Grand Prix Rejects

Sutil - I think everyone else has covered his highly entertaining impression of Andrea De Cesaris on a bad day.

I was going to nominate McLaren as I was convinced they'd 'accidentally on purpose' brought Button out behind that huge train of cars to finally finish his title race off as they must have known that that was where he'd come out (though they never use team orders of course....except when they do) but after I heard Button say that his tyres had gone off so badly that he had to come in sadly I can't do that!

So...the BBC then. Guys, you know full well that when you switch channels halfway through an event, Sky+ and other digital boxes can't magically keep track and carry on recording the other channel. So why the **** let an over-run of half an hour happen, but not an hour? Andrew Marr obviously far too important to be shunted on to BBC2 presumably. So thanks for ruining my morning. I can't remember anything so pathetic with scheduling since the days when the Brazilian GP and Coronation Street ran back to back on ITV and any over-run whatsoever on the GP would lead to 'CORONATION STREET FOLLOWS IN....' taking up half of the screen every other minute.
Legard was monumentally crap too - it was clearly Rosberg taking Hamilton at the first corner but he spent the next 5 minutes going on about how Schumacher was ahead of Button. Pretty basic stuff really.

The Entire Korean Grand Prix: A horrible location for a horrible track, designed by a horrible designer, in a deal inked by F1s horrible management, approved to race upon in a case of horribly poor judgement by Charlie Whiting. The people who turned up were horribly cheated out of their money, and Virgin's one shot at points was taken away by a HORRIBLE driver.

And the drivers were Nellys.

F1000X wrote:The Entire Korean Grand Prix: A horrible location for a horrible track, designed by a horrible designer, in a deal inked by F1s horrible management, approved to race upon in a case of horribly poor judgement by Charlie Whiting. The people who turned up were horribly cheated out of their money, and Virgin's one shot at points was taken away by a HORRIBLE driver.

And the drivers were Nellys.

Crikey, what do you sound like when we have a bad race? Chill out, mate.

tc3j3r wrote:The whole field bar Hamilton for being scared little girls intead of racing drivers.

Second

Barbazza wrote:I can't remember anything so pathetic with scheduling since the days when the Brazilian GP and Coronation Street ran back to back on ITV and any over-run whatsoever on the GP would lead to 'CORONATION STREET FOLLOWS IN....' taking up half of the screen every other minute.

What about that San Marino GP where with 3 laps to go and Schumacher crawling all over the back of Alonso they cut to an ad break and missed the end of the race?

F1000X wrote:The Entire Korean Grand Prix: A horrible location for a horrible track, designed by a horrible designer, in a deal inked by F1s horrible management, approved to race upon in a case of horribly poor judgement by Charlie Whiting. The people who turned up were horribly cheated out of their money, and Virgin's one shot at points was taken away by a HORRIBLE driver.

Except the teams liked it, the drivers like it, the race was exciting and the title battle is as close as ever.

So many candidates again...

Most of the drivers and stewards "OMG it's raining we can't race, it's too dangerous. Let's drive behind the safety car for a quarter of the race, just in case something could happen!". Sorry guys, but I've seen a lot of races been driven in worse conditions than this. Respect points for Hamilton for being one of the few ones to not be a sissy.

Button Seriously, you were the champion last year? Your car looked more like a rally car thanks to the mud from all of the spins and you only managed to beat the new teams. Tut-tut.

Webber All champions have made mistakes, and some have recovered from them, but this really wasn't the best time to make a rookie-ish mistake. Not to mention taking out one of the best performers of the day with you.

I think I'll settle with the first option, for now.

Special mention for the stewards from having to investigate every single accident again. Seriously, this is racing and mistakes may happen. Get down with it.

Has to be Buemi for me, I mean I'm not going to lie, Virgin are my favourite team, being the local boys (well Wirth Research is anyway) and it was such a shocking pass, ruining what was turning out to be an excellent drive from Glock. Although it must be noted that at that point Glock was slipping back, Petrov was already past as was one of the Force India's I think. Even so, deeply infuriating as HRT had another decent result which warranted their mention in the IIDOTR thread.

Special mention of course for Sutil, harking back to those hideously inconsistent days of his youth, and for nearly taking out the Cowboy!

Button had a pretty poor race too but the strategy for him was awful with the traffic and safety car timing so I'm going to let him off that one

P_Friesacher wrote:

Myrvold wrote:Actually Sutil also wanted to race when everyone said it was too wet. This was not broadcasted(?) for some reason.

Then how do you know?

I didn't hear it, but friend of mine was listening to Swedish Viasat Motor, with Eje Elgh being in Korea, he had picked it up. And i had a little question mark after "broadcasted" because I'm not sure if it was broadcasted or not, I got the message when I was updating the norwegian Viasat Motor facebook channel.

My reject of the race is my DirecTV DVR for failing to record the race while I was out of town.

ZsoltForever wrote:My reject of the race is my DirecTV DVR for failing to record the race while I was out of town.

Seconded. Please let there be an online version of the race somewhere. PLEASE.

Button; a McLaren should by rights blitz toro rosso/ sauber
Webber; oh dear. That was his chance to be hme and dry blown out of the window...
Buemi; he has been outclassed by Alguersuari this season, and prveneted Glock from scoring points
Red Bull in general; hpw many times have they shot Vettel in the foor this year?
Jarno Trulli; reasonably pathetic accident with Senna
Petrov; surely he hasnt justified his place for next year with 2 accidents running?
Hulkenberg's tyre; stopped him outscoring Barrichelo and surely cementing his place for next year.
Charlie Whiting/ FIA; com'on we shoud have started 17 laps and 2 hours earlier!!!!
Jonathan Legard; took him until lap 2 to notice that Hamilton got passed by Rosberg, got confused between Button and Hamilton contsatntly and then gt confused between Webber and Rosberg. Utter Plum

Although Buemi and Sutil seem to be getting the most mentions, these were guys that at least were fighting for positions and trying to make something happen,
so I'll give them a little leeway. For me, as a McLaren fan, the obvious selection has to be :

Jenson Button

Other people on here have been saying he came out of the pits and was unable to overtake the 'slower' cars ahead. This is not correct - he has not able to keep
up with them. For several laps in a row he was 4 seconds slower than Lewis Hamilton in the same car, which probably had a more aggressive set up as far as
tyres are concerned. For a driver who is the current World Champion, that was a pathetic performance. As I understand it he had handling issues, but he set
the car up and apparently would have been able to make changes during the red flag, as Mercedes clearly did. We all know he seems unable to drive around
handling and grip problems and this was clearly demonstrated here. He deserves to drop out of the championship battle with a drive like that.

And 2nd has to be Webber for me, the only top line driver to make a race-ending error. Surely 2nd place would have been fine, possibly he was trying too hard
to stay with Vettel ....

jpm wrote: Hulkenberg's tyre; stopped him outscoring Barrichelo and surely cementing his place for next year.

I don't think his performances matter, its all coming down to dollars. Even Patrick Head said that he is good enough for F1.

jpm wrote:
Jonathan Legard; took him until lap 2 to notice that Hamilton got passed by Rosberg, got confused between Button and Hamilton contsatntly and then gt confused between Webber and Rosberg. Utter Plum

He also missed Liuzzi get past Barrichello - even though it was shown on screen a few laps from the end - and then brought it up after the race with great surprise.

Petrov - Was running in 7th and would have been 6th after Vettel's failure. He missed a golden opportunity to unrejectify himself, that 6th place would have done it.

Having been with my girlfriend and not caring at all about whether this race was on this week or the next, I didn't watch a thing of it. The race was over by the time on Sunday afternoon CET that my girlfriend asked me about the next race and I didn't have a clue. Yes, she was right. It was on in the morning of that day, not next week. I didn't really care at all about having missed it. Being with her has been the only thing I cared about all weekend.

So I cannot give a post-race nominee for this site's prestigious award, but I'd like to highlight one of the early nominees that hasn't just yet received the coverage he deserves: Bernie Ecclestone.
Having turned 80 years of age recently, the CEO of Formula One Management, who is responsible for moving races to venues with little or no motor racing history and little or no spectator interest - all for good money for series owners CVC Capital Partners, has hit another low here with this new destination for F1. Whereas at the Valencia Marina in its 1st year, F1 was racing on a track surrounded by a giant construction site, at Yeongam, F1 debuted by racing inside of a giant construction site. It was all not clear and ready to go 2 weeks ago and FIA inspector Charlie Whiting must have turned at least one blind eye to give this one a go so quickly. On a previously untested track surface that was still oiling out from having been finished so late whilst the race was already on, the rainy weather caused race control to delay the start until some more spectators had found their way into the venue, having to use incomplete access roads. It must have been a farce for fans of the sport, a cheat, the only way for FOM not to have to pay out TV stations for one event missing from the schedule. Bernie forced the most advanced motor racing outfits of the world (well, HRT maybe not) into this faraway destination to run inside of a construction site just so he and CVC could continue to make more money and avoid a payout to the TV stations. Therefore, Bernie Ecclestone is my nominee for ROTR for not calling it off.

jpm wrote:Hulkenberg's tyre; stopped him outscoring Barrichelo and surely cementing his place for next year.

Not really, sorry, Barrichello was in front of Nico after that safety car where virtually everyone pitted, long before his tyre gave up. If anything, blame the safety car.

Does anyone know how many who actually did show up in Korea, I've heard around 100k on sunday. That is more than 30k higher than Spa!

Myrvold wrote:Does anyone know how many who actually did show up in Korea, I've heard around 100k on sunday. That is more than 30k higher than Spa!

I would guess these 100,000 mean over the whole weekend which is still a good number, especially for a country which virtually has no motorsport heritage.

Rocks with Salt wrote:

ZsoltForever wrote:My reject of the race is my DirecTV DVR for failing to record the race while I was out of town.

Seconded. Please let there be an online version of the race somewhere. PLEASE.

bbc feed's up on [the internet], but you have to register on the torrent side to download. enough of it is in english that you guys could probably figure it out.

Klon wrote:I would guess these 100,000 mean over the whole weekend which is still a good number, especially for a country which virtually has no motorsport heritage.

I don't know if there is a concrete number.

Autosport says that the circuit promoter "estimates" that there were 100k on Sunday, 62k on Saturday and 42k on Friday.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87766

I don't think the exact number really matters, the evidence was there that Korea can definately fill the stands of a half finished circuit, so when they get that development going and it all becomes a lot nicer and more attractive, the numbers will likely rise further. I was certainly impressed with the number of people they got in, they did a good job considering.

What I think is quite sad though is how many people in and around F1 have almost tarred South Korea as a 'developing' country, in line with a nation like China or India when in actual fact the truth is that they're more closer to Japan in terms of development and standard of living. The fact that the circuit wasn't finished properly in time draws no parallels whatsoever with the country's ability as a whole to manufacturer and deliver major events. Remember that Seoul hosted the Olympics in '88 and South Korea shared the hosting of the World Cup with Japan in 2002. The population are by and large affluent and in a couple of years, the event will be similarly as popular as the Japanese race. Any lack of spectators this time round is due in part to the inclement weather, whilst the fact the project wasn't finished and the negative publicity that may have generated within the country would likely have also put people off.

I think by and large, South Korea was one of the smarter destinations that F1 has been brought to in it's history, I'd say it has a long term future there.

AndreaModa, there is a certain uptick in new facilities and events called the "Honeymoon effect." You usually have to wait four to five years to be able to determine the baseline audience for an event. It still has incredible novelty at this point.

Hell didn't even Turkey get a half decent attendance on it's first race?

LukeB wrote:Hell didn't even Turkey get a half decent attendance on it's first race?

Probably, but the point I was making in my post above was that South Korea can in no way be compared to a country like Turkey which is struggling to enter the European Union, whilst South Korea is at the forefront of many industries such as electronics and car manufacturing. The population of South Korea are going to have a much greater amount of disposable income compared to Turkey, Malaysia and even Bahrain perhaps and therefore the promoters of the South Korean GP are going to have a much easier time getting bums on seats than any of the other venues listed above.

Hemo, I understand what you mean, and I agree there's bound to be a drop-off over the next couple of years as those who aren't that bothered don't go, but I still believe that there'll be a similar amount of interested people over time in the country to attend the race so that the attendances match most races in Europe.

To maybe help us understand the difference in potential of the new countries F1 has visited over the years, let's briefly examine the GDP per capita (Gross Domestic Product - the total amount of money made in the country in a year divided by the population of the country).

Malaysia - $14,275 (2010 estimate)
Bahrain - $27,214 (2009 estimate)
China - $7,518 (2010 estimate)
Turkey - $12,476 (2009 estimate)
Singapore - $52,839 (2010 estimate)
United Arab Emirates - $36,175 (2010 estimate)
South Korea - $29,790 (2010 estimate)

Obviously there are a few things to take into account, for example China's massive population which waters down the GDP somewhat, and also the small populations of both Singapore and Bahrain. Therefore in a very crude way, the spending power of the South Korean population is much greater than that of Turkey or even China when the population is considered and explains why these latter two struggle to fill stands, simply because most of the people there can't afford the tickets.

Wow, this is getting rapidly out of hand isn't it? Maybe I should think about starting a new thread on this stuff...

Attendance at the 2005 Turkish GP was 100.000 according to wikipedia (so, clearly, it must be true).

And while I agree with most of what you have said, I'd like to add one thing to your numbers concerning to GDP per capita. To me it seems that these are very useful for some areas (small Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Bahrain). But they may not work that well for comparing these locations with other GP venues: I suspect that the disposable income in Shanghai or Istanbul might be somewhat higher than in China and Turkey as a whole, while in (apparently quite rural) Mokpo it might be lower than in all of South Korea taken together.
Also, by this standard attendance numbers in Brazil should be very poor - which they clearly aren't. And great in the USA, which they clearly weren't.

But what I clearly do agree with: South Korea has been underestimated by many people in the F1 paddock and has unfairly been portrayed before the Grand Prix almost as a 'developing' country, when in fact it is one of the most prosperous nations in the region and economically superior to several European and South American countries F1 has been visiting for a long time.

Not that, in principle, there is anything wrong with being an 'emerging' or 'developing' country and having a Grand Prix, just as there might be very good reasons for such countries to host other big international sporting events. For F1, just ask Argentinia, Brazil, Malaysia, China, Mexico or South Africa. (OK, one might argue that there was something wrong with F1 still driving in apartheid South Africa in 1985 when most other sports boycotted the country, but that is another story entirely)

AndreaModa wrote:Wow, this is getting rapidly out of hand isn't it? Maybe I should think about starting a new thread on this stuff...

You do that, Mr Economic Geographer. There's already a thread on Climate Change on the HWNSNBM forum, we can put these high-brow things up there. Take your time...

If Webber was intentionally trying to take out Hamilton or Alonso after his spin then I'd nominate him for ROTR.

Not for trying it on... but because he hit Rosberg instead!

Berger's opinion of said incident here: http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/2459 ... -hamilton/

Button
Petrov

Gave serious consideration to Sutil- Liuzzi proved overall defense yielded more of a reward than attack in that race.

With my limted knowledge of physichs, if Webber had slammed the brakes, wouldn't he slide, and then stop in the middle of the track? If so, I can see Berger saying "Webber put himself, and others in danger when stopping in the middle of the track"

Adrian Sutil: http://grandprixdiary.com/grand-prix-di ... -confusion

TimmyB wrote:If Webber was intentionally trying to take out Hamilton or Alonso after his spin then I'd nominate him for ROTR.

Not for trying it on... but because he hit Rosberg instead!

Berger's opinion of said incident here: http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/2459 ... -hamilton/

It is a very serious accusation to be levelling at Webber, especially since all we have to go on would be video footage of the event (since I doubt that Red Bull would be giving Berger any access to their telemetry).
For all we know, given the poor quality of the footage available at the time, Webber might have been applying the brakes. There is a noticeable camber to that corner, and with his left hand suspension was broken, his car was probably sliding along on the plank, so applying the brakes might have made little difference anyway.

He also fails to explain how he would have known where Alonso or Hamilton were - Alonso was past Webber before he even hit the wall, and Hamilton was too far down the road for Webber to see him - Hamilton hadn't even rounded the previous corner yet. The idea, therefore, that Webber was trying to take out another rival by deliberately allowing his car to slide across the track is questionable.

[EDIT] Horner has now come forwards to quite clearly rubbish the claims of Berger that Webber was trying to take out his rivals:

"Just to be absolutely clear - Mark's intention was not to take out another driver after his crash in the Korean Grand Prix and it's ridiculous to suggest otherwise."

Horner states that, instead, Webber was not aware that his suspension had been terminally damaged in his collision with the wall, and instinctively tried to turn his car around to try to continue driving. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87772

P_Friesacher wrote:Attendance at the 2005 Turkish GP was 100.000 according to wikipedia (so, clearly, it must be true).

And while I agree with most of what you have said, I'd like to add one thing to your numbers concerning to GDP per capita. To me it seems that these are very useful for some areas (small Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Bahrain). But they may not work that well for comparing these locations with other GP venues: I suspect that the disposable income in Shanghai or Istanbul might be somewhat higher than in China and Turkey as a whole, while in (apparently quite rural) Mokpo it might be lower than in all of South Korea taken together.
Also, by this standard attendance numbers in Brazil should be very poor - which they clearly aren't. And great in the USA, which they clearly weren't.

But what I clearly do agree with: South Korea has been underestimated by many people in the F1 paddock and has unfairly been portrayed before the Grand Prix almost as a 'developing' country, when in fact it is one of the most prosperous nations in the region and economically superior to several European and South American countries F1 has been visiting for a long time.

Not that, in principle, there is anything wrong with being an 'emerging' or 'developing' country and having a Grand Prix, just as there might be very good reasons for such countries to host other big international sporting events. For F1, just ask Argentinia, Brazil, Malaysia, China, Mexico or South Africa. (OK, one might argue that there was something wrong with F1 still driving in apartheid South Africa in 1985 when most other sports boycotted the country, but that is another story entirely)

An article to show how developed South Korea actually is (namely on a par with Japan): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11627502
I think South Korea is also one of the world leaders in super-fast fibre optic broadband access.

I'm afraid I'd have to nominate Gerhard Berger for his ridiculous claim. (But of course in reality I am busy building effigies of Buemi and Sutil to burn on Guy Fawkes Night =P)

Gerhard Berger gets the nomination for being a complete dumbf**k. I would have nominated Buemi and Sutil, but after this piece of idiocy became known, I needed to ... change my vote.

Webber: He's lost a great chance in this weekend.
Button: Off pace in all weekend.
Buemi: Spend more time crashing with new teams than racing.
Lucas di Grassi: Ridiculous maneuver against Yamamoto.

But my nomination are:

Adrian Sutil and your "Andrea De Cesaris"-esque race in Korea debut.