Grand Prix Rejects

Cynon wrote:Lucas di Grassi - I don't care what the excuse is, you joined a rare list of drivers, Roberto Guerrero, Alain Prost, Kevin Cogan, and everyone who Adrian Fernandez took out in the 1996 US500 as drivers who CRASHED before the START of a race.

Don't forget Schumacher and Albers in China a few years ago!

After this race, Felipe Massa and Nico Rosberg so far.

So many candidates today. Here is a list of them:
Lewis Hamilton: This guy just can't get a break can he? First the accident on Friday, then he changes his gearbox, nearly gets pinged for blocking and finally he loses third on the replacement gearbox. And yet he still finished 5th.
Jaime Alguersuari: Daft barging match with Kobayashi cost him a point
Force India: Liuzzi gets taken out in first lap madness while Sutil's engine goes BOOM
Renault: Petrov helped trigger the first lap mess and Kubica ends up with 3 wheels on his wagon.
Rosberg's W-01: See Kubica
Felipe Massa: What a way to silence the critics... not

But ROTR has to be:
Lucas Di Grassi: Went of at 130R ON THE FORMATION LAP. What makes it unforgivable was Virgin have said on twitter that nothing failed on the car...

Lucas di Grassi. Come on, man. What on Earth are you doing wrecking your car driving it to the grid. It wasn't even the warm-up lap, and you decide to eat it at the 130R. Truly a reject move.

(Honorable mention to Renault as a team for being able to pack up by lap four.)

Cynon wrote:Lucas di Grassi - I don't care what the excuse is, you joined a rare list of drivers, Roberto Guerrero, Alain Prost, Kevin Cogan, and everyone who Adrian Fernandez took out in the 1996 US500 as drivers who CRASHED before the START of a race.

If it was down to driver error, I would agree, but the team are investigating the possibilty that Di Grassi suffered from a mechanical failure - so we will have to see what the team finds on the car. It could well be that something went wrong, because the team couldn't contact him via radio, and some of the telemetry systems on board failed prior to the accident - but we will have to wait for their analysis.

Hamilton has had pretty bad luck this weekend - a difficult Friday session, a replacement gearbox and finally a loss of 3rd in the race. In some ways, he was fortunate to make it to the end, but surely he is going to need a new gearbox, which will mean another penalty at a time when he can least afford it. Button, meanwhile, tried his best with a different strategy, but that early, and fairly long, safety car period hurt him badly, as the leaders could nurse their tyres easily, and then nail him on the prime tyres when they switched. It was an ok weekend for Mclaren, but unless Mclaren have a 1-2 in Korea, you sense that they have just fallen a bit too far behind, both on the track and in the points.

But at a time when he is under pressure to take points off the Red Bull and Mclaren drivers, and when there is increasing speculation around his seat, Felipe Massa gave us a perfect example of how not to do it. A poor qualifying session whe he failed to make it into Q3, compounded by taking out Liuzzi in an overly ambitious move; that was a woeful day for Felipe.
Massa is, frankly, lucky that Rosberg had a mechanical failure, otherwise he would have fallen behind Rosberg in the standings - when Massa has had the better car.

Felipe Massa - flunked qualifying then made a horrible T1 divebomb and blamed Rosberg for squeezing him there! What a twat

The race itself was a bit dull. I miss the Suzuka rain (remember 1994?).

OK then, I'll plump for Algurswari. Has he been penalised? Im sure you're not simply allowed to drive into someone like that (unless hes your team-mate and you really feel like it, of course).

Yamamoto's head as it didnt fly off.....

WIthout any proof that it was a mechanical failure I have to go for Lucas Di Grassi right now. Failing that it perhaps goes to Alguersuari for ruining a rare points finish for himself by playing dodgems with Kobayashi when the guy was already through.

Wizzie wrote:So many candidates today. Here is a list of them:
Lewis Hamilton: This guy just can't get a break can he? First the accident on Friday, then he changes his gearbox, nearly gets pinged for blocking and finally he loses third on the replacement gearbox. And yet he still finished 5th.
Jaime Alguersuari: Daft barging match with Kobayashi cost him a point
Force India: Liuzzi gets taken out in first lap madness while Sutil's engine goes BOOM
Renault: Petrov helped trigger the first lap mess and Kubica ends up with 3 wheels on his wagon.
Rosberg's W-01: See Kubica
Felipe Massa: What a way to silence the critics... not

But ROTR has to be:
Lucas Di Grassi: Went of at 130R ON THE FORMATION LAP. What makes it unforgivable was Virgin have said on twitter that nothing failed on the car...

More reject candidates than most races I've seen for sure. I agree with:
Jaime Alguersuari: Daft barging match with Kobayashi cost him a point
Force India: Liuzzi gets taken out in first lap madness while Sutil's engine goes BOOM
Renault: Petrov helped trigger the first lap mess and Kubica ends up with 3 wheels on his wagon.
Rosberg's W-01: See Kubica
Felipe Massa: What a way to silence the critics... not
Lucas Di Grassi: Went of at 130R ON THE FORMATION LAP.

I'm going to have to say massa though. The highest driver/team out I agree with on your list with the worst move this race. As I don't believe Virgin when they say no problems with the car necessarily.

edit:

coops wrote:OK then, I'll plump for Algurswari. Has he been penalised? Im sure you're not simply allowed to drive into someone like that (unless hes your team-mate and you really feel like it, of course).

Wheelnuts: Failing to secure wheels on two cars, Kubica's Renault and Rosberg's Mercedes. No wonder there is an interesting feature on wheelnuts coming up on the Beeb.
di Grassi: Probably "doing a Petrov" and trying to see how slippery the kerbs were.
Algersuari: You don't just purposely hit someone when they overtake you (unless your name is Vettel).

- Lucas Di Grassi
Retiring on the out lap? Seriously? This has to be THE most rejectful retirement of the season!

- Wheelnuts
Destroyed Kubica's opportunity to clinch at least a fifth position. He banged out of second place sadly. And Rosberg's retirement was also because of this. He lost his "Best of the rest" place (aka 6th) because of this.

- Felipe Massa
This time it wasn't Liuzzi's fault he didn't finish. Reminded me of Trulli's move in Catalunya 2009 on Sutil...

- Jaime Alguersuari
If Kobayashi would have had to retire because of him, I'd have thrown something at my TV, I swear.

- Force India
Bye-bye sixth place very soon.

Felipe Massa- poor qualifying and idiotic crash causing.

Runners up...hmmm....Alguersaurus for trying to munch Kobayashi?

Naturally there's going to be a fair bit of criticism going Di Grassi's way, from the replays it looks like he gets it too far on the kerb, gets a swapper on and the correction leaves him firing straight into the barriers. Doesn't look like a failure on the car to me.

Whilst that in itself is a pretty rejectful incident, I have to nominate all the under-fire drivers because pretty much all of them had a rubbish race today.

Di Grassi I've mentioned, there are a lot of question marks over his seat.
Hulkenberg, granted it wasn't his fault at all, but still out without having completed a lap, and whining about being held up in qualifying isn't very professional in my opinion.
Petrov, every weekend seems to have some sort of error, its now at the point where I'm waiting for him to make a mistake every time he takes to the track.
Massa, chances are he will be at Ferrari next year, but jeez he isn't helping himself.
Liuzzi, like Hulkenberg he was an innocent victim today, but a naff qualifying and another DNF isn't great.

Reject is Di Grassi for sure.
Man of the race (I know there isn't an award for this, but who cares) is Kobayashi for being a Kamakaze

simonracer wrote:Man of the race (I know there isn't an award for this, but who cares) is Kobayashi for being a Kamakaze

There is actually. It's called the Infinite Improbability Drive of the Race award (IIDOTR)

Wizzie wrote:

simonracer wrote:Man of the race (I know there isn't an award for this, but who cares) is Kobayashi for being a Kamakaze

There is actually. It's called the Infinite Improbability Drive of the Race award (IIDOTR)

Actually, it is henceforth called The Kobayashi award of greatness. Anyone who disagrees will be ignored.

Lucas Di Grassi - There is no excuse for that, it's impossible to think of one.

Massa gets a dishonourable mention, that's just going to make the rumours stronger.

I shall echo most people and say Massa, Di Grassi and Algesuari.

Oh, and an honourable mention to the BBC for bringing Legard back just as I was getting into Crofty.

Absolutely gotta be Di Grassi. Crashing driving round to the grid is just pure comical!

Honourable mentions to Massa and Petrov!!

Time will tell what the cause of Di Grassi's crash was, but let's not forget he outqualified Timo a few hours before and may have finished ahead of him - I don't think he has done enough to earn ROTR.
So I'll go with Massa.

edit: espnF1 says it was a suspension failure (bottom of article) so Lucas must be off the hook!

Much to choose from this weekend (Petrov, di Grassi, Alguersuari, McLaren's reliability) - but for me the awad has to go to Massa for consistently making very little of the possibilties his car was giving him throughout the whole weekend.

Petrov, Di Grassi and Massa all looking like good candidates.

I'll go with Petrov because it's another error.

Petrov, Massa or loose wheels.

All of them caused two retirements.

Di Grassi has to have earned EFOTY (Epic Fail of the Year)

Maybe if I do the awards thread for this year, that'll have to be a topic.

1. Massa - over ambitious at the start 2. Petrov - Great start but forgot to look in the mirrors..

BBC sound technicians for fixing the sound problems - the race was so much better with the radio commentary.

1) Massa.

2) Massa.

The old Massa is back. He's not been quick enough during all season, now he's also making tons of mistakes. Qualified 12th on the second best car out there. Let's accept Alonso is some kind of driving God; the third best car in the worst case. Crashed at the first corner and it was like he had decided to blame anyone but himself, no matter what. If that wasn't enough, his performance finished with whatever realistic shot Ferrari could still have at the WCC.

patrick wrote:Time will tell what the cause of Di Grassi's crash was, but let's not forget he outqualified Timo a few hours before and may have finished ahead of him - I don't think he has done enough to earn ROTR.
So I'll go with Massa.

edit: espnF1 says it was a suspension failure (bottom of article) so Lucas must be off the hook!

Even if it was a suspension failure, why would he be driving fast enough to break it on the formation lap? He should have been dawdling around at about 50 miles per hour for that lap. It's not like it was to warm the tires or anything.

So many candidates, so many fails:

Force India - Confirmed how off the boil they are in a poor qualifying effort, compounded by a double DNF.
Renault - Petrov swiping Hulkenberg was a bit silly, he keeps giving Renault reasons not to renew his contract. Even more disappointing with Kubica's retirement when he had the pace to fight for a podium.
Mark Webber - 2nd place is a very good result from a championship perspective. But he said he had the pace to match Vettel, so why doesn't he work on his starts! That's another poor getaway from him.
Loose wheel nuts - For both Kubica and Rosberg to retire this way is unbelievable. Sort out your wheel guns please! (I have a particular penchant against this since Henry Surtees' incident)
Jaime Alguersuari - Kobayashi was clearly through, do not drive into the side of him. This is not touring car (congrats to Jason Plato by the way)
McLaren - Button's strategy just didn't work and you could tell from the post race interview that he was having to stop himself from directly blaming the team by carefully selecting his words. As for Hamilton, 2 gearboxes in a weekend says it all.
Lucas di Grassi - Calm down.
Felipe Massa - Really poor in qualifying, and then a nothing move up the inside of Turn 1. The force with which he hit Liuzzi showed just how much excess speed he was carrying into that corner.

I honestly can't decide between Massa, Di Grassi, and Renault.

Massa for being out in Q2 and then in T1 taking another driver (even if it was Liuzz-less)

other strong contenders: Wheelnuts (losing with no qualification-error), di Grassi (losing with not taking out somebody else with him )

Bits falling off cars: part 2 - Seriously, Renault and Mercedes at it again? Yet again it was Rosberg, and yet again a Renault lost a wheel when it was in a very competitive position.

1. That bloke who ran across the pit lane when Kovalainen was barreling down it, almost causing a Kyalami 1977 in the pit lane (It didn't even look like he even saw him coming).

2. Renault - Kubica's tire falling off whilst he was in second is not a good way to capitalize on your race, and Petrov's actions at the start just adds insult to injury (Or I guess it was the other way around).

Rocks with Salt wrote:1. That bloke who ran across the pit lane when Kovalainen was barreling down it, almost causing a Kyalami 1977 in the pit lane (It didn't even look like he even saw him coming)

But with his svelte figure he was obviously confident that he could make it to the other side. Or perhaps it was Max looking for some new thrills.

thehemogoblin wrote:Even if it was a suspension failure, why would he be driving fast enough to break it on the formation lap? He should have been dawdling around at about 50 miles per hour for that lap. It's not like it was to warm the tires or anything.

On the other hand, it is called an installation lap for a reason. It's not just getting to the grid, it's a mini-shakedown - you're supposed to stress the car a bit in case something's not right with it. At that point there's still a chance it can be corrected when you get to the grid (or pull it into the pits if it's something big like only having 3 gears). At the absolute least you need to open full throttle for a bit and get up to top gear, also stress the brakes a little, make sure the hydraulics are sound, that sort of thing.
There's also the matter of trying to feel out grip levels on full tanks ready for the start - especially given the amount of rain the track had seen since the last time they;d been running heavy.

If he dropped it himself, he's a tit, but there's plenty of reasons for not just cruising all the way round at sub-safety car pace.

Oh yeah, reject - Massa - I'm just about ready to give Petrov the benefit of the doubt on the grounds of rookie foolishness, but Massa's got no excuse after this long.

Di Grassi, unless it was a mechanical one.
Otherwise, Felipe Massa.

tc3j3r wrote:BBC sound technicians for fixing the sound problems - the race was so much better with the radio commentary.

Seconded.

I haven't seen the race yet (long day), but the FIA have given Petrov their ROTR for his antiques at the start.

And there is the ROTR. Penalty for Petrov, not Massa!

wheels