Grand Prix Rejects

mario wrote:

Stramala [kostas22] wrote:However, for the win, it can only be one thing...

***WINNER*** McLaren Wheelnut Locking System ***WINNER***
What else could it have been? Once again, McLaren find a way to overcomplicate simple tasks, with fatal results. They give Force India their wheelnut locking system, and something as simple as failing to apply a wheelnut correctly causes a double DNF for the team, when it looked like both cars would score points. And then of course, the wheel nuts also ruin Button's race for good measure. First it was the electronic pit release debacle, now they've got sticky nuts. Not pleasant.

Slight correction needed here - Force India might have adopted a similar system to what McLaren use, but the Force India system was developed independently from McLaren (it isn't part of their joint R&D agreement or supply deal).

Perhaps "they give" was a bad word choice, however, we simply can't know if what you said is true or not, unless of course you somehow sneakily got your hands on the R&D contract. The point is, McLaren pioneered it, Force India adopted it, it screwed them both. Hence dual nomination.

At the end of the day it'll probbaly have to go to Force India (or more specifically their pit crew), though I really want to say Finger-boy out of frustration.

Has to go to Force India for their awful performance in the race. Honourable mention goes to the BBC for unreasonably raising the expectations for no given reason other than "they did well at Melbourne."

Force India, just for the pit shambles. Dishonourable mention to vettelwinslol, simply for acting like a bigger arse than normal, and then being a pussy with the fake apology. As a wise man said, a hollow apology hurts more than the original offence

Anyone that calls themselves a team, barring Marussia. Red Bull can't manage their drivers and Mercedes had a similar problem but to a lesser degree. Ferrari ballsed up with bringing Alonso back in and Lotus were slower than usual. McLaren were nowhere, Force India can't put together pitstops, Sauber and Toro Rosso didn't pay attention to other cars in the pits and Caterham and Williams were still disappointing.

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:

Pedestrian wrote:- Sergio Perez: This is probably a good moment for him to regret moving to McLaren. Beaten by his replacement! I bet Sergio is thinking now what he could have done in that Sauber. He came second last year, after all

- Button: I am conflicted about listing him here. On the one hand he was expected to do bad here, so his result is no big surprise. On the other hand he was doing reasonably well until his botched pit stop, so maybe he did miss out on a potentially good result.

Why are you not nominating McLaren? It's their fault the race was so bad, with the awful car and ruining Button's race.

Probably should have. I just broke the deam down to add more detail, since both drivers were rejectfull in very different ways. (Unlike Force India, where both drivers had the exact same problem, so they can be nominated as a team)

Where to start here?

Fernando Alonso - I don't know if it was his call or Ferrari's to stay out with that broken wing, but it backfired instantly. Still doesn't excuse the fact that it was a moment of sheer brain fade, which could've been much worse had Alonso torpedoed Webber at 150mph into the first corner.

McLaren - Total shite again, screwed Button's race completely after he'd worked miracles to get that high up the field. They must really want ROTY, because it's the only thing they've got a chance of winning at this rate.

Farce India - Somehow managed to convert a likely double points finish into a double DNF with, quite frankly, the two worst pitstops I've ever seen.

Kimi Raikkonen - This isn't the WRC. Strangly off the pace to boot.

The Reverend Maldolan -

Mercedes - Handbags at the ready!

Red Bull - Bunch of petulant idiots. Really haven't covered themselves in glory today.

Toro Rosso pit crew - Stereophonics sum it up better than I could

Bathplug it, ROTR is going to the entire bloody field. Just about everyone blew it this afternoon. Apart from Bianchi and Grosjean.

Force India - Because I cant work out just whatthehell happened!

mario wrote:At the same time, you have to wonder what went on with Alonso earlier in the race - clattering Vettel is an unusual mistake for a driver of his experience and calibre, and surely the team must have known that it would not be possible to leave him out there for much longer even if the wing didn't collapse or he would have been given the black and orange flag for being a danger to the other drivers (there is no way that race control would have let him drive round for several laps with a wing that was that badly damaged).

1) Quote Alonso: "After making a good start, I touched with Vettel at the second corner: it was a surprise to find him there, almost stopped and I don't know what speed he was doing...."

When Grosjean ran into the back of Webber in Japan last year he was a "first lap nutcase".

2) Force India wheel engineers - turned a very promising race into a disaster. di Resta must have lost 20-30 seconds queueing behind Sutil the first time, caught, passed his team-mate and got into top ten before a complete bathplug of a stop. Without these di Resta could have been top 5 and Sutil top 8

3) McLaren wheel engineers - cost Button a top 5, maybe even podium. Gutting for both Brits....

4) STR - how come Vergne hasn't received a penalty for unsafe releas..????

DG

DidNotQualify wrote:
Red Bull inter-team relations just went ice-cold. Instead of complaining about the tyres, they might need to spend more time controlling their drivers,

Red Bull Ice .... if this were Lotus I could see their marketing team cranking it up now....

DG

Fernando Alonso and Ferrari Hitting the back of Vettel was silly enough, but what followed was ridiculous. Not only was it never going to work, it was extremely dangerous - the flailing wing could have caused a nasty accident injuring Alonso or other drivers. Apparently it was Ferrari's call to stay out but Alonso should have overruled them, with his experience. Surely he would soon have got the black & orange flag anyway as I can't believe the FIA would have allowed a car in that state to continue circulating. I think Ferrari should at least be fined for showing such disregard for the safety of their driver & other drivers.

Stramala [kostas22] wrote:

mario wrote:

Stramala [kostas22] wrote:However, for the win, it can only be one thing...

***WINNER*** McLaren Wheelnut Locking System ***WINNER***
What else could it have been? Once again, McLaren find a way to overcomplicate simple tasks, with fatal results. They give Force India their wheelnut locking system, and something as simple as failing to apply a wheelnut correctly causes a double DNF for the team, when it looked like both cars would score points. And then of course, the wheel nuts also ruin Button's race for good measure. First it was the electronic pit release debacle, now they've got sticky nuts. Not pleasant.

Slight correction needed here - Force India might have adopted a similar system to what McLaren use, but the Force India system was developed independently from McLaren (it isn't part of their joint R&D agreement or supply deal).

Perhaps "they give" was a bad word choice, however, we simply can't know if what you said is true or not, unless of course you somehow sneakily got your hands on the R&D contract. The point is, McLaren pioneered it, Force India adopted it, it screwed them both. Hence dual nomination.

I've only been able to go on what has been publicly reported, which was that the system that went wrong on the Force India car was an in house developed system rather than from McLaren. Either way, I can see your point of view in that respect.

Divina_Galica wrote:4) STR - how come Vergne hasn't received a penalty for unsafe release..????

DG
DG

The team has been fined €10,000 for an unsafe release, but Vergne did not receive a penalty because the stewards decided that it was the fault of the team, who should have held him in his pit box, rather than Vergne himself, who drove off on the instructions of his pit crew.

JeremyMcClean wrote:Has to go to Force India for their awful performance in the race. Honourable mention goes to the BBC for unreasonably raising the expectations for no given reason other than "they did well at Melbourne."

To be fair to the BBC, Sutil was actually in a position to score points before Force India ruined it with their pit stops, and di Resta was making reasonable progress through the field too. Their pace was actually not that bad when you look at it - Sutil had managed to work his way back into the top 10 before his second botched stop, whilst di Resta had an outside chance of also making it into the top 10 too with the lap times he was putting in.

East Londoner wrote:Fernando Alonso - I don't know if it was his call or Ferrari's to stay out with that broken wing, but it backfired instantly. Still doesn't excuse the fact that it was a moment of sheer brain fade, which could've been much worse had Alonso torpedoed Webber at 150mph into the first corner.

Domenicali has said that it was the team that ordered Alonso to stay out on track, as they were trying to be a little too clever for their own good and leave Alonso out for long enough to be able to change onto slick tyres at the same time as switching the front wing, therefore minimising the time loss.
To be honest, I still don't think that it makes that much more sense - I suspect that they would probably have been black and orange flagged fairly quickly, and even if they hadn't been ordered into the pits, he would have probably been swallowed up by the pack and lost more time than he might have gained from trying to limp round for another four or five laps to save an extra stop.

A lot of candidates this race, but here's mine.

1. Force India Pit Crew: Sure, many teams had pit problems. But Force India was making them look normal.

2. Fernando Alosno: Did he really think that spoiler was going to last another lap?!

Dishonorable Mention - Red Bull Team Orders: Mercedes handeled it somewhat proffesionally, Red Bull shot themselves in the foot badly with that one.

So many stupid things happened in this race

Alonso front wing non-replacement
Hamilton trying to stop in the McLaren pit
Force India pitstop fails
Toro Rosso pit release
Maldonado's off-track escapades (again)
McLaren sending Button out with 3 wheels (not for the first time either)
Red Bull team orders-gate

Probably other things that I've forgotten. Pick a ROTR out of that lot.

mario wrote:

Divina_Galica wrote:4) STR - how come Vergne hasn't received a penalty for unsafe release..????

DG

The team has been fined €10,000 for an unsafe release, but Vergne did not receive a penalty because the stewards decided that it was the fault of the team, who should have held him in his pit box, rather than Vergne himself, who drove off on the instructions of his pit crew.

Ah, okay, thanks for that, but previous cases have resulted in drive through penalties which have penalised the drivers involved

DG

Max Chilton deserves an honourable mention here, for finishing a lap down from his teammate & behind both Catherhams. This on a track on which Max had previously finished 3rd in GP2 last year as well. Whereas I believe his teammate hadn’t even driven at Sepang prior to this weekend. Simply not good enough from the boy from Surrey.

However for the award, difficult to choose between all the many candidates put forward so far. However I think the Torro Rosso pitlane blunder, deserves it just because that was likely to be a human error, whereas the Force India pitstop blunder, was that not equipment failure due to the heat? Also I feel that Torro Rosso release could have been potentially quite dangerous, bearing in mind the Catherham’s & Torro Rosso mechanics were all standing within the vicinity.

EDIT; perhaps another honorable mention should go to how out of place the podium celebrations seemed, particularly as all the drivers on the podium didn't seem to happy. Instead of giving the two Red Bull drivers a bottle of bubbly on the podium, shouldn't they have given them handbags instead

Shizuka wrote:

the Masked Lapwing wrote:Everyone who isn't Jules Bianchi or Nico Hulkenberg.

Actually, this is a reasonable nomination. They both put their head down and did the job, but the others all had been involved in something!

A reasonable nomination would be "anyone who isn't Bianchi, Hulkenberg, Vergne or Grosjean", methinks. Anyway...

Vettel deserves a nomination for his post-race performance. Just as I agree and defend team orders, I understand and defend the drivers who choose to ignore them. But you can't have two bites of this cherry: if you decide to make it go your way (and he did. That was a great pass!), stick with it after you take your helmet off. Senna was as much an irritating so-and-so as Vettel, but he stuck to his guns afterwards, come rain or shine. The Jeckyl-and-Hyde act just made me lose respect for him.

Pit Lane Shenanigans is also a good nomination. Up and down that pitlane, everyone seems to have been possessed by the Spirit of Rejects Past. Lets hope the teams review their procedures and calm down, before anyone gets hurt.

my winner of ROTR is
red bull-shit
the team orders were atrocious and their post race manegment of the issue was appallingly shambolic although team orders could be the subject of an interestin centrale piece though

CarlosFerreira wrote:Pit Lane Shenanigans is also a good nomination. Up and down that pitlane, everyone seems to have been possessed by the Spirit of Rejects Past.

Perhaps they all were trying to out do one another, in order to win the much prized Reject of the Race award. An honour any self respecting F1 team / driver, really wants.

So many choices...
Vettel, for being an immature jerk
Alonso, for not pitting
Sauber, for wacky pit lane antics
Maldonado, for crashing
Bottas, for crashing before the race even started
Toro Rosso, for pit lane antics

But the winner has to be the McLaren/Force India wheel nut thing, for its pit antics.

I agree with most nominations, but surely it has to be Farce India. To withdraw both their cars due to shambolic wheel nut/pit stop issues.
Has that ever been done before? I mean this was a race that had soo many things go wrong for other teams (Hamilton pull into the wrong pit, RBR shenanigans, Merc low on fuel, Kimi going way back, TR doing the dodgey in the pit lane with unsafe release, also having Ric drop out, williams nowhere, alonso out on the second lap, massa average, mclaren in the weeds and button retiring). So on and so on, all FI had to do ws keep lapping and they would have got some points gifted to them. Mega fail on their part and screwed both cars over for wheel nuts.

pablo_h wrote:I agree with most nominations, but surely it has to be Farce India. To withdraw both their cars due to shambolic wheel nut/pit stop issues.
Has that ever been done before? I mean this was a race that had soo many things go wrong for other teams (Hamilton pull into the wrong pit, RBR shenanigans, Merc low on fuel, Kimi going way back, TR doing the dodgey in the pit lane with unsafe release, also having Ric drop out, williams nowhere, alonso out on the second lap, massa average, mclaren in the weeds and button retiring). So on and so on, all FI had to do ws keep lapping and they would have got some points gifted to them. Mega fail on their part and screwed both cars over for wheel nuts.

Surely the problem is with the wheel nuts, not with any ineptitude on the part of the team?

fjackdaw wrote:

pablo_h wrote:I agree with most nominations, but surely it has to be Farce India. To withdraw both their cars due to shambolic wheel nut/pit stop issues.
Has that ever been done before? I mean this was a race that had soo many things go wrong for other teams (Hamilton pull into the wrong pit, RBR shenanigans, Merc low on fuel, Kimi going way back, TR doing the dodgey in the pit lane with unsafe release, also having Ric drop out, williams nowhere, alonso out on the second lap, massa average, mclaren in the weeds and button retiring). So on and so on, all FI had to do ws keep lapping and they would have got some points gifted to them. Mega fail on their part and screwed both cars over for wheel nuts.

Surely the problem is with the wheel nuts, not with any ineptitude on the part of the team?

We know this how?

F1.com is reporting Paul Di Resta's disasterous pitstop on Lap 20 was clocked at an agonizing 2:03.124 - this includes the time taken to travel around the pits as well. Considering taking off the time it takes to travel the pit lane at the maximum speed (100km/h?) I would still think it took around 1:40. Surely that has to be a record for the longest routine stop?

pablo_h wrote:

fjackdaw wrote:

pablo_h wrote:I agree with most nominations, but surely it has to be Farce India. To withdraw both their cars due to shambolic wheel nut/pit stop issues.
Has that ever been done before? I mean this was a race that had soo many things go wrong for other teams (Hamilton pull into the wrong pit, RBR shenanigans, Merc low on fuel, Kimi going way back, TR doing the dodgey in the pit lane with unsafe release, also having Ric drop out, williams nowhere, alonso out on the second lap, massa average, mclaren in the weeds and button retiring). So on and so on, all FI had to do ws keep lapping and they would have got some points gifted to them. Mega fail on their part and screwed both cars over for wheel nuts.

Surely the problem is with the wheel nuts, not with any ineptitude on the part of the team?

We know this how?

What I said in my previous post about the Force India wheel guns equipment failing due to heat, I believe came from BBC's pitlane reporter, Tom Clarkson. Although, I will need to double check this to be 100% certain (I'll let you know tommorrow if its not).

I go with Fernando Alonso, since he had the chance to, at least, finishes in a confortable 5th position. Now, he is 22 behind Vettel.

Honorable mentions for Force India and the most terrible pitstops in recent F-1 story and Pastor Maldonado for being Pastor Maldonado.

Pretty rejectful race. I don't care much for Red Bull's team orders, if one driver is faster than another, I want to see that driver overtake and win, regardless of what teams they drive for. Sebastian Vettel made a rejectful apology, Mark Webber wasn't able to stop Vettel passing him, McLaren could have had a podium for Button, Force India's wheel nuts prevented a double-points finish, Mercedes for giving team orders preventing a Hamilton-Rosberg fight and letting me work out if Nico is actually a good driver, Fernando Alonso/whoever in Ferrari was responsible for not bringing him in for obvious reasons, Max Chilton for having had as much testing and simulator time with the MR02 as physically possible and still getting shown up by Jules Bianchi, DRS for giving us these artificial overtakes without addressing the core problems of why overtaking is difficult in F1 (but this is not a new problem).

I think Force India should get the overall award.

Shadaza wrote:I nominate Pit Lane antics:
Alonso not stopping to fix the damge.
Vergne released into Pic
Force India screwing up multiple times
Jenson Button's tire not being secure and thus losing an easy 5th.

I totally agree with this and will nominate Pit Stops in general. You've also got Hulkenberg and Kimi's silly drag race and another near miss release with Perez and erm...someone else (sorry, can't remember who)

It would be quite an historic moment should the winner of the race win RotR as well, which is within the realms of possiblilty!

Also, Force India won the award at Germany 2010, would be ironic if they did it again at another race with similar controversy.

Ed24 wrote:It would be quite an historic moment should the winner of the race win RotR as well, which is within the realms of possiblilty!

Also, Force India won the award at Germany 2010, would be ironic if they did it again at another race with similar controversy.

Ferrari won it in Austria 2002 and Schumacher/Barrichello jointly for their fumbled dead heat at iny the same year.

I nominate the weather.... just to be different....

James1978 wrote:

Ed24 wrote:It would be quite an historic moment should the winner of the race win RotR as well, which is within the realms of possiblilty!

Also, Force India won the award at Germany 2010, would be ironic if they did it again at another race with similar controversy.

Ferrari won it in Austria 2002 and Schumacher/Barrichello jointly for their fumbled dead heat at iny the same year.

Ah ok, I did check Austria 2002 but I was thinking of drivers rather than a driver and their team. Didn't think to check US 2002, but I can clarify to say it could be the first time a driver wins both outright.

So much going on. This race seemed to have it all. Why do I bother being a Button/McLaren/Williams fan nowadays? Lewis attempting to pit at McLaren = . Alonso - Why couldn't Vettel have joined him on the DNF list? Team orders, pit stop blunders...

dr-baker wrote:So much going on. This race seemed to have it all. Why do I bother being a Button/McLaren/Williams fan nowadays? Lewis attempting to pit at McLaren = . Alonso - Why couldn't Vettel have joined him on the DNF list? Team orders, pit stop blunders...

Dunno about the last 2, but Jenson was awesome today. He could've challenged the Mercedes' for 3rd had McLaren not completely screwed him.

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:

dr-baker wrote:So much going on. This race seemed to have it all. Why do I bother being a Button/McLaren/Williams fan nowadays? Lewis attempting to pit at McLaren = . Alonso - Why couldn't Vettel have joined him on the DNF list? Team orders, pit stop blunders...

Dunno about the last 2, but Jenson was awesome today. He could've challenged the Mercedes' for 3rd had McLaren not completely screwed him.

Yeah, but today did make it hard being a Jenson fan,even if it wasn't his fault.

Force India.

DHM for Vettel

Because almost the entire field did something stupid, i nominate GVDG, for not doing anything stupid.

Ricciardo's exhaust, it's failed in it's second consecutive race while his inferior team mate got a 10th place finish.

Inferior? You're kidding right?

Warren Hughes wrote:Inferior? You're kidding right?

What he said.