Grand Prix Rejects

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:
WTF? Non-stop? He complained once about Perez cutting the chicane to stay ahead of him, and one other time when Perez was cutting him off, and at no other time. How the hell is that non-stop?

Ok maybe not at Monaco but what i mean is that he moans every single race at some point. If it's not about his team-mate it's about how undriveable his car his. Belgium 2012 is the only Grand Prix where i haven't heard him moaning

This is ROTR. Not reject of the last several races.[/quote]

And even then, out of the last five races, only his frustrated attempts at keeping Perez at bay in Bahrain really warranted ROTR. I feel as though too many drivers are labeled as "whiners" and "whingers" with little to no thought as to the context behind the radio message. Moreover, the content of a radio message shouldn't even have any influence over the assessment of a driver's race performance.

Romain Grosjean, no contest. He made up for his quiet start to the season by going into full banzai, mid 2012 mode again.

Now it's been confirmed as a car failure for Massa, my offical nomination is now GROSJEAN. I have a feeling he won't be in F1 much longer, hopefully this was just a one-off.

I'm nominating Sauber, because being anonymous in a race like this is quite an achievement.
Yes, they weren't the worst performing at all, but finishing with both cars and still failing to get points in a race with 15 finishers , is worth of ROTR. They didn't even make any silly mistakes or have reliability problems, they were just naturally slow.

James1978 wrote:Now it's been confirmed as a car failure for Massa, my offical nomination is now GROSJEAN. I have a feeling he won't be in F1 much longer, hopefully this was just a one-off.

Well, Grosjean is on a rolling contract that gets renewed every 3 races and today was round 6

In short, the mighty grrrrrsssjjjjjjnnnnnn is my nomination

East Londoner wrote:Anyone who thinks that race was boring, a procession, or says Monaco shouldn't be on the calendar - you're clearly not F1 fans, or your favourite driver got shafted.

I wouldn't say it was any of those things specifically, but people who keep saying that it was the BEST RACE EVAHHH!! (hello Sky) are clearly very deluded.

Yet again, we didn't have that thing that used to be important in F1. No, not overtaking. RACING. Going as slowly as possible for many laps to preserve tyres is not racing. Sorry, but it really isn't.

As for ROTR, I think that I will give Max the benefit of the doubt. Yes, that accident looked awful, but it was more of a misunderstanding / misjudgement on his part than anything intentionally dangerous. And he is a rookie, let's remember.

Whereas with Grosjean, after crashing all weekend, and then doing a quite convincing job of going too far the other way by being totally anonymous in the race and doing nothing whatsoever, his brain then springs a leak and he performs one of the stupidest crashes I've ever seen (Didn't someone in GP2 or GP3 get completely kicked out for doing something vaguely similar last year?)

So it's him then.

Barbazza wrote:As for ROTR, I think that I will give Max the benefit of the doubt. Yes, that accident looked awful, but it was more of a misunderstanding / misjudgement on his part than anything intentionally dangerous. And he is a rookie, let's remember.

Whereas with Grosjean, after crashing all weekend, and then doing a quite convincing job of going too far the other way by being totally anonymous in the race and doing nothing whatsoever, his brain then springs a leak and he performs one of the stupidest crashes I've ever seen (Didn't someone in GP2 or GP3 get completely kicked out for doing something vaguely similar last year?)

So it's him then.

Yes, Grosjean is dangerous to everyone. Give Grosjean the boot!

The Lotus drivers. One can't stay off the walls, the other puts Perez on the wall.

Romain Grosjean - Is it 2012 again?

My ROTR was the TV director.....
seriously... what was he watching?

Honourable mention

CarlosFerreira wrote:The Lotus driver. One can't stay off the walls, the other puts Perez on the wall.

The Lotus Daft Punk effect.....all weekend it looked like Grosjean was either going to win it or bin it.... He binned it... shame really

Mercedes tyres. Having to run slower than the midfielders, whilst delivering a win here, backed up the entire back. Vettel's fastest lap showed how fast everyone else could have gone, so despite Rosberg and Hamilton's brilliance, I think we'll be back to business as usual in Canada.

Dj_bereta wrote:after this http://youtu.be/QxTgZzR2Tn0?t=10s

I add Bottas in my nominations too. He just gave up of your position. C'mon!

BBC thought he may have believed Räikkönen was lapping him.

Max Chilton, for moving into Maldonado with no excuse at all. Shout out to Grosjean for his crash too.

1. Romain Grosjean

2. Sergio Perez. I side with Raikkonen on this one. Raikkonen was entitled to coast (drift) to the left, defending. What Perez does is a banzai lunge from way too far when the gap was already disappearing and he would never have turned in successfully from that radius anyway. Perez was responsible were his car was placed, not Kimi. The move on Button was legit and IMO the overtake of the day, the Alonso one was so-so but he got way too aggressive with Kimi. Lets remember, that Kimi already had run straight at the chicane when Perez went for a similar move about 15-laps prior to the contact IIRC.

Romain Grosjean - very much a rookie mistake, and I'm one of the few that actually thinks he's been pretty hard done by in recent times with getting the blame for accidents.

Time for my picks:

3. Marussia. Yeah, the cars were quick and were competitive, but Bianchi just had a weekend from hell and was nowhere, plus Chilton crashing Maldonado and doing other stuff, just made me nominate them. Bianchi's car should be nominated, too, as it won't stay together.

2. Kimi Räikkönen. Wow, I'm disappointed. Checo was on a charge after him, but the defensive move that he made just made me sick of watching collisions from world class drivers. The fact that he got one point surprised me a lot. Yeah, blame Checo for being way too aggressive on Räikkönen, but Kimi started it and deserves reject of the race for screwing himself over and Pérez, for that matter.

1. Grosjean/Massa. The award for me should be shared between the two drivers. Grosjean was just a toolbag crashing this weekend, and was total shite in the race. Got himself a ten place grid penalty for Canada, and his 2012 self has come back, I think. Massa, on the other hand, had a crap weekend costing Ferrari $$$ and his Ferrari was just crap all weekend. The car was problematic, too.

Wow, maybe I should go with Kimi-ICE's ROTR and nominate the whole field bar Red Bull, Mercedes, Sutil, and Vergne. Those guys didn't screw up. Everyone else epically failed!

go_Rubens wrote:Time for my picks:

3. Marussia. Yeah, the cars were quick and were competitive, but Bianchi just had a weekend from hell and was nowhere, plus Chilton crashing Maldonado and doing other stuff, just made me nominate them. Bianchi's car should be nominated, too, as it won't stay together.

2. Kimi Räikkönen. Wow, I'm disappointed. Checo was on a charge after him, but the defensive move that he made just made me sick of watching collisions from world class drivers. The fact that he got one point surprised me a lot. Yeah, blame Checo for being way too aggressive on Räikkönen, but Kimi started it and deserves reject of the race for screwing himself over and Pérez, for that matter.

1. Grosjean/Massa. The award for me should be shared between the two drivers. Grosjean was just a toolbag crashing this weekend, and was total shite in the race. Got himself a ten place grid penalty for Canada, and his 2012 self has come back, I think. Massa, on the other hand, had a crap weekend costing Ferrari $$$ and his Ferrari was just crap all weekend. The car was problematic, too.

Wow, maybe I should go with Kimi-ICE's ROTR and nominate the whole field bar Red Bull, Mercedes, Sutil, and Vergne. Those guys didn't screw up. Everyone else epically failed!

Ferrari could also be in there with Marussia. Alonso being lackluster, Massa having a bad car, and Bianchi (Ferrari's Driver Academy product) also having a weekend from hell in a Marussia. Don't ever forget that Bianchi is in the Ferrari program as well as Marussia so a bad day for him is bad for both Marussia and Ferrari (who probably are paying for his seat time).

Romain Grosjean - Christ alive. Four accidents in 3 days is impressive.

Esteban Gutierrez - God damn useless. Nowhere in qualifying and completely anonymous in the race. Get out.

Max Chilton - Really silly accident with Maldonado. He kinda reminds me of Jenson Button when he was a rookie, only Chilton is much more useless.

Mexicola wrote:Romain Grosjean - Christ alive. Four accidents in 3 days is impressive.

Esteban Gutierrez - God damn useless. Nowhere in qualifying and completely anonymous in the race. Get out.

Max Chilton - Really silly accident with Maldonado. He kinda reminds me of Jenson Button when he was a rookie, only Chilton is much more useless.

In defence of Gutierrez i don't think he deserves outright ROTR because he didn't do anything that made you go "WTF was that?"

However considering he only qualified faster than Chilton and kind of played a part in the accident that caused the red flag by passing Chilton so Max lost momentum not to mention Max also finished just 6.6 behind him at the flag then Estebean deserves an honorable mention at least.

Sergio Perez/Romain Grosjean: For driving like their still in GP2.

It'll be close between Felipe "Idon'tlearnfrommyownmistake" Massa nad Romain "Iwillneverlearnfromanything" Grosjean

QuickYoda41 wrote:It'll be close between Felipe "Idon'tlearnfrommyownmistake" Massa nad Romain "Iwillneverlearnfromanything" Grosjean

Unless you are a conspiracy theorist, we should take Pat Fry's word on face value and believe that Massa's Sunday crash was a mechanical failure, unlike the Saturday one.

1- Perez, for being great and crap at the same time.
2 - The media, for making such a big deal about comments made by a certain Lotus driver not called Romain. It bores me it really does.

CoopsII wrote:1- Perez, for being great and crap at the same time.
2 - The media, for making such a big deal about comments made by a certain Lotus driver not called Romain. It bores me it really does.

I couldn't agree more CoopsII. It was quite entertaining to hear Button saying to the BBC that you have to make a soap opera about every little thing just because it's Monaco (Or should that be Moanaco)

I am going with Massa issues in first and Grrrjjjjjnnnn in second.

GRSJN (One more time, I'm going to crash again)

Ed24 wrote:

QuickYoda41 wrote:It'll be close between Felipe "Idon'tlearnfrommyownmistake" Massa nad Romain "Iwillneverlearnfromanything" Grosjean

Unless you are a conspiracy theorist, we should take Pat Fry's word on face value and believe that Massa's Sunday crash was a mechanical failure, unlike the Saturday one.

For me, that's just creating an excuse for Massa, taking a little bit of pressure of him. But as you said, this might be already a conspirancy theory.

QuickYoda41 wrote:

Ed24 wrote:

QuickYoda41 wrote:It'll be close between Felipe "Idon'tlearnfrommyownmistake" Massa nad Romain "Iwillneverlearnfromanything" Grosjean

Unless you are a conspiracy theorist, we should take Pat Fry's word on face value and believe that Massa's Sunday crash was a mechanical failure, unlike the Saturday one.

For me, that's just creating an excuse for Massa, taking a little bit of pressure of him. But as you said, this might be already a conspirancy theory.

Because the driver's obviously culpable for a suspension failure on his car?

CoopsII wrote:1- Perez, for being great and crap at the same time.
2 - The media, for making such a big deal about comments made by a certain Lotus driver not called Romain. It bores me it really does.

It's still the "Just leave me alone, I know what I'm doing" hype. Am I still the only one thinking, that Raikkönen is actually quite an arse? He's fast and a really good driver, I have to admit, but his personality is just awful.
If another driver would have said that on the radio (Just leave me alone, I know what I'm doing), we couldn't buy a shirt with this catchphrase on it. It seems, everything he says tends to be cool (well he's the Iceman after all).

Zetec wrote:

CoopsII wrote:1- Perez, for being great and crap at the same time.
2 - The media, for making such a big deal about comments made by a certain Lotus driver not called Romain. It bores me it really does.

It's still the "Just leave me alone, I know what I'm doing" hype. Am I still the only one thinking, that Raikkönen is actually quite an arse? He's fast and a really good driver, I have to admit, but his personality is just awful.
If another driver would have said that on the radio (Just leave me alone, I know what I'm doing), we couldn't buy a shirt with this catchphrase on it. It seems, everything he says tends to be cool (well he's the Iceman after all).

What if Paul di Resta had said that?

Kimi-ICE wrote:

Zetec wrote:

CoopsII wrote:1- Perez, for being great and crap at the same time.
2 - The media, for making such a big deal about comments made by a certain Lotus driver not called Romain. It bores me it really does.

It's still the "Just leave me alone, I know what I'm doing" hype. Am I still the only one thinking, that Raikkönen is actually quite an arse? He's fast and a really good driver, I have to admit, but his personality is just awful.
If another driver would have said that on the radio (Just leave me alone, I know what I'm doing), we couldn't buy a shirt with this catchphrase on it. It seems, everything he says tends to be cool (well he's the Iceman after all).

What if Paul di Resta had said that?

Well, Coulthard would get a boner and the rest of the world would call him an arrogant ass. So, same old same old

Nowadays anything Kimi says will get over-hyped and probably misunderstood.
Don't think he's an arse, on the contrary... but even if it were the case, I'd say better being an arse than a robot like most drivers.


Now, about the crash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g80-CFe7_Ko

at 00:52 - kimi was already defending. For Perez to make the move stick properly, I think he should have been alongside already.
at 00:54 - The gap was already disappearing, and Perez was still going for it.
at 00:55 - Perez locking under braking, and making contact with Kimi's rear tyres.

For me, Perez was not at any time alongside kimi, and therefore kimi had absolutely no reason to let him through [other than self-preservation that is]. It was Perez responsibility to avoid the crash. I mean, he didn't even touch the sidepod or anything that would classify his move as "doable"

It was a stupid move, but:

"any driver defending his position on a straight and before any braking area may use the full width of the track during his first move provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his. Whilst defending in this way the driver may not leave the track without justifiable reason. For the avoidance of doubt, if any part of the front wing of the car attempting to pass is alongside the rear wheel of the car in front this will be deemed to be a 'significant portion'."

So, reading stewards clarification, it means, by the time Perez was alongside with his frontwing (0:54), Raikkönen being not on the racing line by then, shouldn't have turned in the corner.

Zetec wrote:It was a stupid move, but:

"any driver defending his position on a straight and before any braking area may use the full width of the track during his first move provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his. Whilst defending in this way the driver may not leave the track without justifiable reason. For the avoidance of doubt, if any part of the front wing of the car attempting to pass is alongside the rear wheel of the car in front this will be deemed to be a 'significant portion'."

So, reading stewards clarification, it means, by the time Perez was alongside with his frontwing (0:54), Raikkönen being not on the racing line by then, shouldn't have turned in the corner.

Perez's move was far too optimistic, though because of the nature of the circuit, any pass is going to be "do or die" and so Perez was just doing what he had done before. Some of the moves worked, some didn't - though by the time he had a collision with Raikkonen, he was pushing his luck!

However.... Kimi could have avoided that accident, even if he kept the door open, there would have been enough room for him to stay within the confines of the track and then be able to shut the door on Perez through the switchback on the exit of the corner.

Having looked at another video with Audio - Perez was on the brakes before Raikkonen started moving over, so Perez had already committed to overtaking and braking before RAI responded - so Perez could not have slowed down any quicker. On the external shot of the link above, you can see Raikkonen is looking in his mirrors, he knew Perez was there yet turned in, though as an experienced racer, he should know the nature of overtaking in to that corner "do or die", if you see someone in your mirrors closing up, you know they can't slow down anymore - you can't just turn in on them and expect them to disappear into dust!

As I said, Perez was pushing his luck but Raikkonen could have avoided that accident - Alonso and Button managed to.

JJMonty wrote:However.... Kimi could have avoided that accident, even if he kept the door open, there would have been enough room for him to stay within the confines of the track and then be able to shut the door on Perez through the switchback on the exit of the corner.

Having looked at another video with Audio - Perez was on the brakes before Raikkonen started moving over, so Perez had already committed to overtaking and braking before RAI responded - so Perez could not have slowed down any quicker. On the external shot of the link above, you can see Raikkonen is looking in his mirrors, he knew Perez was there yet turned in, though as an experienced racer, he should know the nature of overtaking in to that corner "do or die", if you see someone in your mirrors closing up, you know they can't slow down anymore - you can't just turn in on them and expect them to disappear into dust!

As I said, Perez was pushing his luck but Raikkonen could have avoided that accident - Alonso and Button managed to.

Exactly. Looking at the images, it is clear that Kimi is way out of the normal trajectory at that point. Perez did not hit the Lotus when Raikkonen turned into the corner; look ahead at the images, and see where Hamilton is taking the turn. Kimi was caught napping in the braking area and tried to cover the line too late. A racing incident, but an avoidable one.

Another word, this time in defense of Grosjean: How on Earth was Ricciardo on the brakes that early out of the tunnel? Old tyres versus new tyres going on there, perhaps? Romain is already moving to Daniel's left to try a pass when he's surprised by the Toro Rosso dropping the anchor - look at the images. He's no more worthy of criticism than Webber was in Valencia, a few years ago.

Zetec wrote:It's still the "Just leave me alone, I know what I'm doing" hype.

The proof that Kimi has no idea of what he's doing is the fact that in Monaco this week he failed to monitor the tyre temperatures during the SC period, and after the restart needed 4 or 5 laps to get back to speed. Meanwhile Alonso was all over his back and his engineer was on the radio telling him his tyres were cold. If Alonso had nothing to lose - like Perez - he'd have shown him a nose in a braking area and hung him out to dry.

very interesting points there Zetec and JJMonty.

For the avoidance of doubt, if any part of the front wing of the car attempting to pass is alongside the rear wheel of the car in front this will be deemed to be a 'significant portion'."

I obviously know less than the drivers and engineers, but I'd imagine that's a bit much to ask. I support that by the amount of rear tyre punctures from drivers turning in over front wings, that have happened since 2009 (introduction of those gigantic front wings).
That and the side profile of the front wings... But that's another discussion.

CarlosFerreira wrote:

JJMonty wrote:However.... Kimi could have avoided that accident, even if he kept the door open, there would have been enough room for him to stay within the confines of the track and then be able to shut the door on Perez through the switchback on the exit of the corner.

Having looked at another video with Audio - Perez was on the brakes before Raikkonen started moving over, so Perez had already committed to overtaking and braking before RAI responded - so Perez could not have slowed down any quicker. On the external shot of the link above, you can see Raikkonen is looking in his mirrors, he knew Perez was there yet turned in, though as an experienced racer, he should know the nature of overtaking in to that corner "do or die", if you see someone in your mirrors closing up, you know they can't slow down anymore - you can't just turn in on them and expect them to disappear into dust!

As I said, Perez was pushing his luck but Raikkonen could have avoided that accident - Alonso and Button managed to.

Exactly. Looking at the images, it is clear that Kimi is way out of the normal trajectory at that point. Perez did not hit the Lotus when Raikkonen turned into the corner; look ahead at the images, and see where Hamilton is taking the turn. Kimi was caught napping in the braking area and tried to cover the line too late. A racing incident, but an avoidable one.

Another word, this time in defense of Grosjean: How on Earth was Ricciardo on the brakes that early out of the tunnel? Old tyres versus new tyres going on there, perhaps? Romain is already moving to Daniel's left to try a pass when he's surprised by the Toro Rosso dropping the anchor - look at the images. He's no more worthy of criticism than Webber was in Valencia, a few years ago.

Zetec wrote:It's still the "Just leave me alone, I know what I'm doing" hype.

The proof that Kimi has no idea of what he's doing is the fact that in Monaco this week he failed to monitor the tyre temperatures during the SC period, and after the restart needed 4 or 5 laps to get back to speed. Meanwhile Alonso was all over his back and his engineer was on the radio telling him his tyres were cold. If Alonso had nothing to lose - like Perez - he'd have shown him a nose in a braking area and hung him out to dry.

Apparently, Kimi has no idea what he's doing

I'm sad to have a t-shirt which says "Leave Me Alone, I Know What I'm Doing" right now, because of the fact that Kimi has no clue what he is doing at the moment. His words about Pèrez were pretty harsh for his standards and he can't seem to keep his cool right now. I'm disappointed with him right now

takagi_for_the_win wrote:Romain Grosjean, no contest. He made up for his quiet start to the season by going into full banzai, mid 2012 mode again.

Bingo! And there's the official decision as well ...

A bit of a hands-down winner, this one. As if four crashes over the weekend weren't enough, his rear-end job on Ricciardo was simply shake-your-head-worthy, and to top it off he then blames Daniel in the media for braking too early on fading tyres! Well hello, Romain! Rule no. 1 of driving on any public road, if you hit the driver in front, it's your fault. It's up to you to avoid them. Here we have supposedly one of the best drivers in the world, who still can't understand that you have to expect the unexpected and have the reflexes to respond accordingly. It's a bit like his collision with Webber at the start of the Japanese GP last year - it's the first lap, you can't expect people to be braking at the limit as if it's a Q3 lap on low tanks, you have to leave a bit of margin. Same here; if he knew Ricciardo was struggling on his tyres, then why wouldn't you expect him to be braking a bit earlier going into the chicane?

I see there's a bit of support here for Marussia - Bianchi's horror weekend certainly justifies it - but especially for Max Chilton. On this occasion I'll spare Mr 100% Talent on the basis that, whilst his collision with Maldonado was technically his fault, it was on one level excusable. They had just had a bit of a scramble at the chicane, and here was Max in the centre of the road on the short run to Tabac, possibly wondering where Pastor was. The last place you'd expect him to be is in your blind-spot on the outside going into Tabac. By the time he might have deduced that that was where the Williams was ... bang!

eytl wrote:

takagi_for_the_win wrote:Romain Grosjean, no contest. He made up for his quiet start to the season by going into full banzai, mid 2012 mode again.

Bingo! And there's the official decision as well ...

A bit of a hands-down winner, this one. As if four crashes over the weekend weren't enough, his rear-end job on Ricciardo was simply shake-your-head-worthy, and to top it off he then blames Daniel in the media for braking too early on fading tyres! Well hello, Romain! Rule no. 1 of driving on any public road, if you hit the driver in front, it's your fault. It's up to you to avoid them. Here we have supposedly one of the best drivers in the world, who still can't understand that you have to expect the unexpected and have the reflexes to respond accordingly. It's a bit like his collision with Webber at the start of the Japanese GP last year - it's the first lap, you can't expect people to be braking at the limit as if it's a Q3 lap on low tanks, you have to leave a bit of margin. Same here; if he knew Ricciardo was struggling on his tyres, then why wouldn't you expect him to be braking a bit earlier going into the chicane?

I see there's a bit of support here for Marussia - Bianchi's horror weekend certainly justifies it - but especially for Max Chilton. On this occasion I'll spare Mr 100% Talent on the basis that, whilst his collision with Maldonado was technically his fault, it was on one level excusable. They had just had a bit of a scramble at the chicane, and here was Max in the centre of the road on the short run to Tabac, possibly wondering where Pastor was. The last place you'd expect him to be is in your blind-spot on the outside going into Tabac. By the time he might have deduced that that was where the Williams was ... bang!

Do you usually race on a public road? And why would he know Ricciardo was having tyre issues? Is he a Toro Rosso race engineer? I think Grosjean was not at fault at all, but rather it was a racing incident.