Grand Prix Rejects

It pains me to do it, but it's another nomination for Karun Chandhok. As we all see every time we open The HRT Thread, he's the one who ensured that the team who were stone dead last in terms of race pace last year didn't finish the season in that position... now he finds himself in a car that is definitely a step up (look what Heikki's doing with it), but finds himself lapped by that same car that is still stone dead last, driven by a rookie in his second Grand Prix. Come back, Jarno, all is forgiven.

Talking of Daniel Ricciardo, he was running ahead of Jérôme d'Ambrosio for about half the race. What is Custard doing?

Karun Chandhok: Obvious reasons.

I'm going to go for a different approach and say Nick Heidfeld. Making a pass on the wet side of the track, was just asking for a crash.

I have nothing new to write: Chandhok

Buemi, What a tool

I've had another thought for a mildly dishonourable mention, as opposed to outright ROTR: Paul di Resta. On Saturday, he was moaning that his qualifying position wasn't as good as it could have been because Nico Hülkenberg took his car over in FP1 and he hadn't had so much track time as he wanted. Remind us, Paul... how was it that you netted your F1 drive in the first place?

dinizintheoven wrote:I've had another thought for a mildly dishonourable mention, as opposed to outright ROTR: Paul di Resta. On Saturday, he was moaning that his qualifying position wasn't as good as it could have been because Nico Hülkenberg took his car over in FP1 and he hadn't had so much track time as he wanted. Remind us, Paul... how was it that you netted your F1 drive in the first place?

Mercedes....

I would say Chandhok orthe Ferrari Pit Crew, with an honorable mention to the TV directors

I don't think many people realise that Chandhok spent a full lap in the pits early on, so his failure to beat Ricciardo wasn't entirely his fault. Plus it was his first race in a year and let's be honey, he's not a great driver anyway.

My nomination goes to Williams. Barrichello retired quietly at one third distance whilst Maldonado continues to look completely out of his depth. How the mighty have fallen

AdrianSutil wrote:I don't think many people realise that Chandhok spent a full lap in the pits early on, so his failure to beat Ricciardo wasn't entirely his fault. Plus it was his first race in a year and let's be honey, he's not a great driver anyway.

Did he?
Not according the below.
http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2011/862/6879/pit_stop_summary.html

For me its a tie between Chandhok and the TV Director.

Despite Ferraris major blunder in the pits, Trololol's (Petrov's) driving and Renault's lackluster showing, reject here has to go to Chandok for his Deletraz-like showing. Who let this guy in a F1 car? I'd have taken Narain anyday over this fluke. God he was slow, he made the HRT's look like Red Bull compared to his mediocrity! Who is he to begin with and who gave him the bucks for the seat? He had no buisness out there regardless of weather or not it was his debut. I could name countless drivers who deserved the chance instead of this guy. IMO, Chandok by a mile.

F1000X wrote:

ADx_Wales wrote:

F1000X wrote:chandok. WHY U NO BEAT RICCIARDO?

First race back, can we forgive him for that?

No. Not when he's in a superior chassis against someone starting only his second Grand Prix.

Karun has had little time in the car. And he had a lot of problems in the race, which we didn't see because the cameras were glued to the front. Let's look at practise and qualy, he was fairly close to Heikki, good for someone racing the car for the first time.

mediocre wrote:Karun Chandhok for being "out of his depth" = being a complete nonsense bummer who did even worse than Yuji Ide could've done considering the pace.

I agree with this one - Chandhok is a nice enough guy and does great commentary, but he's just not cut out for Formula 1.

My usual three:
3rd: Williams F1 - setting new standards for anonymity. I didn't even notice Barrichello had DNF'd early on, and Maldonado just went nowhere. "Fall of the mighty", as some have already said here.
2nd: Ferrari pit crew - did everything right, except when it mattered most, and handed Massa's hard-fought 4th place over to Vettel.
1st: Karun Chandhok - Managed to get beat by even Ricciardo's HRT. I can't see an excuse, since the Lotus, even though it's no world beater, is a good way faster than the HRT, and Ricciardo must have roughly the same time behind the HRT's wheel as Chandhok has behind the Lotus' - it's only the second race weekend for Ricciardo.

Pepsibottle1 wrote:Despite Ferraris major blunder in the pits, Trololol's (Petrov's) driving and Renault's lackluster showing, reject here has to go to Chandok for his Deletraz-like showing. Who let this guy in a F1 car? I'd have taken Narain anyday over this fluke. God he was slow, he made the HRT's look like Red Bull compared to his mediocrity! Who is he to begin with and who gave him the bucks for the seat? He had no buisness out there regardless of weather or not it was his debut. I could name countless drivers who deserved the chance instead of this guy. IMO, Chandok by a mile.

While I do agree that Chandhok was out of his depth for the whole weekend, I have to correct you on something. I think you'll find that it wasn't his debut, and that he showed reasonable pace last year, or at least as much as can be shown in an HRT.

tommykl wrote:

Pepsibottle1 wrote:Despite Ferraris major blunder in the pits, Trololol's (Petrov's) driving and Renault's lackluster showing, reject here has to go to Chandok for his Deletraz-like showing. Who let this guy in a F1 car? I'd have taken Narain anyday over this fluke. God he was slow, he made the HRT's look like Red Bull compared to his mediocrity! Who is he to begin with and who gave him the bucks for the seat? He had no buisness out there regardless of weather or not it was his debut. I could name countless drivers who deserved the chance instead of this guy. IMO, Chandok by a mile.

While I do agree that Chandhok was out of his depth for the whole weekend, I have to correct you on something. I think you'll find that it wasn't his debut, and that he showed reasonable pace last year, or at least as much as can be shown in an HRT.

And unlike Bruno Senna in the other car he was actually fairly impressive.

According to FORIX, Chandhok didn't spend a full lap in the pits. His slowest lap of the race was a 2:24.536 in lap 10, when at that point of the race he was lapping in the 1:42s. That means 42 seconds were lost in that lap. Given that the pitstop report says his pitstop time for that lap was 31.879s (this is also checkable in the official F1 website, I think) there's a discrepancy of 10 seconds that can possibly explained by him spinning, destroying his tyres and pitting to change them; something that only himself can be blamed for.

Honestly, it was the most rejectful performance I've seen since Luca Badoer.

Nominees:

Chandhok was incredibly poor... Yes, it was his first race, but last, way behind everyone else in a car that is not the worst is bad... 2 laps behind Kovalainen.

Ferrari pit crew made a mistake that caused Massa to lose points in one of his good races. Is Ferrari hampering Massa whenever is beginning to recover?

Buemi. Is Alguersuari getting to him?

My ROTR goes to:

Vettel. Everyone has bad days, for sure, and I was willing to forgive the spin, the disappointing race pace and a 4th place in arguably what probably still is one of the best cars of the grid, but his call for RBR to 'up the game' when his car is now on par with McLaren and Ferrari and doesn't possess a big advantage any more was a bit, erm, pathetic. Besides, we made this idea that Vettel is in the same league as Alonso and Hamilton but when these two up their game and punch above their car weight, Vettel even gets beaten by his teammate (he said 4th was the best the package could do... his teammate was 3rd, way, way in front. After the spin he was 13s behind and he finished the race a massive 37 seconds behind his teammate. 37! ). It is not his team that needs rallying, it is Vettel, if he wants to prove he is worth of being compared with the Alonsos or Hamiltons of this world... And for this I vote for him to be reject of the race.

Nominees.

-- Chandhok is only half-understandable in his jeandenisrace.
-- Vettel made a decent World-Champion run.
-- Buemi - okay I'm not Nick's fan, but his vampyrish looks seem to be something of a true. Not even a word of being sorry about what he made to Heidfeld.
-- Webber was fast, but please, overcome your pride and ask Sebastian to teach you how to start properly and hold the lead.

Winner.
-- Ferrari pit crew's actions ruined Massa when he actually _did_something_.

Ferrim wrote:According to FORIX, Chandhok didn't spend a full lap in the pits. His slowest lap of the race was a 2:24.536 in lap 10, when at that point of the race he was lapping in the 1:42s. That means 42 seconds were lost in that lap. Given that the pitstop report says his pitstop time for that lap was 31.879s (this is also checkable in the official F1 website, I think) there's a discrepancy of 10 seconds that can possibly explained by him spinning, destroying his tyres and pitting to change them; something that only himself can be blamed for.

Honestly, it was the most rejectful performance I've seen since Luca Badoer.

In many ways, you could argue that Chandhok's performance was worse than Badoer - I believe that Chandhok went off track more times than Badoer did, and Badoer didn't finish two laps behind his own team mate (he was lapped in Valencia, but - just - still on the lead lap in the Belgian GP).

Also, it's worth noting that Badoer hadn't even sat in the car, save for a day of straight line testing after Massa's accident, for over six months - whereas Chandhok has been allowed to drive the car in four practise sessions this year, including Valencia and Silverstone (i.e. the previous two race weekends). I suppose that I had failed to mention it earlier, but Chandhok has not done himself any favours; he was not just slow, but error prone to boot.

Having just got back from Nurburgring, firstly i would like to nominate the weather for being so incredibly cold: has there ever been such a cold weekend at a Grand Prix?
But honestly, this weekend the nominees must be Chandhok or Williams, Karun being completely inept, and Williams completely invisible...

Also a question: when Liuzzi didn't take part in 1st practise on Friday (replaced by Karthikeyan) was this the first practice session that an Italian had never taken place in? (excluding Indy 500) Thanks in advance for anyone with answers!

In responce to Chandhok. I was unaware of him spinning on lap 10 (for about the 19th time in the weekend). All i saw was his gap to Ricciardo had increased from 4 seconds to 74 seconds in one lap, and also noticed a Lotus in the pits, so I just put two and two together and assumed he had a problem. He was poor though.

coloni_subaru wrote:Also a question: when Liuzzi didn't take part in 1st practise on Friday (replaced by Karthikeyan) was this the first practice session that an Italian had never taken place in? (excluding Indy 500) Thanks in advance for anyone with answers!

This is kinda... Probable! I think it's really so, but can't answer definitely. I second this question!