Grand Prix Rejects

The hilarious shambles of Ricciardos race is the most rejectful thing this weekend and I look forward to what brand new disasters he manages to discover in Bahrain. God speed you living vortex of bad luck, god speed....

I'd like to see Ricciardo not score a point all season for increasingly outlandish reasons. With a grid penalty next race maybe he can cause a huge crash at turn 1.
A bureaucratic mix up could get his superlicense revoked.
His car can just go missing on race day and noone can find it.
His evil twin can knock him unconscious, lock him in a cellar, and take his place for half the season.
I BELIEVE IN YOU DANNY!

1. Red Bull Pit Crew: Who were running that group? The Marx Brothers?

2. Kimi Raikkonen: He just gave up after his troubles early on.

Dishonorable Mentions:

The People Nominating Benedict Cumberbatch: It's not like the rest of the world outside of F1 gives a damn about Alex Yoong. So get over it.

Sauber: Double DNF.

Massa: You're Ferrari days aren't an excuse to sacrifice potential points.

DOSBoot wrote:It's not like the rest of the world outside of F1 gives a damn about Alex Yoong.

Exactly! Eggs Benedict Cabbagepatch might have at least an interest in F1, but there's so many great personalities in the sport that actually understand technical or the driving experience itself that I reckon it's a slippery slope.

Before we know it Halliwell will be posing drivers questions by virtue of her Red Bull connections. You heard it here first folks!

I nominate whats his face for being anonymous during the race

WeirdKerr wrote:I nominate whats his face for being anonymous during the race

I totally agree that guy er? At least he turned I suppose. I think?

3rd: Kimi Raikkonen: Nevermind his tangle with Magnussen which was a racing incident at best, after that he was just nowhere and was fighting with the lower midfield. I know he did say his car was damaged, but part of me says that it was a bit more than his car being damaged and that is his will to drive.

2nd: Sauber: Struggling with the Caterhams, Marussias, and Raikkonen when they should've been higher. Not a good way to start the season, especially if Lotus continue to improve.

1st: Red Bull: For that pitstop; really any adjective you can throw at it (shambolic, amateurish, farcical, etc) fits well, and certainly ruined Ricciardo's race. While the stop-go penalty might be harsh, and the grid penalty in Bahrain even more so, the FIA has said time and again they will not take botched pitstops lightly, and the teams know that. Yes, it hurts Ricciardo, but considering what has happened in that sequence of events, well, the team might as well have earned it.

Dishonorable Mentions:

Williams: Wrong choice of words there, and kudos to Massa for showing that he is not a pushover (now at least).

The FIA: For their overly draconian penalties on Bianchi and Magnussen; whatever happened to racing incidents?

Race Control: Marshalls showed a lot of wrong blue flags, most notable for Marussia and Caterham while they are fighting for position and one for Hulkenberg. Also,is debatable, but Sutil parked your car in a dangerous place and Ricciardo left some debris in the track. Looking at the Australian GP that had a Safety car because some debris too... what inconsistency. Looks like the race control had fear of the rain.

The Hype for 2014 season: Another "not so good" race. Only changed the dominating team, the rest is the same.

Ricciardo's Luck: Nuff said.

1. Sauber. Ok, I can accept being bland and conservative as a legitimate strategy when conditions (weather, reliability of the rest of the field) are uncertain. You need at least ONE car to finish to make that work, though.

2. Williams. There's no single point of failure that I can identify just yet, and it might seem a bit harsh given that both cars finished in the points. While we always know that the Williams would struggle in the wet, the Q2 inters fiasco suggests either a basic tactical blunder of a failure to grip up an overly impetuous Bottas. Even worse was the "Bottas is faster than you" mini-crisis - apart from the unfortunate wording (though part of me is telling Felipe to harden up a bit), three broad possibilities suggest themselves, none of which look good:

a. "Oh, that will never come up, and we know Felipe is a bit sensitive about team orders - let's just not mention the team orders thing to him". Seriously? I can't believe the Williams institutional memory of difficult driver relationships (Jones-Reutemann and Mansell-Piquet just for starters) would have let anyone in the team think this was a viable option. If so, it's got to be a sacking offence.

b. "It's OK Felipe, we will NEVER tell you to make way for the young bloke". Whether this promise was never intended to be honored or yesterdays call was a rush of blood to the head, pretty bad form (even if it was an ill-considered promise to make).

c. Felipe agreed to some basic ground rules for team orders, but disregarded them yesterday either out of pique at the blunt delivery, or he never intended to follow team orders in order to assert himself as no longer a number 2. Either way, harden up a bit, and honor any obligations you have made. I've had a lot of goodwill for Massa since his dignified behavior at the end of the 2008 season, but each petulant outburst since (has he retracted his comments about Kobayashi from Melbourne?) is chipping away at that reserve of goodwill.

Regarding a few other nominations:

Ricciardo's release - more of a racing incident with far-reaching consequences than a true ROTR moment, in my view.

Kimi is starting to remind me of Lauda at the end of his time with Ferrari, Brabham and McLaren. When he loses interest, that's it. Hopefully Kimi's lack of interest opens up a Ferrari spot for Hulkenberg next year.

Benedict Cumberbatch - the man himself isn't a ROTR - at least he asked questions as opposed to deliver opinions (are you reading this, Alan Jones?) and he seems inoffensive enough. However, giving him the job as opposed to someone with motorsport credibility seems a bit too much like a Bernie-approved gimmick for my liking.

One nobody else has mentioned - in the Australian pre-race coverage Alan Jones pandered to the Australian audience (or perhaps played up his self-image as a maverick 'racers racer' who didn't give a damn for authority) by claiming that Red Bull's appeal against Ricciardo's Melbourne DSQ should be overturned because 'directives aren't really like regulations'. I personally wish Ricciardo well, but Jones needs to look up directive in a dictionary - or perhaps be prepared to deliver the occasional hard truth to his audience.

Me , for not caring to watch races lately. Not because i'm not interested anymore, but because of some other shite.

What about the Sauber mechanic who was blowing (from his mouth) to cool the smoking brakes ?

Ricciardo (more the team than him personally)
Lotus

Red Bull's pit crew for the making Fawlty Towers look professional.

[quote="More_Blue_Flags"

2. Williams. There's no single point of failure that I can identify just yet, and it might seem a bit harsh given that both cars finished in the points. While we always know that the Williams would struggle in the wet, the Q2 inters fiasco suggests either a basic tactical blunder of a failure to grip up an overly impetuous Bottas. Even worse was the "Bottas is faster than you" mini-crisis - apart from the unfortunate wording (though part of me is telling Felipe to harden up a bit), three broad possibilities suggest themselves, none of which look good:

a. "Oh, that will never come up, and we know Felipe is a bit sensitive about team orders - let's just not mention the team orders thing to him". Seriously? I can't believe the Williams institutional memory of difficult driver relationships (Jones-Reutemann and Mansell-Piquet just for starters) would have let anyone in the team think this was a viable option. If so, it's got to be a sacking offence.

b. "It's OK Felipe, we will NEVER tell you to make way for the young bloke". Whether this promise was never intended to be honored or yesterdays call was a rush of blood to the head, pretty bad form (even if it was an ill-considered promise to make).

[/quote]

I agree with this and I'm surprised people are nominating Massa for ROTR. They way the team did that shows a massive lack of respect for him and if someone treated me that way I'd do exactly as he did. If he was asked in a different way he may well have obeyed but I really don't know what Williams hoped to achieve by using those words.

So after a major headache yesterday I'm now sort of fit to nominate my ROTR choices

I think Kimi Raikkonen was quite poor after his accident with K-Mag early on but at no point did he look like recovering from it and considering he was racing Kamui for POSITION and was the last of the non Caterham's and Marussia's that's pretty bad. However I hear he had a damaged car so might not have been able to make it as high up as he might have wanted to. I'll leave this to a HM.

Jules Bianchi deserves a mention for making Maldonado the innocent victim in the crash but not the award itself as it looked like he was a little squeezed by Vergne. Also I don't get why rachel has said Chilton had Bianchi's measure all weekend. I don't think being 1.6 faster than Chilton in qualifying counts as Chilton beating Bianchi handsomely. As for the Chilton debate some of you have had I don't mind his driving that much with the exception of Monaco last year and in fairness he was keeping Ericsson behind him (Getting lapped at the wrong times and pitting later than Marcus put him last) but my problem with Chilton is what he says in the media. Just because you outqualified your team-mate once and out-raced him twice plus finished every race (Not all in last to be fair) doesn't mean you deserve a 2014 seat. I don't think Alex Yoong said he deserved a 2003 seat because he got close to Webber's pace at the end of 2002. It's the sole reason why I can't warm to the ChiltonCraze.

Red Bull pits take the Bronze Medal as the spirit of Mclaren in 2012 seemed to take over them in that race. The decision to put Dan on the Hards put him back to Alonso and in hindsight cost Dan a podium. Then they screwed that last pit-stop in a similar manner to Mclaren with Button last year and then the front wing broke off ending a miserable last quarter of Ricky's race. And I see the sabotage/unfair treatment excuses have come out again. Can't we just drop this because it's a load of bullshite. RBR wouldn't be able to control Dan's wing dropping for example

Silver is K-Mags penalty for pretty much what mario has stated as I believe that was just a racing incident. I got the impression that Kimi seemed to come across on Kev a little bit rather than Kev making a rash move on Kimi. The move should have seen no penalty for either of them

Gold is Sauber. When you look at all the line up's this season at least one driver at every team except Sauber has something to prove this season. Sauber's line up consists of the reigning ROTY and this season's Nick Heidfeld and there's not a lot to say about this team and everything that can be said of them is for the wrong reasons. They were battling Ericsson and Chilton for POSITION and only just got ahead of them. This team is probably worse than Lotus at the moment with Grosjean doing an excellent job making lemonade out of lemons and Maldonado outqualifying Sutil. Get GVDG in the squad instead because at the moment the only word that can be said of Sauber is BORING

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:So after a major headache yesterday I'm now sort of fit to nominate my ROTR choices

I think Kimi Raikkonen was quite poor after his accident with K-Mag early on but at no point did he look like recovering from it and considering he was racing Kamui for POSITION and was the last of the non Caterham's and Marussia's that's pretty bad. However I hear he had a damaged car so might not have been able to make it as high up as he might have wanted to. I'll leave this to a HM.

I think he was racing mainly with Ericsson for position. (I remember that he passed Marcus, and then went to the pits.)

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:Gold is Sauber. When you look at all the line up's this season at least one driver at every team except Sauber has something to prove this season. Sauber's line up consists of the reigning ROTY and this season's Nick Heidfeld and there's not a lot to say about this team and everything that can be said of them is for the wrong reasons. They were battling Ericsson and Chilton for POSITION and only just got ahead of them. This team is probably worse than Lotus at the moment with Grosjean doing an excellent job making lemonade out of lemons and Maldonado outqualifying Sutil. Get GVDG in the squad instead because at the moment the only word that can be said of Sauber is BORING

Sauber is standing worse than Lotus at the moment, you are right: Grosjean had the upper hand already before they retired. Of course, I think Romain in outperforming that POS car, just like Kamui does in his.

Admittedly this is heavily biased, but I'm going to go for... Sauber!

Yes, I know. In that bit where I was briefly allowed to chunter all over our overlords' podcast, I said Sauber would be Reject of the Year. Two races down, and so far, it looks not only like I am right, but also that my reasons for being right were also right. Meanwhile, while watka was grinning at Kamui Kobayashi's unintentional antics in Australia, I suspect the smile has disappeared from his face just about as fast as it has from Monisha Kaltenborn.

Keep it up, Sauber! Well, keep it down, really, but you know what I'm getting at.

dinizintheoven wrote:Admittedly this is heavily biased, but I'm going to go for... Sauber!

Yes, I know. In that bit where I was briefly allowed to chunter all over our overlords' podcast, I said Sauber would be Reject of the Year. Two races down, and so far, it looks not only like I am right, but also that my reasons for being right were also right. Meanwhile, while watka was grinning at Kamui Kobayashi's unintentional antics in Australia, I suspect the smile has disappeared from his face just about as fast as it has from Monisha Kaltenborn.

Keep it up, Sauber! Well, keep it down, really, but you know what I'm getting at.

The part of that which worries me is that I think you're right.

Assuming they have a really awful season (which it is a bit early to call), as they are pretty goddamn broke, which will affect them in the development race.

If they finish as worst of the 'real' teams (blasphemy, I know), then they'll earn even les s money than they already do. It'll presumably force them to either go full(er) paydriver, and I don't see them coming back from dropping down to the Caterham/Marussia level.

I have to admit there isn't really any obvious candidates, so with Diniz's reasoning I'm also nominating Sauber as well for ROTR.

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:and this season's Nick Heidfeld

No, Heidfeld was actually good.

For reasons that Diniz outlined above, I'm going with Sauber

Cynon wrote:People nominating people who nominate someone else: Because I can be a little snot too.

Doesn't that mean you just voting for yourself?

Whilst Raikkonen (couldn't be bothered to fight back through the field), Red Bull pit crew (Ricky's problems), the stewards (harshness of all the penalties) and McLaren (poor upgrades, as usual) all make good nominations, Sauber get my nod. With the other kerfuffles going on at Australia, I must say that I didn't quite appreciate until this race quite how poor their pace was. Sutil was particularly poor and he seems to have changed from one of the best wet weather drivers into one of the weakest. Plus reliability now seems to be an issue, they seem royally stuffed.

watka wrote:

Cynon wrote:People nominating people who nominate someone else: Because I can be a little snot too.

Doesn't that mean you just voting for yourself?

Take your logic out of this thread. Meanie butt.

Ataxia wrote:

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:and this season's Nick Heidfeld

No, Heidfeld was actually good.

Heidfeld would have probably finished the race too.

Ataxia wrote:

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:and this season's Nick Heidfeld

No, Heidfeld was actually good.

Heidfeld was a decent driver, not championship material but very consistent and level headed. Besides he is slightly boring and that makes him a beast.

OK, I can't delay the official decision too much longer because Bahrain is this weekend. I'm going to go against the more popular nominations this time around.

Sauber were undoubtedly mediocre in Malaysia, as they were in Australia. But I was rather expecting that and I must say I didn't really notice how poor the Saubers went (apart from their near-simultaneous DNFs) until these nominations started flooding in. But seriously, how does Monisha's mob seriously expect me to award them ROTR if I don't even notice their poor pace during the race?

I get the feeling that all the nominations for the Red Bull pit crew are, to a certain subconscious extent, also driven by the coincidence that yet again Seb's stops are perfect whereas his Aussie team-mate gets the rough end of the stick. But I tend to sympathise with pit crews, especially these days when they're trying to execute 2-3s pit stops. I'm amazed that these kinds of errors don't happen more often.

I do agree that the current penalty system is ridiculously draconian. Magnussen's penalty brought us to a new level of nanny-statism and I don't understand why teams and drivers are punished twice, eg Bottas getting a grid penalty and racking up points, Ricciardo getting a 10s stop-go and a grid penalty for Bahrain, but the rules are the rules, and one simply hopes they will be applied consistently throughout the year.

But at the end of the day, I gravitate towards an incident where there is that certain "I can't believe that just happened! " factor, and for me "Valtteri is faster than you" was a hands-down winner. Not the team, nor the team order itself, nor Massa's refusal to follow it, but the mere choice of words. Of all things you should never say to Felipe, after what happened at Hockenheim in 2010 ... I mean, it only takes a split second to realise that it might be a Really Bad Idea to say that and to rephrase it, e.g. as "OK, Valtteri is lapping quicker than you, he's on fresher tyres, don't hold him up." And so take a bow, the person who delivered the fateful message, Felipe's new race engineer Andrew Murdoch!

I believe that's the first time ROTR has gone to a race engineer. I wonder what Rob Smedley in the background must have thought of all that ...

... that's a reasonable ROTR. Again

When I read the front page, I was like "Who!?"

But yes totally agree with it even though I originally nominated Sauber - but didn't you see them having to battle with Caterhams and Marussias on merit though Enoch?

James1978 wrote:When I read the front page, I was like "Who!?"

But yes totally agree with it even though I originally nominated Sauber - but didn't you see them having to battle with Caterhams and Marussias on merit though Enoch?

When you are dead tired after a day of running around chasing after four small children, something has to hit me over the head before I notice. To be honest, no I didn't pick that up. Although I did get excited seeing Kobayashi threatening the points!

eytl wrote:

James1978 wrote:When I read the front page, I was like "Who!?"

But yes totally agree with it even though I originally nominated Sauber - but didn't you see them having to battle with Caterhams and Marussias on merit though Enoch?

When you are dead tired after a day of running around chasing after four small children, something has to hit me over the head before I notice. To be honest, no I didn't pick that up. Although I did get excited seeing Kobayashi threatening the points!

Four kids! Wow! Congratulations, but... wow...

eytl wrote:

James1978 wrote:When I read the front page, I was like "Who!?"

But yes totally agree with it even though I originally nominated Sauber - but didn't you see them having to battle with Caterhams and Marussias on merit though Enoch?

When you are dead tired after a day of running around chasing after four small children, something has to hit me over the head before I notice. To be honest, no I didn't pick that up. Although I did get excited seeing Kobayashi threatening the points!

In many ways Sauber were the exact opposite of that in Malaysia: they were catastrophically bad precisely because they did nothing of note whatsoever. Most of the time a ROTR moment is something that is memorable or at least had some significance within the race, whereas Sauber picked up multiple nominations because they were so utterly irrelevant in Malaysia.

Why no love for the 5s penalty?

Kev hit another car and damaged it. Kimi's race was ruined and he scored no points as a direct result. Even Magnussen admitted as much. Why not give a driver a penalty for causing damage to someone else? Not as a result of an accident mind you, such as Koba's on Massa. And the stewards used the most lenient of penalties. So the complaining... i don't understand that at all.

Sublime_FA11C wrote:Why no love for the 5s penalty?

Kev hit another car and damaged it. Kimi's race was ruined and he scored no points as a direct result. Even Magnussen admitted as much. Why not give a driver a penalty for causing damage to someone else? Not as a result of an accident mind you, such as Koba's on Massa. And the stewards used the most lenient of penalties. So the complaining... i don't understand that at all.

I'm also a fan of the 5 second penalty. I'd certainly rather see it than teams suffering from drive throughs for small incidents.

AustralianStig wrote:

Sublime_FA11C wrote:Why no love for the 5s penalty?

Kev hit another car and damaged it. Kimi's race was ruined and he scored no points as a direct result. Even Magnussen admitted as much. Why not give a driver a penalty for causing damage to someone else? Not as a result of an accident mind you, such as Koba's on Massa. And the stewards used the most lenient of penalties. So the complaining... i don't understand that at all.

I'm also a fan of the 5 second penalty. I'd certainly rather see it than teams suffering from drive throughs for small incidents.

Yes, the 5 second penalty is better than a drive through which can be seriously harsh at times. My issue is with the stewards micro-analysing every issue. Imagine in football if every tackle was subject to possible video review. That would completely ruin the game (even if it was 100% fair) wouldn't it? The same goes for F1 where we're soon going to have people afraid to make an overtake. What we'll see more and more is drivers thinking its too much risk to lunge up the inside of a corner and instead would much rather rely on ERS and DRS to make the move in a straight line down a straight. Hands up if you're excited by that.

Sublime_FA11C wrote:Why no love for the 5s penalty?

Kev hit another car and damaged it. Kimi's race was ruined and he scored no points as a direct result. Even Magnussen admitted as much. Why not give a driver a penalty for causing damage to someone else? Not as a result of an accident mind you, such as Koba's on Massa. And the stewards used the most lenient of penalties. So the complaining... i don't understand that at all.

The penalty is far too lenient. Räikkönen had his race completely ruined, as you said, but Magnussen may not have lost a single position in the end. Of course, this could have happened with a drive through penalty, as well, but the five second penalty is useless.

watka wrote:Yes, the 5 second penalty is better than a drive through which can be seriously harsh at times. My issue is with the stewards micro-analysing every issue. Imagine in football if every tackle was subject to possible video review. That would completely ruin the game (even if it was 100% fair) wouldn't it? The same goes for F1 where we're soon going to have people afraid to make an overtake. What we'll see more and more is drivers thinking its too much risk to lunge up the inside of a corner and instead would much rather rely on ERS and DRS to make the move in a straight line down a straight. Hands up if you're excited by that.

Meatwad wrote:The penalty is far too lenient. Räikkönen had his race completely ruined, as you said, but Magnussen may not have lost a single position in the end. Of course, this could have happened with a drive through penalty, as well, but the five second penalty is useless.

I agree with both points. Though i'm not sure a 50/50 racing incident would lead to the penalty. Think it's early yet, the penalty is new so it should be given some time. I think it can work.