.

[watka]

On reflection and looking at the bigger picture, your nominations are better than mine. In all your cases, it was a team who massively underperformed against expectation. That can't really be said for JLOC!

[Alextrax52]

A couple more from the 2nd best sport in the world

Pokljuka Mass Start 2012 (Men): Arnd Peiffer: As I said in the ROTY thread the former sprint champion spent the entire race doing stuff all trundling around running no higher than 22nd all afternoon and missing 3 targets coming home 30th and last while team mate Andi Birnbacher (Who I follow on facebook and who has liked one of my comments before) cruised to another Mass Start win.

Khanty Mansiysk Pursuit 2013: Andreas Birnbacher: Doesn't mean I can't nominate him for a terrible mistake in this race. On shoot 3 he hit all 5 targets but did so on the wrong range called a crossfire trick (where you stand in one lane and shoot at the targets in the next) had he hit the right targets he would have hit 20/20 and would have won easily. It's a gut wrenching thing to take in.

[go_Rubens]

I'll do another Le Mans montage.

1970 - Attrition - 8 finishers in 50 starters. Pretty rare and just plain rejectful. But the weather was bad, too.

1971 - Porsche's Opposition - Had no answer come race day.

1981 - Safety - Could have been much better.

1982 - Ford - First attempt at Group C being its last for a good reason.

1983 - #3 Porsche's radiator blockage - It saw an exciting finish, but it shouldn't have occured. The engine seizing on the final lap and only snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in just a knick of time really shouldn't have happened considering the circumstances.

1986 - The racing itself - With 12 hours of great racing, came another 12 hours of "A Melancholy Marathon" according to the Le Mans: Official History of the World's Greatest Motor Race - 1980-1989

1988 - Jaguar's Gearboxes - Only lucky Lammers could limp the car around to take the win in the final minutes.

1989 - Nissan - The cars were competitive, but the drivers and the team really failed to deliver.

1990 - Mazda - Both cars out in 3 hours.

1966 - Ferrari - Had no answer to Ford, but then again, no one did.

1967 - Ford's drivers - Only Gurney and Foyt lasted, and they won. The other 5 cars could have easily challenged had they not all crashed or broke down in the night. In fact 3 of them crashed all at once!

1960 - Anyone but Ferrari - It was Ferrari's day all along. 'Nuff said.

1961 - See 1960 - Hill and Gendebien dominate again. Honorable mention to the sole finishing Corvette's engine for suffering a problem and putting their race in severe jeopardy until an ingenious solution was put together.

1998 - GT1 regulations - Allowing (more or less) prototypes to participate in GT1 was over the bar when it should be real GT or touring cars.

2013 - It pains me to give an award for such a sad race, but I'll award it to the three safety cars - The three safety car rule has logic behind it, but it breaks up great battles on track and seperates cars from their respective places. For example, thr first safety car period saw the top three GTE Pro cars gain a 2 minute advantage on the rest of thr GTs because of the blasted saftey car rule. That's unacceptable even if it's the first 10 minutes of the race when faster cars behind can make up 2 minutes. Listening to the safety car rants on British Eurosport was thoroughly entertaining. But then again, so was Damon Faulkner's claim to 30 different Irish words for rain, but only using "rain" for the whole duration of the race

[Alextrax52]

We had an shooting range at my school, and as part of Combined Cadet Force, I had to do some shooting in the range once. I was equally as pathetic, hitting the target not even once with about a dozen rounds.

Wait you got to do Shooting at school? Surely you could better than some of the biathletes though?

[dr-baker]

We had an shooting range at my school, and as part of Combined Cadet Force, I had to do some shooting in the range once. I was equally as pathetic, hitting the target not even once with about a dozen rounds.

Wait you got to do Shooting at school? Surely you could better than some of the biathletes though?

Yep, shooting at my school. Had to carry the guns past the tuck shop and then past the headmaster's house to get to the shooting range. Sensibly, they didn't provide the ammo until we got to the range. And seriously, I'm a lousy shot.

[DOSBoot]

We had an shooting range at my school, and as part of Combined Cadet Force, I had to do some shooting in the range once. I was equally as pathetic, hitting the target not even once with about a dozen rounds.

Wait you got to do Shooting at school? Surely you could better than some of the biathletes though?

Yep, shooting at my school. Had to carry the guns past the tuck shop and then past the headmaster's house to get to the shooting range. Sensibly, they didn't provide the ammo until we got to the range. And seriously, I'm a lousy shot.

So what rifles did you use? The L98A2 or the Parker Hale?

[dr-baker]

So what rifles did you use? The L98A2 or the Parker Hale?

No idea. Really can't remember.

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

BTCC 2001 Round 20: Steve Soper's engine, could have been a long overdue first win for Peugeot, in his 100th race as well!

[Samster]

Just finished up re-watching the 2007 Champcar season on YouTube. My nominations for each race, plus dishonorable mentions where applicable.

1. Las Vegas
ROTR - Sebastien Bourdais - This has to be Bourdais' worst race in his five Champcar seasons. First he qualifies right near the back after crashing out of the final session. Then suffers a puncture early on in the race, a yellow allows him to catch back up and eventually reach as high as third before another puncture drops him down again before finally hitting the wall ending his race.
DHM - Panoz DP01 teething problems - Only half the field made the finish mostly through mechanical issues and even some of the drivers lucky enough to finish suffered from refueling issues, costing Bruno Junqueira a podium in his first race for Dale Coyne and a win for Paul Tracy in the only race he was fast all season.

2. Long Beach
ROTR - Mario Dominguez - Slammed into the wall early on. Meanwhile his Forsythe teammate Oriol Servia brought in to sub for an injured Tracy makes an alternate strategy work to finish 2nd despite starting way down in 15th. Its no wonder he ended up replacing Dominguez once Tracy returned.

3. Houston
ROTR - Dan Clarke - Somehow managed to rear end Katherine Legge's already crashed car under SC which not only being utterly stupid, could have been very nasty had she happened to still be getting out at the time.
DHM - Tristan Gommendy - Stayed out during a SC while the rest of the field refueled so he could lead some laps only to then run out of fuel.

4. Portland
ROTR - Dan Clarke - Ran Graham Rahal off the track on one of the fastest parts of the track. Thankfully not causing a massive crash.

5. Cleveland
ROTR - Tristan Gommendy - Took out both himself and an innocent Jan Heylan.
DHM - Paul Tracy - For breaking his front wing twice in the first six laps, the second time taking out Junqueira. If he hadn't gone on to win the race on his subsequent offset strategy he'd be the ROTR.

6. Mont-Tremblant
ROTR - Sebastien Bourdais - Threw away the lead by sliding off the track on a restart then moaned about eventual winner Robert Doornbos 'blocking' managing to get a French-Canadian crowd to boo a Frenchman.
DHM - Alex Figge - 6 SCs this race, three were brought out by Figge spinning and stalling.

7. Toronto
ROTR - Dan Clarke - Stayed on slicks in the rain with predictable results.

8. Edmonton
ROTR - Robert Doornbos - Turned in on Alex Tagliani breaking the Canadian's suspension.

9. San Jose
ROTR - Dan Clarke (yet again) - Ruined his best qualifying of the season by driving into the back of race leader Justin Wilson under SC breaking his front wing and Wilson's suspension. Then just after the restart nearly takes out his teammate Doornbos and clatters into Legge instead breaking his second wing leaving Minardi USA completely out of front wings.

10. Road America
ROTR - Robert Doornbos - Managed to 'out-Clarke' his teammate by running into the back of him. Fortunately Clarke received no damage and went on to finish 2nd in one of his few good races of the season.
DHM - Paul Tracy - Hopeless slow all weekend, summing up his awful season where he and Forsythe struggled to get to grips with the new DP01 for most of the season. While Servia at least managed to drag his car up to 4th thanks to an alternate strategy, Tracy only outpaced Legge who herself was struggling with an ill-handling car and finished almost a lap down on the longest lap of the year despite no delays.

11. Zolder
ROTR - Katherine Legge - Got in the way of the leaders while being lapped costing Tracy two positions.
DHM - Dan Clarke - Caused a four car pile up in Friday practice getting himself banned for the weekend, this only doesn't earn him his fifth ROTR of the season because of the technicality of it not happening in the race.

12. Assen
ROTR - Robert Doornbos - Puts in his worst performance of the season at his home race, tooling around in the lower midfield all race.
DHM - Paul Tracy - While he wasn't as slow as he was at Road America a tough qualifying session left him at the back of the grid and he ended up being the only DNF via an early spin into the gravel.

13. Surfer's Paradise
ROTR - Will Power's pitcrew - Roll him out of his pitstop straight into the back of David Martinez putting him out of the lead of his home race and into last.
DHM - Will Power - Compounded his pit crew's error with a clumsy overtaking attempt on Legge that lead to him spinning into the wall.

14. Mexico City
ROTR - Team Minardi USA clutches - Both cars suffered clutch failures within the first six laps with Clarke out on the spot and Doornbos losing something like 25 laps and treating the rest of the race as a personal qualifying session for fastest lap.

[Samster]

Forget the Red Bull collision last week. The Lorenzo/Pedrosa/Dovi crash this week at Jerez has to be the bonehead move of 2018 thus far. In fact Lorenzo is looking good for Moto GP ROTY.

[Salamander]

Forget the Red Bull collision last week. The Lorenzo/Pedrosa/Dovi crash this week at Jerez has to be the bonehead move of 2018 thus far. In fact Lorenzo is looking good for Moto GP ROTY.

... I don't see how, considering it was a racing incident?

[Rob Dylan]

Started to catch up with this year's MotoGP season. And I just watched Argentina. What a bloody race, the last season or two has been some top-class racing; great stuff.

But the slam-dunk Reject of the Race was definitely Marc Márquez. In a race where he was predicted to finish about half a minute up the road from everybody else, where he had so much more pace than either the Suzukis or the Ducatis, he:

1.) Stalled on the grid and took up his place even though he got told to go to the pitlane.
2.) Got a ride-through penalty for that.
3.) Hit Aleix Espargaró when attempting to overtake him.
4.) Getting a give-place-back penalty for that.
5.) Crashing into Rossi and knocking him out of the race, for all intents and purposes.
6.) Getting a 30-second time penalty for that.

So at the race where Dovizioso was just hoping for the best damage-limitation possible, Márquez finished in 18th and out of the points.

The icing on the Reject cake was that Marc went over to Rossi's garage to apologise shortly after receiving the penalty, and the garage basically told him to get...lost.

[Dexter249]

been watching the WRC From 1997-now
so ROTY's/ROTR's from 97-99. interesting ones only for 97.
1997
Round 1 : Monte Carlo - Tommi Makinen for literally throwing it away at the last second, and Armin Schwarz for being the man with the honor, of the first man to crash a WRC regulation car.
Round 2 : Sweden - Mother nature herself, for not having the snowbanks of death and despair
Round 3 : Safari, Mitsubishi for rebranding Burnsy's Evo as a Carisma GT and Kenneth Erikson, for smashing a rock on stage 1
Round 4 : Portugal - The crowds, for pulling Group B style Crowd issues.
Round 5 : Spain - Francois Delecour, for crashing when he had a win in his hands, and Armin Schwarz, for crashing, again.
Round 6 : Corsica, DEATH ISLAND - Armin Schwarz, for crashing, for the 6th time this season, Makinen's Luck for crashing and almost ending his career.
Round 7 Argentina - Armin Schwarz, for getting axed and replaced with Juha Kankkunen, the Rally Driver with the best moustache of all time. Carlos Sainz, for having the worst luck of all time.
Round 8 Greece - Colin McRae - being Colin McCrash. literally every leader after - The Rally no one wanted to win!
Round 9 Middle Zealand - Tommi Makinen, for not helping his points lead, and rolling spectacularly. Subaru - Engine Gremlins, strike again
Round 10 Finland - Subaru - Engine issues, again. Didier Auriol - for wrecking his brand new Corolla.
Round 11 Indonesia - Toyota - for the greatest BS of all time "well he was in stage 11, in the middle of the stage there is a village and he saw a really nice holiday home there, so he stopped and is negotiating to buy that holiday home" McCrae - for McCrashing again.
Round 12 San Remo - Uwe Nittel - for absolutely destroying his Evo III
Round 13 Australia - Ford - for having more Issues. Didier Auriol - For doing Auriol Things
Round 14 Wales RAC - Didier Auriol for a massive Crash, McCrae - for not stopping Makinen

REJECTS OF THE YEAR
Armin Schwarz - for being the first man to Bin a WRC Car, he would never recover.
Marcus Gronholm - Showed speed, but couldn't keep it on the road, definitely a future champion Foreshadowing
Piero Liatti - even though he won Monte Carlo, he never was able to regain his speed, 2nd was his next best finish
Didier Auriol - EIN BAGUETTE! he couldn't find the luck he wanted, and ended up buying a Holiday home as a consolation prize
Ford - A rough year for Malcolm Wilson's new Effort, and with Carlos Sainz struggling all year, Juha Kankkunen having lots of issues.
Subaru - They won the Manufacturer's title, but nothing went their way, the same engine issues, plagued them all year, McCrae kept McCrashing and not much could be done.
Toyota - for creating the greatest BS i've ever seen.

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

BTCC 2018 Round 13 at Croft - Jason Plato, qualified 2nd, finished 2nd, still complained even though he hadn't qualified so high all season and hadn't scored a point in 2018 prior to this race.

[Salamander]

BTCC 2018 Round 13 at Croft - Jason Plato, qualified 2nd, finished 2nd, still complained even though he hadn't qualified so high all season and hadn't scored a point in 2018 prior to this race.

Sounds familiar...

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

BTCC 2018: Round 2 - Everyone on wet tyres even if the result was an absolute cracker of a race!

[dr-baker]

BTCC 2018: Round 2 - Everyone on wet tyres even if the result was an absolute cracker of a race!

Absolutely stunner of a race, especially trackside!

[Alextrax52]

WRC 2001

Monte Carlo: Peugeot: all 3 cars out by stage 3 with mechanical woes. HM to Colin McRae's engine for denying him the win

Sweden: Tommi Makinen: Crashed out of 2nd on the final stage, he wasn't to know that it would cost him a 5th title

Portugal: Mother Nature: Horrendous conditions led to a spread out field so early on

Spain: Citroen: Had the rally in the bag but horrendous unreliability saw a 1-2 finish turn into 0 points

Argentina: A water tanker truck: While on it's way to putting a bush fire out it loses control, tips over and wipes out both Skoda cars forcing their withdrawl

Cyprus: Harri Rovenpera: Plenty of crashes but his mistake was the silliest clipping a rock and breaking his suspension

Greece: Carlos Sainz's Engine: died on the final stage costing him a potential win. His season went downhill from there

Kenya: The Helicopter fiasco: The cars were allowed to do a stage with no helicopters on a rally with open road sections

Finland: Peugeot team orders: Neither Gronholm nor Rovenpera were fighting for the championship which made this completely unnecessary

New Zealand: Marcus Gronholm/Peugeot: Peugeot got their running order tactics of slowing down at the end of stages wrong meaning Gronholm had to go early and lost time road sweeping. Gronholm himself made mistakes including a jump start penalty on the last stage. Ended up 5th on a rally they could and probably should have won

Italy: Jesus Puras/Philppe Bugalski: Both crashing on the same stage which threatened to derail more Citroen tarmac promise. At least some guy called Sebastian Loeb saved the day with 2nd, whatever happened to him?

France: Ford: None of their cars were anywhere near the pace and were outdone by fellow Pirelli users Subaru

Australia: Nicky Grist: Failed to tell Colin McRae what time he should have been at the meeting where the drivers chose their starting place for day 2. This meant Colin turned up late and was forced to run first as punishment losing vital points

Great Britain: Colin McRae: Lost the championship with that spectacular roll. This probably led to him and Grist splitting the following year

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

BTCC 2018: Round 2 - Everyone on wet tyres even if the result was an absolute cracker of a race!

Absolutely stunner of a race, especially trackside!

It certainly was and to see Vauxhall score a win for the first time since 2012 and Proctor score his and PMR's first win after Rob Huff's near-miss at Silverstone last year! Not to mention Ollie and Jake scoring their first podiums and Boardman marking his return to the BTCC with 4th place which ironically would be the best result of the season for that clapped-out old MG!

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

WRC 2001

Monte Carlo: Peugeot: all 3 cars out by stage 3 with mechanical woes. HM to Colin McRae's engine for denying him the win

Sweden: Tommi Makinen: Crashed out of 2nd on the final stage, he wasn't to know that it would cost him a 5th title

Portugal: Mother Nature: Horrendous conditions led to a spread out field so early on

Spain: Citroen: Had the rally in the bag but horrendous unreliability saw a 1-2 finish turn into 0 points

Argentina: A water tanker truck: While on it's way to putting a bush fire out it loses control, tips over and wipes out both Skoda cars forcing their withdrawl

Cyprus: Harri Rovenpera: Plenty of crashes but his mistake was the silliest clipping a rock and breaking his suspension

Greece: Carlos Sainz's Engine: died on the final stage costing him a potential win. His season went downhill from there

Kenya: The Helicopter fiasco: The cars were allowed to do a stage with no helicopters on a rally with open road sections

Finland: Peugeot team orders: Neither Gronholm nor Rovenpera were fighting for the championship which made this completely unnecessary

New Zealand: Marcus Gronholm/Peugeot: Peugeot got their running order tactics of slowing down at the end of stages wrong meaning Gronholm had to go early and lost time road sweeping. Gronholm himself made mistakes including a jump start penalty on the last stage. Ended up 5th on a rally they could and probably should have won

Italy: Jesus Puras/Philppe Bugalski: Both crashing on the same stage which threatened to derail more Citroen tarmac promise. At least some guy called Sebastian Loeb saved the day with 2nd, whatever happened to him?

France: Ford: None of their cars were anywhere near the pace and were outdone by fellow Pirelli users Subaru

Australia: Nicky Grist: Failed to tell Colin McRae what time he should have been at the meeting where the drivers chose their starting place for day 2. This meant Colin turned up late and was forced to run first as punishment losing vital points

Great Britain: Colin McRae: Lost the championship with that spectacular roll. This probably led to him and Grist splitting the following year

Agree about McRae on Rally GB, at least another Brit was able to capitalize and claim the title....

[Alextrax52]

So I’ve just finished watching the 2000 CART championship and I’ve given retro nominations for all 20 races. All opinion of course. Ok let’s go

Miami: Engine unreliability: Castroneves, Montoya, Fernandez, Andretti and Brack all forced out of good positions with expired motors. DHM to Luiz Garcia Jr who spent the whole race being a mobile chicane until he mercifully retired with accident damage

Long Beach: Juan Pablo Montoya: Anything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. Had engine problems which saw him overtaken left right and centre, a deflating tire and then ran down the escape road twice before calling it a day. DHM’s to Norberto Fontana for a kamikaze lunge at turn 1 taking himself out and Newman/Haas for providing 2 of the most expensive barbecues in Long Beach

Rio: Alex Tagliani: A superb pole position but self inflicted errors meant no victory. Dominated the early part of the race but put himself under pressure by accidentally hitting the pit lane speed limiter. Worked his way back into the lead through strategy then threw it away by spinning all alone (how he didn’t cause more than just a massive smokescreen I’ll never know). Topped it off with another spin and a certain podium was turned into 13th. DHM’s to Oriol Servia for spinning out before the race even started and Dario Franchitti for spinning in the pit lane.

Motegi: Oriol Servia: To crash out before Lap 1’s over once is silly. To do it in consecutive races is plain careless. DHM’s to Ganassi Reliability which turned an easy 1-2 into 7th and a DNF and Penske for being absolutely nowhere all race

Nazareth: Michel Jourdain Jr: For causing one caution to be extended and another to come out with his own mistakes. The first of which also helped to ruin the Races of Paul Tracy and Christian Fittipaldi. DHM to Luiz Garcia Jr for a mindless spin under caution but he wasn’t the only one to lose it on cold tires so I let him off ROTR.

Milwaukee: Shinji Nakano: A short and not very sweet race. Retired early on with mechanical failure but when he was on track all he did was be a rolling roadblock for the leaders and caused a yellow with a tame half spin. DHM to Jimmy Vasser who was absolutely nowhere all weekend while Team Mate Montoya dominated to give the Toyota engine its first win.

Detroit: Adrian Fernandez: For one of the most self-inflicted retirements you’ll ever see. Tearing a strip off his visor he decides to leave it on the side of his car. It gets lodged in the back of his turbo and causes him to spin off and retire. DHM’s to Christian Fittipaldi for seemingly expecting Mark Blundell to disappear when lapping him, Gil de Ferran for forgetting racing cars have brakes and snowploughing into the back of Fittipaldi, JPM’s driveshaft for robbing him of a dominant win and finally Takuya Kurosawa for deciding blue flags didn’t apply him when he was already 2 laps down. Just a weird race all round.

Portland: Ganassi: Neither car qualified well, Vasser was wiped out in the annual opening corner pile up that always seems to happen in Portland and Montoya lost another decent result with you guessed it another mechanical failure. Tough Weekend. Thought this one was quite uneventful tbh

Cleveland: Team KOOL Green’s gearbox: Took both cars out of the race when they were on course for decent results. DHM to Pacwest for being slow and getting caught up in silly incidents. And Sly Stallone chose those cars to be the stars of his movie?

Toronto: Christian Fittipaldi: It takes some skill to have a collision in the pit lane. Bonus points for knocking off the whole wing assembly and keeping it intact. DHM to Luiz Garcia Jr (again) whose screen time in this race consisted of him either getting in the way of leaders or stopping with mechanical woes.

Michigan: Alex Tagliani: His first big performance since Rio and it ended exactly as it did there with a rookie mistake. Damn lucky not to clip Castroneves and send him flying too. DHM to flying debris as pieces of it from the Brack/Fittipaldi incident hit Gil De Ferran’s hand and so nearly robbed him of a championship year

Chicago: Team KOOL Green: Sorry but a collision between team-mates is always good for ROTR in my book. The fact it wasn’t the first time rubbed it in further. DHM to the officials for showing Tarso Marques a black flag when he was racing Montoya for position

Mid-Ohio: Ganassi: Another awful weekend for the reigning champions. 10th and 11th in qualifying, Montoya ran off track twice then ran out of fuel while Vasser was rubbish again before a crash with Dario Franchitti. This on a weekend where his future at Ganassi was in serious doubt. DHM to Team KOOL Green for an equally pathetic race with both cars crashing out.

Road America: Team Penske: Ulitmate Hero to Zero stuff. From a dominant 1-2 in Mid-Ohio to both cars effectively being out of contention before the first lap was done. DHM’s to Gearboxes which seemed to be allergic to the track as 7 cars were forced to retire with Gearbox failure and Lola chassis as Jimmy Vasser was the only man to finish the race with one

Vancouver: Alex Tagliani: An absolute mess of a home race. It seemed like he was given a remit to hit anyone and anything in his vicinity. Hit team mate Patrick Carpentier taking him and an unsighted Mark Blundell out the race. He then hit Tarso Marques causing him to hit Mauricio Gugelmin and take them both out. He topped it off with 2 separate incidents under caution firstly a spin then hitting a tire barrier before he mercifully retired the car. It was one of those Rookie performances that makes you go “what the hell”? DHM’s to Juan Montoya for running out of fuel AGAIN!!! and Michael Andretti who was nowhere all race.

Laguna Seca: Ganassi’s front jack: failed at Montoya’s final stop which stopped him from fighting the Penske’s and demoted him to 6th. DHM to Roberto Moreno for making a rookie mistake

St Louis: Alex Barron: I’m not sure what happened but how did he finish 14 laps down on the winner? DHM to Michael Andretti’s engine, Michael had his critics but he was untouchable here and it was taken away so cruelly

Houston: Memo Gidley: I know Papis slowed with mechanical woes off a slow corner but just how do you end up perched on top like that? You had plenty of time to get around him. DHM to Alex Tagliani for causing a late race pile up that eliminated Kenny Brack and effectively ended Michael Andretti’s hope of being champion

Surfers: Gil De Ferran/Oriol Servia: De Ferran Had the chance to wrap up the title and what does he do? Get involved in an accident with Juan Montoya taking them both out one corner into the race. Oh Gil. As for Servia that was a bonehead move on Paul Tracy, he should have lifted as PT clearly had the line and position going into one of the fastest parts of the circuit. The clincher though is that move saw Servia get fired by his boss over the radio. Big DHM to Alex Barron’s motor which failed with just 5 minutes remaining robbing the Dale Coyne team of an underdog podium

Fontana: Engines: 9 massive explosions, 3 of which caused big accidents and one of those nearly took out Gil De Ferran on his way to the title. DHM to Adrian Fernandez for one of the limpest races I’ve ever seen from a title contender. Never near the front all day and finished last of the 5 cars that actually made the end (minus a lapped Tarso Marques)

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

BTCC 2020 Round 6: Tyre Wear, though it did allow Nic Hamilton to score his first point in that old-as-billy-o VW CC, the same for last-minute entries Jack Butel and Ollie Brown. In general, I think the CC would be the ROTY for BTCC 2020 or at least a strong contender.

[Alextrax52]

Just finished CART 2001 now and here are my personal choices for each race

Monterrey: Chip Ganassi racing: The dominant team of recent seasons were absolutely nowhere with the top 2 from F3000 the previous year. They even touched at one point. DHM’s to Christian Fittipaldi who toiled in midfield while his teammate won and the final corner where the track surface started breaking up

Long Beach: Tora Tagaki: Spun off twice at the first corner. DHM’s to Roberto Moreno for punting Mauricio Gugelmin off under Safety Car and Ford as no one with that power plant finished above 10th

Texas: CART itself: Ah yes the fiasco that really accelerated the death of the series. It could have all been avoided had CART listened to Eddie Gossage when they first tested there about slowing the cars down.

Nazareth: Nicolas Minassian: Finished last, 5 laps down in a Ganassi, enough said. DHM to Michel Jourdain Jr who wasted a career best 3rd on the grid by spinning twice at the same corner

Motegi: Team Green: All 3 cars were quick but all 3 were also made of tissue paper and retired. Paul Tracy led the championship but his season would only go downhill from there. DHM to Honda for absolutely dominating most of the top positions yet still not winning the race

Milwaukee: Helio Castroneves: Having won the Indy 500 the previous week it was Hero to Zero stuff after he tried to pass Kenny Brack at the first corner and all he succeeded in doing was taking himself, Paul Tracy and a completely blameless Cristiano Da Matta out of the race. DHM to Tora Takagi for managing to get himself black flagged for taking Jimmy Vasser out of a podium when a lap down

Detroit: Jimmy Vasser: Crashed out under safety car while having a decent run. Even he didn’t know how he managed it. DHM to Chip Ganassi Racing who outdid their Monterrey performance by having one car spin and the other grind to a halt within minutes of each other.

Portland: The Penske drivers: There were a number of candidates for this one but for managing to be the only 2 who spun under a safety car I just couldn’t overlook this novelty factor. DHM’s to Paul Tracy for repeating Cleveland 1998 and losing a good result in the pit lane and Michel Jourdain Jr who spent the most time off the road than anyone

Cleveland: Bruno Junqueira: Badly misjudged the pit-lane entry and slammed into Christian Fittipaldi which eliminated him. DHM to Max Wilson who after having his pit box blocked because of Junqueira later hit Alex Zanardi when a lap down costing the popular Italian a decent result.

Toronto: Tora Takagi: An absolute wrecking ball performance. Caused 3 separate accidents at Turn 3 the last of which mercifully broke his car to stop him doing more damage. DHM’s to Team Penske for throwing a certain victory for Gil de Ferran away with a strategic gaff and Patrick Carpentier for spectacularly messing up a straightforward overtake at Turn 1 at his and his Sponsor’s home race.

Michigan: Team Rahal: They had this race in the palm of their hand and the 2 drivers ended up crashing heavily into each other. A firm example why you don’t collide with your teammate. DHM to Paul Tracy’s fuel rig which malfunctioned at his first stop costing him a whole lap. Considering he still finished 7th it lost him a potential win.

Chicago: Michel Jourdain Jr: From the highs of a first podium in Michigan to this performance. Off the pace and spun twice the second of which was on the exit of pit-lane. No one else really stood out for this one tbh

Mid-Ohio: Team Rahal: The drivers collided for the 2nd time in 3 races in a race they weren’t competitive in and at the home track of the boss. DHM to Chip Ganassi racing who also weren’t competitive and had both cars doing a spell of lawnmowering

Road America: The Officials: Hey let’s start the race with a near dry track except for the big patch of water on the fastest part of the circuit, Can’t see any problems here.

Vancouver: Alex Tagliani’s engine: Failed when Tags was on for a dominant victory on home soil. DHM to Kenny Brack who was seemingly on a mission to make contact with as many cars as possible culminating in him snowploughing Patrick Carpentier out of the podium fight.

Lausitz: The whole weekend: With the emotion from 9/11 still running high it’s right to question whether the race should have gone ahead at all. Then the race saw the sickening career ending smash of Alex Zanardi. A very dark weekend in CART history

Rockingham: Forsythe Racing: A poor weekend compared to their strong mid season run with both cars out of the points on merit. DHM to Helio Castroneves for passing 2 cars on pit exit by deactivating his pitlimiter ridiculously and dangerously early

Houston: Michael Andretti: Crashed on the exit of pit lane and then spent the rest of his race exploring the run offs. Didn’t show championship contending speed either. DHM’s to Shinji Nakano who hit his own teammate and team owner Adrian Fernandez. Also Alex Tagliani for crashing out of 2nd with just 7 laps to go.

Laguna Seca: Team KOOL Green: For invoking the spirit of Arrows at Barcelona 1998 by having both cars retire at the same spot within seconds of each other. DHM’s to Players Forsythe who’s teammates broke the golden rule of crashing into each other and Driving quality in general with so many yellows caused by crashes culminating in the one which left Oriol Servia injured.

Surfers Paradise: The onboard cameras: Looked like someone had put widescreen settings on as they were a chore to watch. DHM’s to Adrian Fernandez who just 12 months on from winning finished 19th with seemingly no delays and Paul Tracy’s engine which blew just 500 metres from the finish line when he was set to take 4th from a decent drive

Fontana: Engines: While not as bad as 2000 there were still 5 blow ups in the race and an incredible 15 across the weekend. DHM to Team KOOL Green who were accountable for 2 of those in near similar fashion.

[Har1MAS1415]

Lausitz: The whole weekend: With the emotion from 9/11 still running high it’s right to question whether the race should have gone ahead at all. Then the race saw the sickening career ending smash of Alex Zanardi. A very dark weekend in CART history

Lausitz really had it in for Italian drivers that year, first Michele Alboreto, then nearly Zanardi.

[dr-baker]

https://www.autosport.com/indycar/news/ ... /10339666/

This is a ROTR if ever I saw one!

[dr-baker]

https://www.autosport.com/indycar/news/ ... /10339666/

This is a ROTR if ever I saw one!

(Colton Herta was unable to win the race in Toronto due to his balaclava failing and so his hair fell into his face!)

[Har1MAS1415]

What about Patrick Friesacher and Antonio Garcia colliding with each other in the 2001 International F3000 race that supported that year's Brazilian GP? Since they were team-mates in the Red Bull Junior team at the time, they may well have foreshadowed Turkey 2010 and Azerbaijan 2018.

[Har1MAS1415]

1991 British Touring Car Championship Round 2 has to be Jonathan Palmer, nearly took out Tim Harvey at the first corner, then he had that infamous collision with Swedish lady driver Nettan Lindgren.

Dishonourable Mention to the flagman waving the chequered flag a lap early when there was no call to stop the race and also to Gary Ayles' windscreen wiper arm coming off and earning him a disqualification and the Vauxhall drivers' tyre degradation.

[Har1MAS1415]

The current rules on track limits in the British Touring Car Championship have just become a strong contender for ROTY for this BTCC Season in my opinion. They certainly earned the Reject of the Race Award for Race 3 at Brands Hatch today! Seriously! What was Ricky Collard supposed to do? Just let Ash Sutton past when a potential first win was on the cards? I agree 100% with former Champion Tim Harvey's sentiments on the subject of track limits!

[Har1MAS1415]

The current rules on track limits in the British Touring Car Championship have just become a strong contender for ROTY for this BTCC Season in my opinion. They certainly earned the Reject of the Race Award for Race 3 at Brands Hatch today! Seriously! What was Ricky Collard supposed to do? Just let Ash Sutton past when a potential first win was on the cards? I agree 100% with former Champion Tim Harvey's sentiments on the subject of track limits!

Having said that, the Speedworks Toyota team as a whole would also be a prime candidate for ROTR in this instance as Rory Butcher's car overheated, George Gamble suffered a puncture and Ricky Collard tried so hard to stay ahead of Ash Sutton that he exceeded track limits once too often and earned himself a time penalty that cost him his first win. To top it all off, Ricky wasn't informed of this fact until he returned to parc ferme at the end of the race and all this after Speedworks had two of their cars start 2nd and 3rd on the reverse grid, almost their equivalent of Sauber's 2012 Belgian Grand Prix!

[Har1MAS1415]

1982 Paris-Dakar Rally: Mark Thatcher for getting lost. Lucky for him his mother was the British Prime Minister at the time.
https://www.tatler.com/article/mark-tha ... -mans-1980

[Bleu]

European Athletics U18 Championships today.

The pre-race favourite fails to advance from the first round. Best three from each heat advance with along with three athletes with best times.

https://x.com/AthleticsWeekly/status/18 ... 2447697346

[Har1MAS1415]

2002 FIFA World Cup qualification (Oceanian Zone) Group 1 - American Samoa, no wins and 57 goals conceded in 4 matches, including a record 31-0 defeat by Australia.

DHMs to Tonga and Samoa.