ROTY for Motorsports/Non Motorsports

[golic_2004]

In Indycar I would give

3rd place: Simon Pagenaud, who just couldn't deliver in Penske like he did for Sam Schmidt.

2nd place: Stefano Coletti. From GP2 runner-up to being humiliated by his teammate. The one time he actually had a good race was at Sonoma but was black flagged for his radio not working. I don't think that series will see him again sadly.

1st place: Francesco Dracone. We all knew he'd not do good but we didn't think he'd be THAT BAD. Rocky Moran Jr. was even faster than him in practice and that guy hadn't been in an open wheel car since 2006. He's not Milka Duno by any means but he's clearly the worst since her.

[Londoner]

Right, time for my IndyCar ROTY

Honourable Mentions:

Simon Pagenaud. A horribly average season at Penske after the heroics he performed at Schimdt. He's got to step it up in 2016.

Ryan Hunter-Reay. Yes, he came sixth in points. Yes, he won at Iowa and Pocono. But for the first 12 races of this season, he did absolutely nothing.

Sage Karam. A season strewn with mistakes and...overexuberance, shall we say. It says lots that Sebastian Saavedra of all people was the safer pair of hands in the fourth Ganassi when he drove it. That being said, the speed and talent is clearly there, but my god does it need refining further before I'd trust him with a top car again.

Mark Miles. Just piss off already.

3rd: Francesco Dracone: We expected him to be crap, and he proved it. His performance NOLA was downright dangerous and embarrassing. However, he only did five races before he was replaced by the far more capable Vautier, and in all honesty, I'd actually forgotten about him by season's end. So yeah, he improved from dangerously slow to anonymously slow by the end of his five race stint, which just about keeps him off the top of the ROTY podium.

2nd: Stefano Coletti: Dear lord he was awful. In sixteen attempts, he cracked the top 10 ONCE, an 8th at the Indy GP track. The rest of his season was filled with reliability problems, a seemingly unhealthy attraction to Charlie Kimball's car, and finding new and interesting places to crash and spin. The only defence of his performance was that he was driving the poisoned chalice that is the second KV car, but even then Saavedra was able to impress occasionally in it last year. Coletti did nothing. Almost certainly won't be back for 2016, given he's pubiically announced he wants to run in Formula E. This really is his last chance to salvage what little of his open-wheel career is left after this shithouse of a season.

1st: Team Penske: Expectation plays a big role in determining ROTY. The general vibe before St Petersburg was that the four-car Penske superteam of destiny would dominate the championship, 1994 style. "The Captain" had assembled a line-up of reigning champion Will Power, former CART champion, Indy 500 winner and F1 ace Juan Pablo Montoya, perennial title challenger and three-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, and the most sought-after free agent in the paddock, Simon Pagenaud. What did this line-up deliver after all the hype? Three wins, twelve other podiums, and 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 11th in the championship. Time after time, Penske would dominate qualifying, only to throw away wins and good points wily-nily. Power seemed to revert back to his 2013 nadir at times, with astoundingly stupid errors, like at Barber (rejoining straight into the path of Sato), Detroit ll (spinning into Castroneves), Pocono (spinning in the pitlane) and the championship-costing error at Sonoma with Montoya. Castroneves went winless for the first time since 2011, and truth be told never looked like winning all season. Pagenaud was horribly average all year, bar his pole at Fontana. Montoya, on the other hand, was the only Penske driver to drive like a champion all year, and was desperately unlucky to lose the title on a tiebreak. His team-mates on the other hand have no reason to feel proud after this season. A winter of debriefing, regrouping and reorganising is in order if Penske are going to stop throwing away IndyCar championships (I read somewhere that this is the sixth time in seven seasons Penske have blown the drivers title).

[Dj_bereta]

If I remember well:

2010: Power chocked in the last races.

2011: Power crashed in the pit lane with Bia in the penultimate race. He was leading until the crash.

2012: Again, Power chocked in the last races.

2013: Helio had a huge luck to lead the championship with tons of average races and a sole win (in a year that everyone made mistakes). Power made a very poor 1st half and did well in the 2nd half, but not enough to get the title.

[Bleu]

Cal Crutchlow in Motogp.

He's basically the bike version of Pastor. Got the talent and speed, but is a magnet for trouble!

I find it quite funny that Cal Crutchlow has more DNFs in the premier class than Valentino Rossi. Rossi had 181 races under his belt when Crutchlow made his debut.

[Salamander]

IndyCar: Team Penske.

4 cars, featuring the defending champion, a 3-time Indy 500 winner, the man who led the championship 15/16 races, and the hottest free agent on the market.
15/16 poles.
7/16 fastest laps.
6/16 most laps led.
3/16 wins.
2nd, 3rd, 5th, 10th in standings.

Yeah, that's a choke if ever I've seen one.

[girry]

15/16 poles sounded too astounding so checked, it was only 13/16 poles - you may have accidentaly counted Dixon's 2 poles (screw the kiwi & aussie flags..)

I agree with all the Penske nominations, but nominating Pagenaud may be a bit harsh for his ride became a test car for Penske since halfway point of the season or so, and totally abandoned aiming for actual results.

[UncreativeUsername37]

(screw the kiwi & aussie flags..)

There's an easy way to tell them apart at low resolutions: the Australian flag has a star under the Union Jack and New Zealand doesn't.

[Wallio]

Well I think its pretty obvious: McLaren-Honda

Loads of hype (most of which was not of their doing admittedly) and the worst season of any F1 team since the mid-1990s. Really quite embarrassing actually.


That being said, Indycar's double points idiocy is a VERY close second.

[Londoner]

With the BTCC season concluding at Brands Hatch yesterday, it's time for my ROTY nominations.

Honourable mentions:

Rob Austin Racing - It pains me to mention one of my favourite teams, but the Audis are now way past their sell-by date, and it really showed this season. Austin did a sterling job hauling the car into the top 10 this season, but Hunter Abbott was pretty damn terrible, all things considered. Hopefully they can get some new cars built and be back towards the sharp end for 2016.

MG Triple 8 Racing - Same problem as Rob Austin really, the MG6 is an old car, and it really needs replacing, given Plato was stating they had maxed out the development curve by the middle of 2014. Still, Jordan and Goff flattered the car the best they can, but aside from Goff's reverse grid win at Snetterton, it was clear they were not on the same page as Honda, BMR and WSR.

Rob Collard - Yes, he won three races, but he could never string together a consistent weekend. Even Knockhill, where he won and took 2nd in the first two races was sullied by his retirement in the third race. Even though Tordoff and Priaulx were new to the 1-series Beemer, they both beat him in the championship.

The replacement sponsor who bailed on Motorbase three weeks before the season was about to start - Thanks for costing Mat Jackson probably his best shot at a title yet, jackasses.

Stewart Lines - The only driver to contest all 30 races and not score a single point. Hell, even Nicolas freaking Hamilton, a chap with pretty severe physical disabilities, was beating him. But hey, he's a 52 year old gentleman driver in a team desperate for money, and he was probably enjoying himself. To be honest, any points would have been surprising.

3rd: Aron Smith - Sooooo disappointing. After Brands Hatch Indy at the start of the year, it really looked like Smith had upped his game to match Plato and Turkington. He had by far the most consistent weekend of anyone in the field, and was joint leading the championship. After that though, he blew his best chances for wins with that ridiculous passing attempt on Josh Cook at Donington in the Craner Curves, (how he didn't cause a six car pile up I do not know), and then choked away a pole position start at Thruxton three weeks later. Did sod-all for the rest of the season afterwards. Mat Jackson came within 9 points of beating him in the championship, having run FIFTEEN races less than Smith! I highly doubt, given how critical Plato was of him this weekend, that he'll be back at BMR next year.

2nd: Alex Martin - Like many, when news broke that Martin was contesting the BTCC this year, my reaction was "who?". 30 races later, many of us know who Alex Martin is, but not for the reasons he might have wanted. An absolute danger to everyone at the rear of the field, I lost count of how many accidents he caused by using his car as a battering ram and moving over on others. Disgraceful stuff. Even without that though, he was driving a Motorbase-developed Ford Focus. This car should have scored more than the three points Martin scraped in it. The real clincher though was at Snetterton, when Martin was unable to drive. Barry Horne, who didn't even he was gonna drive the car until Saturday morning of the event, had a better day of racing than anything Martin achieved. Clean racing, and some points as a reward. Horne completely showed up Martin that day. I hope Horne gets a full time drive next year and Martin decides to take up proper banger racing instead.

1st: Infiniti Support Our Paras Racing/ - Truth be told, this mob had practically wrapped up ROTY by Oulton Park. Manufacturer efforts are rare in the BTCC nowadays, so the news that Infiniti were going to run a team excited everyone last October. Would they invest in teams like West Surrey or Motorbase, proven independents who can race with the best? Oh no. They instead linked up with the Palmer family. Things smelled slightly iffy when they announced their (initial) driving line up of Derek Palmer Jr, and Richard Hawken. An investment banker, and the boss's son. Fantastic. Even more fantastic, neither of these drivers had ever raced above club level. Very odd, when drivers like Plato, Turkington, Mat Jackson and Andy Jordan were available. The doubts grew when, despite announcing their team in October, they struggled to even get one car running by Brands, where it ran at the back all day. And that's what they did all year. One measly point, earned in the destruction derby that was race two at Snetterton. But no, it gets even better than that. Given the team was linked up with the Parachute Regiment, a charity effort for wounded servicemen, the team decided to give Martin Donelley, he of Jerez 1990 fame (or infamy), a seat for Thruxton, replacing Hawken, to highlight Donnelly's recovery from horrendous injuries. The problem here was: they didn't even bother to inform Hawken he wasn't racing! Scummy stuff, which killed any popularity this team was garnering. And then Infiniti abandoned the sinking ship after Thruxton anyway. The Palmers are awful, and it's highly likely they won't be back next year. They dragged the reputation of Infiniti, a charity doing great things, and the BTCC through the mire. Absolutely no loss if they don't come back, and hopefully a team who deserve to be in the BTCC will get their licences.

[Samster]

Here's mine for the BTCC, I'm going to do a full driver by driver ranking like this site used to do for F1. To be in the ranking, drivers must have competed in three or more meetings. I'll do separate rankings for both teams and drivers.

Drivers

1. Gordon Shedden
Well deserved champion, save for Snetterton, Shedden was a factor everywhere and secured the title in the most tense way possible. Even though some drivers let him through it was clear he was driving like a man possessed.

2. Mat Jackson
I wasn't going to put Jackson this high before Brands as I felt his and Motorbase's success was at least partly down to them being ballast free in the opening races but then he became only the third driver all season to win on full ballast and ultimately only Plato stood between him sweeping the weekend. Assuming Jackson would have scored a similar amount of points in the first half as he did in the second, he would have won the championship by around 50 points! If Motorbase are back to full time again next year, they should be very hard to beat.

3. Colin Turkington
For someone who has exclusively raced rear-wheel drive cars since 2007, Turkington did extremely well in his shock switch to BMR and he deserved better than his eventual fourth place. Taking the full season into account there was very little to choose between him and Plato but I decided to give the edge to him for having to adapt to front-wheel drive. Oh and also for not being nearly as much as a douche.

4. Jason Plato
As usual Plato wins the most races and is in the title race until the end yet ultimately comes up short. Does anyone else think that he just isn't any good at winning championships? The Paul Tracy of BTCC perhaps? The only other thing I have to say about him is how his ugly personality reared its head yesterday, his comments for me were showed him up as far less a team player than anything Aron Smith did on track. Frankly if Scott booted him from the team for his comments it would be well deserved. Finally I think its pretty telling that so many unassociated drivers willing let Shedden through for the sake of him beating Plato to the title.

5. Adam Morgan
Morgan continues to become better and better as a driver, combining his speed from 2014 with his consistency from 2013 and I ended up being surprised that he only won one race. He was the only driver to complete every lap this year. If Ciccely can improve to the point of being a consistent factor for victories I reckon Morgan could be a champion in the next few years.

6. Andrew Jordan
So many people (mainly on the official BTCC forum) claim Jordan had a bad year just because he failed to win anything and even more bafflingly suggested that Goff adapted better to the MG even though he was several places behind. Even though he failed to win for the first time since 2009, Jordan managed to be a consistent factor for top fives for most of the season and was still just barely in mathematical contention going into Brands, which I don't think he was last season. Lets face it, the MG these days is at best the fifth best car on the grid and that is more to blame for Jordan's lack of wins than he himself is.

7. Matt Neal
Even though Neal managed to return to form after a dismal 2014, I never felt he was ever going to be a real factor in the title race like Shedden, Plato and Turkington. He finished as high as he did in the championship because of consistency rather than being particularly quick, to back up my point he was only outside the top ten five times and all three of his wins came in reverse grid races. Neal might still be good for a few wins each season but I think the rest of his career will be spent as Shedden's rear gunner at this point.

8. Tom Ingram
Someone give this guy a good car already. Despite driving for Speedworks who are yet to prove they can win anything ever, Ingram came so very close to victory twice, the second time not even needing to benefit from the reverse grid draw to contend. Impressively despite having what should be a midfield car he managed 18 top 10s throughout the season.

9. Sam Tordoff
As I predicted, Tordoff was the best driver at WSR and actually looked like he'd be a title threat after Croft. Too bad his season kind of fell off a cliff from Knockhill onwards but if he sticks with WSR I think he'll could establish himself as the team's new Turkington.

10. Jack Goff
A solid season performing about as well as I expected him to do. And he did get a win when his bigger name teammate didn't, though he lucked out on the reverse grid draw.

11. Josh Cook
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the season with his near victory at Donnington and his climb through the field to finish on the podium in Rockingham. The Jack Sears trophy was a forgone conclusion once Bushell got injured at Thruxton. He isn't higher in the rankings though as he didn't maintain this form all season being particularly invisible through the middle of the season scoring just seven top tens all season. Still he is one to watch for the future.

12. Andy Priaulx
Pretty much as expected given how long he'd been away from the series, in fact I was worried he be a flop like Giovanardi last season going by his underwhelming performance in the DTM. Priaulx had a solid season though with a run of nine top fives in the middle of the season. Hopefully he'll be back next season as he could potentially be an outside challenger for the title like Tordoff.

13. Rob Austin
Did the best he could with the aging Audis with his usual good performance at Knockhill and Rockingham. Unfortunately the Audi is now too long in the tooth for him to sneak any podiums and he is right to move on to new cars.

14. Robert Collard
Your typical Collard season. Very quick on occasion but poor consistency and poor qualifying means he'll never contend for the championship.

15. Dave Newsham
Another year, another random midfield team. As usual Newsham had the occasional good run but it seems he is destined to spend his career as a dependable midfielder and I'm wondering if he'll ever get to win anything again.

16. Aiden Moffat
One of the three drivers to take his first podium this year and there was also a great 5th place out of nowhere at Donnington. Moffat may not be nearly as consistent as Morgan in the sister car but this year he has established himself as one to watch in the future.

17. Aron Smith
Given the car he had, I'm actually more surprised that Smith didn't win anything than Jordan. As East Londoner said, he looked good after Brands but seemed to do a great job at choking away his opportunities from then on while his more illustrious teammates racked up the wins. His reputation has certainly taken a hit this season.

18. Martin Depper
A fairly pleasant surprise this season as he not only matched and beat his more rated teammate but nearly doubled his points tally. Depper may not be very quick but he has proved himself to be competent and I'm glad he and Jeff will be back with a new car next year.

19. Mike Bushell
Somewhat of a disappointment. I predicted him as the Jack Sear's champion since he did beat Cook to the Clio Championship last season and on paper had a better team and car. But then Cook and Power Maxed proved to be one of the big surprises of the season while Bushell got injured at Thruxton, spent most of the rest of the season being invisible only scoring eight times all season and even managed to bizarrely dislocate his arm just from driving at Croft.

20. James Cole
Even with one of the best cars on the grid, Cole continues to be the most invisible driver on the grid. He is at least competent enough to warrant his place in the series but his race craft seems to be sorely lacking. At Silverstone when he was able to race in the top ten I noticed when he tried to overtake he tended to keep putting himself in a place where instead of gaining positions he would end up loosing two or three to cars behind him.

21. Jeff Smith
Although he seemed to be the quicker of the Eurotech drivers, Smith usually finished behind his teammate and crashed alot more too. To his credit he at least managed to set fast enough lap times to get top ten grid positions for race 2 on more than one occasion and did so without dropping to the back for clear track. Still he was well off what he managed in his previous stint with the team.

22. Dan Welch
Hard to judge his season given his team are still stubbornly clinging to their lemon of an engine. We know from past performances that he is about as good as Rob Austin at least and he did as best he could. At least he scored a point this time.

23. Robb Holland
Subbed for Belcher for three rounds and distinctly performed better. Though nothing special.

24. Derek Palmer Jr.
Doesn't seem to be a bad driver, shame he is stuck with a farce of a team. He did as well as you could expect and even got a point.

25. Hunter Abbott
He was mediocre last season but I could excuse that given it was his rookie season. However he showed no improvement at all this season. In fact I think Will Bratt was actually better than him.

26. Nicholas Hamilton
Given his disability, its amazing he can be even this close to some of the best touring car drivers in the world. Hamilton had a decent half season and has proved he can at least keep it on the road and if he gets a full season next year I'd be happy to see how he progresses.

27. Simon Belcher
Still slow but this year at least there are now a few drivers even slower than him. Really not much to say other than he must really fear Thruxton now.

28. Kieran Gallagher
I saw nothing from Gallagher that would make me want to see him back next year. The awful reliability of the car certainly didn't help but Tony Gilham really showed him up once he took over the driving duties.

29. Andy Wilmott
About as slow as expected, even by the Proton's standards. Then he took his money and ran.

ROTY Podium For Drivers

3. Warren Scott
The biggest waste of a front running car in the series today. Miles off his teammates and crashes far too much. Definitely far better at running a team than he is at racing.

2. Stewart Lines
When Lea Wood announced he was moving into a management role I was hoping they would at least someone decent in the car. Instead what we got was a gentleman driver in every sense of the term, the oldest in the field and arguably the slowest. Lines was the only full time driver not to score when even the Proton and Infiniti managed one each. His performance yesterday at Brands was the cherry on top of a shit-sunday bringing out two safety cars. His off at Surtees where he seemingly forgot to slow down gave Wurz's Magny-Cours incident a run for its money in outright patheticness.

1. Alex Martin
The other kind of gentleman driver, Martin proved to be the new Andy Neate, he just looked flat out dangerous on many occasions. The worst being when he shoved Lines into the pit wall at Oulton. I was hoping he'd at least improve like Jack Clarke did last season but never came. Well deserved ROTY.

Teams Ranking

1. Team Dynamics
Back on form with the new Civic Type R after a couple of sub-par seasons and at Brands showed the sort of team chemistry that BMR can only dream of.

2. Motorbase
Sigh, if only they could have done the full season. This is easily the best package they have ever had proven by the fact they finally achieved their first pole position. Please let them do the full season next year as they will surely be the team to beat.

3. Ciccely/Moffat Racing
Despite just being a small family team, Ciccely can now be included as one of the top teams in the series and seem to be here for the long haul. The best part of NGTC is how its allowed smaller teams to build genuinely competitive cars.

4. Team BMR
I'm amazed at how quickly this team has become one of the top teams in the series, having become regular winners this year but given how mediocre Smith seemed in comparison, I feel like Plato and Turkington may have flattered the cars a little.

5. Power Maxed Racing
Definitely the most improved team of the season. Given how slow and unreliable they were as BTC Racing last season I wasn't expecting much more than semi-regular points from the team. But Cook proved to be the find of the season, almost winning at Donnington and getting a podium at Rockingham while Newsham also scored a pair of 4ths. I hope they can retain the same lineup next season.

6. West Surrey Racing
Seemed to take a step back without Turkington to lead them. I wasn't expecting a championship challenge given that Tordoff isn't quite ready, Collard is too inconsistent and Priaulx had been away for too long but I was expecting them be a factor for wins more often than they were.

7. Speedworks Racing
As mediocre as ever but at least they went to the effort of building a new car for Ingram, almost getting their first win in the process and their best season in their five year history.

8. Triple Eight Racing
The MGs are now amongst the oldest cars on the grid and the other top teams now have them completely outclassed. Even at the tracks they used to dominate at, BMR are now better. Surely new cars are in order for next season.

9. Rob Austin Racing
Same story as Triple Eight, the Audis are getting outdated now but at least we know they will be moving on with new cars next year.

10. Eurotech Racing
Without the Jordans and Pirtek and with a pair of gentleman drivers racing the now aging Civics Eurotech are no longer a top team as they adapt to their new role as Jeff Smith's playground. Next year will see them be given the new Type Rs from Dynamics and it will be interesting to see what Smith and Depper can do with them.

11. AMD Tuning
Continue to be rather underwhelming as a team as they don't seem to be much better with the Motorbase Ford than they were with their old Golf. Whether its a dependable journeyman like Newsham or a young rookie like Bushell it seems AMD will never even be a regular force in the midfield. I also have to keep reminding myself that they took on the ex-Rotek Audi A3 for Nicholas Hamilton which at least seemed like a solid car when Jake Hill raced it at Brands.

12. Handy Motorsport
The collision with Bushell at Thruxton ruined their season financially but when Holland was behind the wheel they weren't too bad.

13. Team Parker Racing
Faced an impromptu debut season when Motorbase went on sabbatical and handed Alex Martin's Dextra car to them. Too bad Alex Martin proved to be so incompetent as they could probably be midfielders with a decent driver.

14. Houseman Racing
Lea Wood as a fan, please get back behind the wheel and stop relying on hopeless pay drivers. The only team not to score.

ROTY Podium For Teams

3. Tony Gilham Racing
Their Toyota was even more unreliable than the Welch Protons but at least unlike them they eventually ditched their hopeless engine for the Swindon and finally started finishing races again.

2. Welch Motorsport
As a fan, please ditch your engines and switch back to the Swindon engine already. The Proton seems to be a decent chassis and its being wasted with that awful engine.

1. Paras Racing
Pretty much everything that East Londoner said. This team were a joke in every sense of the word. Awful car, awful decisions. I'm not surprised Infiniti took their money and ran. Their only saving grace was that they at least scored a point and that Derek Palmer Jr. was probably the third best rookie in terms of talent.

[AndreaModa]

Londoner, Samster, both of those were great posts, have to say I pretty much agree with everything written! Top job.

[Londoner]

As regulars in the chat will no doubt confirm, I've been spending a lot of time this year watching 1990s CART. I've now completed 1990-1995, so I feel it's a good time to dish out some retrospective ROTY awards.

1990

3rd - Team Penske - Expectations were that the three-car Penske superteam, consisting of three-time champion and three-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears, 1988 champion and 1985 Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan, and the reigning champion and Indy 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi would dominate the season. Instead, the two main Lola teams, Galles/Kraco and Newman/Haas, clearly had the measure of Roger Penske's mob throughout the year. Emmo's title defence was a damp squib, and he was lucky to not end the season winless. Sullivan won two races, but was clearly persona non gratia by the end of the season, whilst Mears attempted to points-race his way to the title, but came up short.

2nd - Guido Dacco - One of the worst drivers I've seen. Why he decided to try his hand at CART I do not know.

1st - Porsche - After two promising years with Teo Fabi, the team expanded to a two-car effort with John Andretti joining the Italian who had brought the team's first (and only win) at Mid-Ohio in 1989. Expectations were high, but the car was terribly unreliable. Fabi looked totally adrift for most of the season, only looking competitive at Meadowlands and Denver. Andretti to his credit racked up a series of points finishes, going under the radar somewhat, but given the promise shown in 1989, this year was a disaster, and it wasn't surprising to hear that Porsche closed the team down at the end of the season.

1991

3rd - Jeff Andretti - Possibly the weakest Rookie of the Year in AOWS history. I saw nothing from him that would merit giving him another season in CART. He only really got Rookie of the Year by default, as Ted Prappas (the only other rookie to do more or less a full season) was saddled with outdated equipment, and a very young Paul Tracy only did four races all season.

2nd - Tony Bettenhausen Jr - Slow, ponderous, and a bit of a menace on track. His performance at Michigan (qualified 10th, finished 5th) was the only plus point in a terrible season.

1st - Patrick Racing - The team had obtained a major sponsorship deal with Miller, and managed to land Danny Sullivan, the hottest free agent in the paddock for 1991. However, the Alfa Romeo engine programme was a complete waste of time, with multiple failures throughout the season. The team managed to make Sullivan look like a complete mug.

What was happening behind the scenes though absolutely takes the biscuit. Miller demanded that the team dump the Alfa programme and run Chevrolet engines for 1992. At this point, the Chevy was the engine to have in CART. Apparently Patrick managed to get their hands on a Chevy...and shipped it over to Alfa in Italy, who stripped it down and copied parts. When word of this got back to Chevy, they point-blank refused to supply engines to the team in 1992. Sullivan walked out, Alfa terminated their engine programme, and Pat Patrick was left in major debt by the end of the season. A slam dunk ROTY, which is made all the more remarkable when you consider Bobby Rahal and Carl Hogan bought the team for a bargain, and won the championship in 1992.

1992

3rd - Hiro Matsushita - Maybe it's a touch harsh to put King Hiro here, given he missed a chunk of the season through injury sustained at the Indy 500. That being said, his replacement Raul Boesel, in his first race in Hiro's car, raced in the top 10 all day at Detroit and ultimately finished 2nd. This car had finished inside the top 10 precisely once up until this point. Boesel managed to make Hiro look totally worthless in just one race.

2nd - Mario Andretti - Mario, it's 1992. Why are you still racing? More to the point, why are you still racing in one of the top seats in the series? Mario looked totally adrift this season, and ready for retirement

1st - Eddie Cheever - After two seasons with Ganassi, Cheever was told to step it up in 1992. Aside from a distant 2nd at Phoenix (a race which was total domination by Rahal), he did nothing of the sort. It was telling that a rookie Robby Gordon had the measure of Cheever in his first few CART races, whilst Arie Luyendyk did much better than him at Indy until he became another victim of the cold weather. Unsurprisingly, Cheever was told he would not be getting a new contract for 1993 well before the end of the seaosn.

1993

3rd - Hall/VDS Racing - Having sacked John Andretti at the end of 1992 for "underperforming", the team signed Teo Fabi for this season...and scored 30 less points than they did with Andretti last season. Maybe it was the team that was the problem, not John Andretti after all...

2nd - Willy T. Ribbs - The commentators always spoke highly of Ribbs in his occasional outings in 1990-1992, but he was always in outdated machinery. This year however, he joined Walker, a team that was on the up after Scott Goodyear's superlative 1992 season. To only have a best finish of 10th all year in top equipment kinda makes the effusive praise he'd receive a bit odd. Maybe Ribbs wasn't that good after all...

1st - Marco Greco - Unbelievably slow. He'd often finish races at least seven to ten laps behind the leaders. What on earth was he trying to achieve, other than a retrospective ROTY 23 years later?

1994

3rd - Alessandro Zampedri - He managed to cause two pile-ups at Surfers Paradise, BEFORE the race had even started. That alone qualifies him for a position on the ROTY podium. In fairness, the rest of the year he wasn't anywhere near as bad as his debut race, and even managed to finish 7th at Portland in a low attrition race.

2nd - King Racing - This team made Scott Goodyear look like a chump all season long, aside from his insanely lucky victory at the Michigan 500 (which, if there was any justice in this world, would have been won by Raul Boesel and Dick Simon Racing, because goddamn, Boesel deserved at least one CART win in his career ). Even that victory only came about because the rest of the field disintegrated over the 250 laps. Goodyear even failed to qualify for the Indy 500, and only started the race because Davy Jones managed to put a backup car into the field for the team. Unsurprisingly the team closed down at the end of the season.

1st - Newman/Haas Racing - The reigning CART champions went winless for the first time in their existence. The 94 Lola was outclassed by the all-conquering Penske chassis that year, and the Ford Cosworth was once again hideously unreliable. However, much of the blame has to go to Nigel Mansell and Mario Andretti. This was Mario's retirement season, and I think he retired a season too late (as 1993 would have been the perfect way to cap his career), plus he was distracted by all of his media commitments. Mansell, the reigning CART champion, clearly stopped caring after the Indy 500, and very quickly wore out his goodwill in the paddock. His comments on Dennis Vitolo and the CART medical team at the Indy 500 went down like a sack of bricks, and very few were sad to see him scamper back to F1 at the end of the season.

1995

3rd - Carlos Guerrero - Aside from a fantastic qualifying run for the Indy 500, the only other things of note Guerrero did was crash on the first lap of both 500-milers, end up in another Zampedri pile-up at Toronto, and just generally being an uncooperative backmarker.

2nd - Emerson Fittipaldi - I'm not sure if he just stopped caring after the Indy 500 qualifying debacle, or if his age finally caught up to him this season, because he never qualified in the top 10 again, nor finished higher than 5th after Indy. He only won at Nazareth after Eddie Cheever ran out of fuel. Unsurprisingly he was replaced by Paul Tracy after the season ended, palmed off to Carl Hogan's new team.

1st - Michael Andretti - Michael should have won this title by 50 points at least. He should have racked up four straight wins in the first four races of the season. That he didn't, and how the rest of his season panned out, easily wins him ROTY. At Miami, he led convincingly until he tried to lap a slower car, and damaged his front suspension, which eventually proved terminal. At Surfers Paradise he led until the car lost 2nd gear, and drove an increasingly desperate race to hold onto 2nd from Rahal, until he failed to show one of the chicanes the respect it deserved on the final lap, which promptly spat him into the wall hard. At Phoenix, he was passed by Robby Gordon with a few laps to go, and then claimed he didn't know he was leading! Then at Long Beach, he led Little Al early on, but kept outbraking himself time and again.

After that, it seemed at every single race he'd hit at least one car. His Portland performance was something else entirely, where he took out a luckless Bryan Herta midway through the race with a ridiculously ambitious move, then engaged in a brainless outbraking contest with Gil De Ferran, then shaved Jimmy Vasser's rear wheel. On the final corner of the final lap, he snowplowed poor old Stefan Johansson out of 4th. Eventually CART slapped him with a probation after yet another idiotic performance, this time at Cleveland, and he did calm down, but the damage had already been done to his season.

[Alextrax52]

My choices for Indycar 2016

Bronze: AJ Foyt racing: it was a pretty terrible season for AJ's men rather like it has been since early 2013. You never really went into any race this season believing that they could have got a great result and furthermore when there was a chance the drivers threw it away. The most glaring example of this being Pocono where Takuma Sato qualified an excellent 3rd and then stuffed the car in the wall on the 2nd lap of the race. Jack Hawksworth was pretty terrible scoring fewer points than Sebastian Savveddra did in 2013. Can't see him coming back next season

Silver: Juan Pablo Montoya: When Juan Pablo achieved a stylish victory in Saint Pete to start the season it looked like he'd already got over his heartbreaking loss on the 2015 crown. What did the rest of his season consist of? 2 3rd place finishes, a number of off the pace drives and a final placing of 8th overall while his team mates came 1-2-3. Apart from those 2 podiums and a competitive showing at Iowa until his engine detonated while running 3rd there was very few glimpses of the man who drove his heart out throughout 2015 and in the end it's perhaps no real surprise to see Josef Newgarden take his seat after his year. Still deserves a place on the grid so hopefully it's the first half of a swap

Gold: Marco Andretti: Ok so it wasn't a great season for the Andretti team, statistically it wasn't much better than their winless 2009 season but at least Alex Rossi won the Indy 500 in his Rookie year, Carlos Munoz was solid and dependable and Ryan Hunter Reay had a lot of bad luck but produced some very good drives most notably at Pocono. What did Marco Andretti do? Absolutely nothing is the answer, A best finish of 8th in the season finale was one of only 3 top 10's he managed all season. That said his season might have been so much different if a promising performance at Saint Pete in the season opener had gone rewarded, instead having worked his way into top 5 contention he tried to follow team mate Hunter Reay past Luca Fillippi through a gap that was closing all the time. Contact was inevitable and he stalled trying to rejoin too quickly. Many have criticised Graham Rahal in the past for living off his name, judging by the last 2 seasons it won't be long before Marco is next

Honourable Mentions
Ed Carpenter: Not much of the stand out results in seasons past when he did race and was usually way behind Newgarden. Could have won the rescheduled Texas race with a storming drive but instead ended up in the wall when trying to lap Scott Dixon too quickly

Chip Ganassi racing: It wasn't a great season For Chip made worse by the Penske domination. Only 2 victories all season and it was only really at Toronto (where Scott Dixon was robbed of victory by the yellows) and Watkins Glen where a Ganassi car was the one to beat in normal circumstances. Of the drivers Dixon was inconsistent and finished out of the top 3 in the championship for the first time since 2005, TK was consistent but wasn't earth shattering and at 40+ isn't one for the future, Charlie Kimball was anonymous while Max Chilton may have been a rookie but so was Connor Daly who dragged a Dale Coyne car onto the podium and to a 4th while Chilton was only in the top 10 twice. Needs to step it up next season

James Hinchcliffe's luck: Definetly the unluckiest driver award including losing the Texas win in the last 100 metres and then running out of fuel on the last lap while in 3rd at the Glen, A loose wing cover at Pocono lost him a top 6 there as well

[Bobby Doorknobs]

Charlie Kimball was anonymous while Max Chilton may have been a rookie but so was Connor [sic] Daly who dragged a Dale Coyne car onto the podium and to a 4th while Chilton was only in the top 10 twice. Needs to step it up next season

Boooooooo

Max himself has said he will, and that he'll be IndyCar champion in 2018. If Talent said it, it must be true!

[Londoner]

Agree with everything you've said, although I'd probably have Foyt ahead of JPM. Hawksworth was the only full time driver not to score a top 10 result, and in fact the #41 was outscored by Dale Coyne's #19 by 21 points. Why's that significant? That's because the #19 is the famed Coyne paydrivermobile, and it had no less than four different drivers all season. Hawks had that awesome debut season with Bryan Herta just two years ago, and now look at him. He'll be lucky to have a Indy 500-only ride next year, let alone a full-time seat I'm pretty sure Sato's all but out of the door as well.

Other than JPM, Foyt and Marco, everyone else has kinda performed to expectations in IndyCar this year really.

In my AOWR odyssey, I've completed the first year of the Split, so I can give you my ROTY choices for 1996

IRL

3rd - Johnny Parsons - The only driver to do all three races and not secure a single finish. Was extremely slow throughout.

2nd - Dave Kudrave - He has the unfortunate accolade of being the very first driver to be lapped in an IRL race. That this happened on lap 5 of the Walt Disney race absolutely takes the biscuit, then it turned out he was a start and parker. He was somehow even slower at Phoenix.

1st - Dan Drinan - When you consider that the other two drivers on the ROTY podium at least qualified for the early IRL events, and that on one mile ovals there was regularly almost a 25mph difference between the polesitter and the slowest qualified car (and on a mile oval that is enormous), it does beg the question: how slow and crap did you have to be to fail to qualify for an early IRL race? Drinan entered a 1991 Lola chassis for Phoenix and the Indy 500, and didn't come close to qualifying for either because the car was so ancient it would inevitably break down before he could set times.

CART

Honourable mentions

Paul Tracy - Tracy went winless for the first time since 1992, and finished way behind his team mate Al Unser Jr in the standings. But I'm prepared to give PT the benefit of the doubt as he did suffer an injury which put him out of a couple of races mid-season, the 1996 Penske was a utter boat (Little Al only finished as high as he did in the standings because Zanardi and De Ferran had no luck for most of the season, Vasser pissed away a near 40 point lead after the US 500 with a terrible mid-season stretch, and Michael Andretti either won races or DNF'd), and PT lost potential wins at Homestead when the car died, and at Surfers when, oh what a surprised, Michael Andretti crashed into him.

1996 US 500 - The defining image of this race is not Jimmy Vasser winning his fourth race of the season from six starts, but the embarrassing spectacle of the field wrecking itself on a PACE LAP. Yes, the so-called top drivers in AOWR couldn't even get to the start of the race before having a huge crash, whilst 800 miles away at Indianapolis on the same day, the so-called no names, old farts, and paydrivers put on an entertaining Indy 500. The US 500 was the first nail in CART's coffin.

3rd - Hiro Matsushita - With his Panasonic monies effectively guaranteeing him a seat in CART until he retired from racing, King Hiro actually managed to get worse in 1996. He would routinely start races dead last, even behind the three Toyota-engined cars of Juan Fangio ll, PJ Jones, and the late Jeff Krosnoff, which everyone expected would be the slowest cars in the field due to this being their first season. Embarrassing stuff.

2nd - Robby Gordon - We'd been treated to three seasons of Robby becoming one of the best and most exciting drivers in the CART field between 1993 and 1995, culminating in two race wins, a title challenge, and interest from Formula One in 1995. This season was anything but. A 3rd place at the opener in Homestead boded well, but the rest of the season was filled with mechanical DNFs and a car which was frankly garbage. Robby would then overdrive and throw away good results, which he did at Detroit, Mid-Ohio and Rio. By the end of the year, Robby was off to NASCAR, one of the first scalps of the Split.

1st - Brahma Team Green - Team Green took Jacques Villeneuve to the 1995 CART title and the Indy 500 (though if there was any justice, Scott Pruett would have won the 500 that year ). Once he left for Formula One, the team's major sponsor Players defected to Forsythe Racing to sponsor their new Canadian driver Greg Moore. In a scramble, the team signed Raul Boesel and changed to the red, white and gold livery of Brahma Beer. As much as I rate Boesel, at this point he was past his peak but he was still a dependable hand and could be a force on his day. That is, if Green gave him good cars, which they plainly didn't. The Reynard-Fords they had must have been made of tissue paper, because almost every race saw Boesel retire from good positions with some kind of mechanical problem. Everyone on that team was made to look like a mug that year. Eventually Boesel had enough and moved over to Patrick Racing, taking his Brahma monies there for 1997. Slam dunk ROTY for Team Green.

[Dj_bereta]

I agree with everything, but with a different order.

3rd - Marco Andretti: He is only here because his dad is the team owner. Marco is underperforming for years.

2nd - Jack Hawksworth: Foyt had a poor year, but he was way worse and easily one the worst driver of the season. Will be a surprise if he keeps his seat after this horrible season.

1st - Juan Pablo Montoya: If JPM had won the title in the last year, this propably had be one of the worst title defenses in years. No surprise he lost his seat.

[Samster]

ROTY Podium for BTCC 2016

I will just do one podium this time instead of splitting between drivers and teams as there weren't really any bad teams only bad drivers this season.

3. Stewart Lines
Well, two full seasons and still no points, the first driver since the current top 15 system to achieve this. That alone deserves a spot on the ROTY podium. At least this year he isn't making the Wood's team look like a joke.

2. James Cole
What the hell? No one thought Cole was amongst the best drivers on the grid but I would have thought he would achieve more than one top 10 in the Subaru and be around the Jake Hill/Jeff Smith range of the championship tables and certainly well ahead of Warren Scott. Even he had a better finish with a 9th. Only time I remember seeing him was when his car spontaneous combusted at Donnington.

1. Mark Howard
Definately the least competent driver in the series for some time. It took him till Knockhill to finish all three races in a meeting and when he wasn't crashing he would usually be dead last in a car that was battling for the championship only last season. And finally he managed the dubious distinction of finishing the year on negative points having been docked three after Knockhill.

I may do a full ranking of the field in the touring car thread in a bit as I did last season, there are quite a few dishonorable mentions to talk about this season.

[lance_rambert]

Now that NASCAR's officially done for the year..

ROTY Podium of Drivers for the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series

Dishonorable Mentions:
- Danica Patrick - A year where she visibly got worse. How do you finish behind all the Roush cars in points? In the same damn car Kevin, Tony, and Kurt got in the Chase?

3rd: Paul Menard - EDIT: How the hell did I let this slip by? Last year, he and teammate Newman make the Chase, while Paul finishes 14th. This year, Paul has a dreadful year in comparison. No top 5's and nowhere near the Chase before Richmond. All this while teammate Dillon gets in on points, and Paul picks the Richmond race as the perfect moment to give Austin and Pop Pop a headache. Come on man, you weren't going to win the race, or finish high enough for points anyway. Paul slogs through the season to finish 25th in points. Obviously the weakest out of all Richard Childress' cars by far. There was some bad luck sprinkled in, but this deficit can't be all bad luck. At least for him, I don't see Menards closing tons of stores yet.

2nd: Brian Scott - What a total joke this guy's season was. I know Richard Petty Motorsports was a complete dumpster fire this year (more on that later), but Brian's driving surely didn't help them look any better. Teammate Aric Almirola just completely destroyed him this year. Whenever Almirola runs up in the midfield, and even sometimes remotely close to top 10 territory, Scott's too busy screwing around in the back. He did get that runner-up finish, but that was at Talladega, which is mostly a crapshoot.

Now we get into Scott's crashes and spins... oh boy. First off, this guy almost amassed a ratio of one caution in every two races. This left people like me awaiting every single race for the "obligatory Brian Scott caution", opposed to the usual bullcrap debris cautions. That's just unnecessary, especially with the apparently deteriorating situation at RPM. The last thing The King needs to worry about is a weekly massive repair bill. Given his consistency in the two national feeder series, Scott's first Cup campaign is just an embarrassment. Maybe his woeful performance this year had something to do with his sponsorship being pulled, family issues aside. Anyway, we won't be seeing him next year. Take from that whatever you please.

1st: Kasey Kahne - Personally, I don't think I need anymore signs of this guy no longer being on peak form. Here, we find another driver who's competing with Danica and Brian for the largest performance gulf below his/her teammates. However, while Danica and Brian were never expected to be in the league of their teammates, Kasey should have been at least running up with his Hendrick teammates. Even before Dale Jr. got sidelined with concussion symptoms, Kasey was already the weakest out the Hendrick stable, by far. Say what you will about the #5 car not being up to snuff compared to the other three, but his form in relation his teammates is not just a result of being in a slower team car. Jimmie, Dale, and Chase were at least running up front, while Kasey appears to have trouble consistently staying in the top 10. Now we'll get into the final nail in the coffin...

After Dale Jr. was benched for the season, Alex Bowman was pulled from the simulator and Jeff Gordon suddenly found himself briefly out of retirement. Somehow, these two supersubs still got that #88 to run better than Kasey in both races and qualifying. Unfortunately, especially for Bad Luck Bowman, the results don't reflect that. Bowman's performance at the Phoenix Chase race definitely deserves some merit. He managed to grab the pole and totally dominate the race, right up until Kyle Busch punted him into Matt Kenseth, although he still got 6th out of it. This leads up to what sealed the deal: at some point every Hendrick car and driver (yes, that includes Gordon and Bowman) managed to run up front and lead a lap... except Kasey.

Yes, that's right. Kasey Kahne holds the ignominious honor of being the only Hendrick driver to not lead a lap throughout the entire season. If that doesn't sum up this season, I don't know what else does. In light of supersub Alex Bowman's performance in the #88 and the exciting Hendrick junior William Byron in the pipeline, we might be seeing a new driver in the #5 in a couple of years.
-----------
ROTY Podium of Teams

3rd: Roush Fenway Racing - Yet another year where we get to see Jack Roush's empire implode on itself. It's sad, really. This used to be one of the teams to beat, normally getting at least one car in the Chase and being competitive for wins. However, RFR still hasn't grasped the Gen 6 car. Add to that two young guns in Stenhouse and Bayne not living up to their potential and a fading veteran in Biffle and now we have a recipe for disaster. At least in 2013 and 2014, Biffle and Edwards were still able to wheel their wretched Fords into the top 16 in points by the fall Richmond race, guaranteeing at least one of the Roush-Fords at a slim chance at the championship. In 2015, no cars make it in the Chase, but Biffle at least had an outside shot at a win in a few races. This year is where the cars have had enough, kicking and screaming to the point not even the drivers can account for the ever-growing performance deficit. For once, Biffle was the weakest link in the team, with Stenhouse being the team's only hope for a playoff berth by win after getting close in the second Bristol race. Even Bayne gave a glimmer of false hope by staying in the top 16 due to other drrivers' bad luck, but it wasn't meant to be.

Aside from those glimmers of false hope, Roush's 2016 is marred by a fall from midfield to the lower-midfield, with some surprising runs in the rear. With no apparent team leader to bring the team even close to Chase contention, Roush is again relegated to being the Ford Vestigial Empire in the shadow of rising Ford rivals Team Penske. After the departure of Biffle, the rumored loaning of impressive junior driver Buescher to a Chevy team, departure of longtime sponsor Zest, and the likely closure of the #16 team, this team is in for a rough postseason ride.

One more thing: Buescher got in the Chase. In a Front Row car, albeit with Roush support. The freaking junior driver beat out all of the parent team's drivers in the championship.

2nd: Hendrick Motorsports - Okay, I know damn well that Jimmie got his seventh title, but hear me out. This team gave its best effort to NOT be in the Chase this year. After the fall Richmond race, all four Hendrick cars combined took only TWO wins out of 26 races. this greatly pales in comparison to the win tallys of Penske (5), Stewart-Haas (4), and especially Gibbs (11!). Don't forget it was only Johnson scoring those wins, too. This team had Kahne being increasingly disappointing, Elliott's pit crew bumbling around like idiots with wins on the line, Elliott becoming Jeff Gordon on restarts, Dale Jr. never quite getting the job done (then his sidelining for the season), , and Jimmie's team leaving Earth after the second win. Keep this in mind as last year, we had three out of four cars easily in the Chase (no bonus points for guessing who didn't make it). Let's also not forget their summer slump that almost got Elliott out of the top 16 in points. Had that happened, we'd only have Jimmie in the post-season.

Rick Hendrick should count his blessings and keep them close, because if it weren't for the win-and-you're-in system, the Gibbs drivers screwing each other in the Chase, a rising star in Elliott, and Jimmie putting his Chase hat on, 2016 would be one of their worst seasons.

1st: Richard Petty Motorsports - You guys picked a perfect year to start building your own chassis . This is the first year where Aric Almirola actually had trouble getting close to the top 16 in points. In fact, he got nowhere close. Given how he's done in previous years in the #43, it wouldn't be wise to presume he just started to suck. Aric's demolishing of teammate Scott should be further evidence that he's still got it. Speaking of Scott, he definitely did nothing to help out the team. His constant crashes, spins, and low finishes only compounded the issues that RPM is going through. The biggest issue this year is both drivers finishing behind the ever-so-disappointing Danica Patrick in the points. This is doubly disappointing for Almirola, who until this year finished ahead of her every year the two drivers have been in Cup together.

An okay team suddenly finding themselves scraping the bottom of the barrel, even moreso than Danica and the Roush drivers after a couple decent years, seals The King's team as this year's Reject Team of the Year for me. Maybe it's time for the #43 car to retire.

[Londoner]

It's been quite some time since I did some CART ROTYs, so let's rectify that.

1997
Honorable mentions

Jimmy Vasser - The reigning champion was pretty much AWOL for most of the year. His only victory came at Laguna Seca, the penultimate race of the season, and had that race gone for an extra lap Mark Blundell would have won. That being said, Vasser could be counted to get the car to the chequered flag time in time out, which was largely why he managed to finish 3rd in the standings, but he had no answer to Zanardi all year.

Team Rahal - Not a great season. I think Bobby's age finally caught up to him, although he was unlucky to run out of fuel at Rio when leading with a lap to go, whilst Herta continued to demonstrate why he would never be anything more than a midfielder who'd occasionally have a great day.

Parker Johnstone - Looked like a man who couldn't wait to hang up the helmet. The Reynard-Honda package he had at Team Green was potent, but he never took advantage of it. The kicker is he finished behind Christian Fittipaldi in the standings. The same Christian Fittipaldi who missed six races after smashing his leg up at Surfers Paradise. In fairness to Parker, he had a horrendous accident at the Michigan 500 where his helmet was actually pierced by a piece of suspension ala Senna at Imola 1994. He then gave an interview afterwards where you can see a massive bruise on his forehead (skip to 1:18:00), and by the end of the interview I think he suddenly realises how close he came to dying. With that in mind, I don't blame him for not giving his all.

Charlie Nearburg - Had absolutely no business being in CART. It was pretty funny hearing the commentators praising Charlie for not being completely terrible during the last of his three races.

3rd: Lola/Tasman Motorsports - The Mastercard Lola debacle had a detrimental effect on Lola's CART effort. The 1997 Lola chassis was fundamentally flawed, and many teams scrambled to find alternatives. Hell, even Payton/Coyne Racing (at this point they were uber-scrubs) ended up buying a Reynard mid-season. The only teams that stuck with the Lola were the Project Indy scrub squad, and Tasman Motorsports. Tasman had a breakout 1996 season with three wins and a number of other good results. Expected to be outside contenders for the title in 1997, they instead managed to make Andre Ribeiro and Adrian Fernandez look like total mugs all season by sticking with the Lola. Riberio's sponsors eventually forced Tasman to buy a Reynard which they used from Toronto onwards, but poor old Fernandez was stuck all season with a horrible car. Unsurprisingly the moment a seat at Patrick Racing was on offer for 1998 he asked Pat Patrick "how much?", and the rest is history. Tasman would be history by the end of 1998 as well.

2nd: Dario Franchitti - An utter mess of a debut season. He threw away a number of great results through overdriving and rookie mistakes, the clincher being Toronto where he grabbed a surprise pole and then threw it away at the first corner trying to keep Rahal behind him. In contrast, his main rival for the rookie title, Patrick Carpentier came within three laps of winning the race at Gateway on fuel mileage (and still finished 2nd to boot) and looked far more a complete driver. Even worse for Franchitti, he ended up 3rd in the rookie standings behind Gualter feckin' Salles! A combination of poor results and word that he had signed a contract with Team KOOL Green for 1998 was enough for Carl Hogan to fire Franchitti before the last race of the season. As much as Hogan Racing was an utterly hateful outfit, you can't really blame Carl here.

1st: Al Unser Jr - Little Al's escalating off-track problems finally caught up to him in 1997. He was completely outclassed by Paul Tracy, a distant 3rd place at Nazareth being his best result of the season. PT dominated the short ovals in early 1997 and scored nearly twice the points of Little Al. Also of note was an insane crash with Dario Franchitti at Portland where he seemingly forgot to use his mirrors. The sad thing was that his decline would only continue.

1998
Honorable mentions

Michael Andretti - Had Homestead gone on for a lap longer, Michael would have mostly liked ended 1998 winless for the first season in a decade. A scruffy, inept season which also saw a crazy gamble by him and the team to press on at Long Beach with a delaminating front tyre, which ended with predictable results, and a ridiculous crash at Mid-Ohio where he decided to chop a backmarker at 180mph. He was damn well lucky not to end up on the other side of the fence.

Dario Franchitti - Yes, he won three races and finished 3rd in the standings. But for the first 13 races of the season this guy did nothing but choke, the most glaring issues being at Toronto where he dominated but then threw away the race with an appalling unforced error with less than 10 laps to go, and Mid-Ohio where he made an overambitious move on Bryan Herta at the first corner and ended up taking himself, Herta and a totally innocent Jimmy Vasser out of the race.

Greg Moore - He looked like the only driver who had an answer to Alex Zanardi (witness his no holds-barred pass for the win at Rio), but a combination of stupidity (Portland, Mid-Ohio (seeing a trend here are we ) and Vancouver) and terrible reliability put paid to his title challenge.

Gil de Ferran - Having come damn near close to winning the title for Derrick Walker in 1997 despite not actually winning a race, Gil was completely anonymous this season. Being stuck on the shithouse Goodyear tyres probably didn't help though.

Patrick Carpentier - Totally outclassed by Moore all year. In fairness though, Forsythe didn't have the experience or the resources to run two competitive cars at the time and Carp did take two pole positions (and was unlucky to be taken out by that imbecile Michael Andretti at Milwaukee).

3rd - PacWest Racing - This team were expected to be title contenders after a breakout 1997 which saw four wins and the team arguably being the second best on the grid behind Ganassi. Instead, they had problems with Reynard which meant Mauricio Gugelmin and Mark Blundell had to race with year-old chassis for the first few races of the season. This put the team on the back foot for the rest of the season. In fairness, it could be argued that PacWest were punching above their weight the previous season, and they just slid back to where they were normally, but to go from 4th and 6th in the standings to 15th and 18th in a year deserves some stick.

2nd - Andre Riberio - It seemed like Andre had hit the jackpot when the Captain signed him to drive a Penske for 1998. It proved anything but, as the PC-27 was another fundamentally flawed chassis from Penske Cars. That doesn't explain or excuse Riberio being completely blown out of the water by Alcoholic Unser Jr. Ribeiro scored a total of three top 10s all year, whilst Unser managed two podiums and still had flashes of his past greatness. The absolute kicker was Nazareth, where Andre failed to qualify. Yes, that's right, he was so goddamn slow on a mile oval that CART wouldn't allow him to race. This would be understandable if he was racing for a scrub team in ancient equipment, but not for a top team (admittedly one stuck in the doldrums). Unsurprisingly this proved to be Ribeiro's last season as a driver.

1st: Paul Tracy - Oh god where do we start here?! Lucky to even be in a race seat after being fired from Penske for running his mouth about their own-build chassis (even though history proves he was right), he spent 1998 driving like a complete idiot, to the point where CART banned him from racing in the first race of 1999. His best results were a trio of 5th places, and Franchitti scored 99 more points than him in the same car. Incidents of note include spinning Little Al around in the pitlane in Cleveland, punting a rookie Tony Kanaan at Vancouver and crashing out behind the safety car when leading with 5 laps to go at Fontana. However, it's his performance at Houston that takes the biscuit, and tbh I'm surprised it didn't end his career there and then. With the Team KOOL Green cars leading 1-2 in atrocious conditions, PT decides he wants to lead, and gets uncomfortably close to Franchitti. Told to back off by team owner Barry Green, he instead makes a desperate move for the lead and hits Franchitti. Dario is able to continue but PT is done. When he gets back to the pitlane Barry Green blows a gasket and has a very public argument with his driver. What does PT do? Yes, that's right, he shoves Green and nearly decks him. I have no idea how he didn't get fired on the spot, though I guess Green shouldn't have got in PT's face like he did.

[Dj_bereta]

Paul Tracy's 1998 season was a total disaster. No wonder he got a race ban for the next season considering the carnage he did.

[Alextrax52]

With the Indycar season now done and dusted it's time to dish out some nominations

Honourable mentions

AJ Foyt Racing: I think there's something fundamentally wrong within this team. The case in point is that Takuma Sato and Carlos Munoz swapping seats this season, Sato wins the Indy 500 and enjoys a generally decent season while Munoz didn't finish in the top 6 all season. The Foyt cars were often the slowest cars in the field even slower than the Dale Coyne machines. What can they do to move forward?

Charlie Kimball: Anonymous all season. Wasting that Ganassi seat in all honesty. Only plus point was at Texas where he took Pole and ran competitively until the engine failed

Chip Ganassi Racing: Speaking of Ganassi it seems like they just pool their resources into 1 car these days. Just 1 win all season is really poor for a team of their stature. Scott Dixon was excellent but he can only do so much against the horde of Penske's. I'm actually worried if they'll still be competitive when Dixon eventually leaves

3rd: Will Power's luck: I take the mic out of him being a choker but I think Will lost a real opportunity of winning this championship through a number of unfortunate incidents. First at St Petersburg where a tire changing gun was left in his path to run over before his gearbox failed while running 3rd. At Barber a dominant win was taken away by a late puncture. He was taken out of the Indy 500 and also had an unfortunate collision with Scott Dixon at Toronto. Admittedly Gateway was his fault but he deserved to finish way higher than 5th this year

2nd: Tony Kanann: TK has been an amazing servant to indycar all these years but when the most notable things you do this season are rinse Lewis Hamilton over the quality of indycar and cause a massive pile up in Texas you probably haven't had a great year. It was a poor campaign from TK season and I think his age has finally caught up with him. just 3 top 5's all season and 1 podium which was completely forgotten thanks to his antics on the Texas loop. In turn for a man vastly experienced as TK there were a number of silly mistakes from him. He crashed out at Road America, Crashed coming out the pits in Toronto and Watkins Glen and the most stupid of all was spinning and crashing on the FORMATION LAP at Gateway. If there was one bright performance it came at Pocono where he led a chunk of the race before finishing ahead of Dixon in 5th. Overall though i'm not surprised he might not be staying at Ganassi in 2018

1st: Mikhail Aleshin: The Russian Rocket certainly lived up to his name in 2017 in that he ended up rocketing out of the series. No surprise either due to the lack of results and his desire to seemingly wreck as many cars as possible. You could sense that the tension was there when after writing off another car at Iowa he was benched for Toronto in favour of Sebastian Saavedra who isn't a master of keeping it out the wall himself and he was fired after another poor showing at Mid-Ohio. Add to that some Visa problems getting back into America and it was a dismal year for the Russian Rocket

[girry]

Fair nominations, I agree with all of them (ok, maybe would have Foyt higher up the list & Marco as a HM), but one minor quibble I have to mention because I'm keen on nicknames. Mikhail is the Mad Russian, a nickname paying homage to the great Serbian Bill Vukovich... whereas the Russian Rocket is someone else.

[Dexter249]

Calabogie Motorsports Park GT Challenge Race #8 IIDOTR and ROTR
Saturday's GTC Race is the 2nd to last of the season, all the regulars were in the race so this counts as the ROTR/ROTY for the season so far
IIDOTR
3. #30 Mazda RX-8, Finished as the best of the rest in the race despite not being the best car in the race.
2. Grant's #73 BMW E46 328i, A Competitor in the PT Challenge (Purpose built race cars) and my Father's "Mortal Enemy" on the track, Finished 3rd but ran 2nd literally all race technically "Best of the rest" behind our IIDOTR of the race
1. The #3 OBPrestigeAuto BMW 1M, The class of the field, 3 seconds ahead of every other car in the field, and being the only car on the team with the car in half-working order (See ROTR for the rest of the details)

ROTR
3. The #105 Ford Mustang Foxbody, Did fairly well in the race, only to put it in the guardrail on the Final lap, finishing last in GT1.
2. The #001 BMW E36 328i, Overheated during gridding, went out 1 lap down and came in during the only Full Course yellow of the race, getting put behind the wall with a busted radiator.
1. The rest of the OBPrestigeAuto team (The #15 Honda Civic SiR EG6, usually used for the ChumpCar weekend and the #33 2012 Subaru Impreza WRX STi), The Civic blew away many of the faster cars in qualifying, Including the #105 Foxbody Mustang and the rest of the GT2 field, The car was set to Dominate GT2, when 15 minutes into the race, The Engine crapped out after VTEC Kicked in, Causing the only Full Course Yellow of the race, The #33 Subaru was the fastest GT2 car after that, with 5 minutes remaining, The Turbo expired and lap times fell off by over 10 seconds, and the #33 finished dead last in GT2 of all running cars, losing out to the Bone Stock 2016 STi's of the Hao family, The #3 although winning the race, had a tire issue on the left rear and kept sliding out of "Quarry" (The complex of turns 19-21).

[Londoner]

Time for some more retrospective CART ROTYs

1999
Honourable Mentions:

Toyota - Yes, they got their first pole position courtesy of Scott Pruett. Yes, they unearthed the gem that was Cristiano (Crashtiano?) da Matta? But this is their fourth season and they still can't build a half-decent engine. It was honestly getting pretty boring hearing Paul Page and Parker Johnstone hyping up Toyota's "progress" throughout the season. WHAT PROGRESS? HONDA WERE WINNING RACES IN THEIR SECOND SEASON IN CART DESPITE BEING WITH FAR FEWER TEAMS,

Bryan Herta - Having finally managed to win a race in 1998 and with Bobby Rahal hanging up the helmet, Herta was expected to lead Team Rahal. Apart from his crushingly dominant victory at Laguna Seca, he was blown out of the water by Rahal's hand-picked replacement Mad Max Papis. Herta looked absolutely dreadful on the short ovals in the early part of the season, and unsurprisingly he was told his services were no longer required for 2000.

Jimmy Vasser - Managed to go winless for the most dominant team in the paddock.

P.J. Jones - Pat Patrick is a strange man. In 1998 he arguably had one of the strongest driver lineups in the field with Scott Pruett and Adrian Fernandez. So what does he do? He fires Pruett and signs this jabroni for 1999. He may have been the son of Indy legend Parnelli Jones, but he sure didn't have the talent to cut it in CART. What keeps him off the ROTY podium is a unbelievable performance at Nazareth where he damn nearly won the race. In fact, it's so much of a fluke that I'm not even sure it was actually Jones driving that car.

3rd - Hogan Racing - This utterly hateful team staggered into 1999 with an unfancied Lola chassis, a declining Mercedes-Benz engine, and one of the hottest talents in the paddock. Helio Castro-Neves (yes, that's actually the correct spelling of his name) produced several stunning qualifying performances and ran at the front of a number of races. He scored the first of many, many poles at Milwaukee, and I'm certain he'd have won the race at Gateway if he was battling any other driver than Michael Andretti. Helio only finished 15th in points though. He retired from no less than 14 races, mostly because of the terrible, terrible equipment this team kept giving him. The team was also in dire financial strife, and by the end of the season the situation had deteriorated to the point when Helio was becoming a forgotten man through no fault of his own. Had the tragic events of Fontana not happened, this team may have ruined Castro-Neves' career before it really got going.

2nd - The Hattori duo - Rejects Rejoice! We all know the exploits of Shiggy Hattori, and I'm going to direct you to the page on Deep Throttle as they've described his 1999 much better than I could. However, I'd argue that Naoki Hattori was actually worse than Shiggy, due to expectations. Naoki's CART debut lasted one corner before he wrecked himself and Al Unser Jr, both of them sustaining injuries. When he eventually returned in August of that year all he did was anger driver after driver by being a terrible backmarker. The kicker here is that he was driving for Walker Racing, a team that had and could still win races. Shiggy was driving for Bettenhausen Racing, a perennial underdog team who were in financial trouble having lost their long standing Alumax sponsorship over the winter.

1st - Team Penske - After several seasons of treading water, Team Penske hit rock bottom in 1999. The team cut back to just one full time car for the rapidly declining Al Unser Jr, sending Andre Riberio into their dealership business (hey, they've gotta recoup their costs somehow ). Sticking with the fundamentally flawed (if absolutely beautiful) own-build chassis, the dreadful Mercedes engines, and shithouse Goodyear tyres, the one car experiment fell apart by the first corner of Homestead with Little Al suffering a broken leg due to Naoki Hattori's incompetence. Thus started a revolving door of new faces in the #2 and the rarely seen #3. F1 Reject Tarso Marques, the late Gonzalo Rodriguez ( ), and the criminally underrated Alex Barron were all given chances at Penske. Little Al was little more than a backmarker for most of the season though, excluding Cleveland and Fontana. Unser's 5th at Cleveland was the team's best result of the year. The Captain realised that a shakeup was needed, initially purchasing a Lola chassis to replace the PC27B, and then announcing deals with Reynard, Honda, Firestone, Gil de Ferran and Greg Moore ( ) for 2000. Penske would be back on top in just a year's time, and to this day the team have never plumbed the depths that they did in 1999 again.

[Dj_bereta]

I still remember how dreadful 1999 season was for Penske. I had a strong feeling of "last season for Roger Penske's team" in that time.

About 2017 Indy Roty, I totally agree with Aleshin winning it. I don't remember the last time which a driver was fired in the middle of an Indycar season.

[girry]

Uh, not arguing that Aleshin shouldn't be the ROTY, but there are plenty of cases with drivers losing their ride mid-season even in recent memory (it more looked like Aleshin's money dried out rather than Schmidt straight out sacking him). Most notably Hildebrand got flat-out sacked by Panther in 2013, but in addition to that we've had Karam getting replaced by Saavedra towards the end of 2015, and Tags losing his Herta seat late in 2013. Not to mention Dale Coyne's permanently rotating wheel of drivers!

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

BTCC 2017:

Stewart Lines - Only did a half-season this time but rock-bottom on countback screams 'Hang Up The Keys!' and not to mention MG!

[Samster]

BTCC 2017

(Dis)Honorable Mentions

Josh Cook - Earning five strikes ought to be enough to make the ROTY podium but his performance with Maximum in the early season plus taking Triple 8's two best results save him. Still Cook has certainly lost himself several fans this season, first for leaving Maximum in the lurch for what was by that point the clear worst car on the grid (to be fair I heard he didn't have the funding to complete the season for Maximum and Triple 8 were cheaper) and then racking up strikes like no tomorrow, costing Triple 8 their only shot at a podium finish all season in the process.

Stewart Lines - Still out of his depth but he was only ever in the car so his team could hold onto their TBL after Cook left them.

Martin Depper - Seemed to take a step back in mediocrity this season. Invisible all season.

Will Burns - The most disappointing of the rookies this season. Did nothing of note and was the only driver to start the season that never scored points. He made me wonder just how poor the depth of talent in Ginetta Supercup is. Getting injured at Silverstone was a sad way to end his season.

Jason Plato - Were it not for Knockhill, Plato would be on the ROTY podium for sure. Brands Indy was the only other meeting he challenged Sutton and even then he got himself wrapped around Matt Simpson and spun into the pitwall. The rest of the season he barely outperformed Cole and Price let alone challenged Sutton and his performance most recently at Brands GP had the feel of someone who had given up trying.

Onto the podium itself

3rd - Aron Taylor-Smith - Even considering Triple 8's shocker, this was a poor season for him as he continues his gradual drop down the field in recent seasons. Only one top ten all season in the wreckfest that was Donnington Race 3. He even managed to collide with his teammate Dan Lloyd twice before the latter jumped from the sinking ship. Then came his injury at Croft which did nothing to help his cause. The final nail in the coffin was Cook returning and earning all of Triple 8's headlines (both good and bad) while ATS was basically unnoticed way down in the lower midfield. A sad way for a once promising career to pan out.

2nd - Stephen Jelley - For a returning race winner, Jelley would have to be the most disappointing driver of the season. Never finished higher than 15th and never once looked like doing any better. In fact I just looked it up, Derptra actually scored one more point than Jelley last season in the same car. Alex 'Derptra' Martin of all people! Enough said really.

ROTY - Triple Eight Racing - Was it ever going to be anyone else really? In fact I'd say they had this wrapped up since Lloyd and ATS collided during Donnington Race 1. There were some races where their pace was around one second off where they were last season with the exact same cars. How does that even happen? The MG is now comfortably the worst car on the grid. The only meeting they got close to the front was Rockingham where Cook got a 4th in the first race only to piss away the rest of the meeting by driving like a hyper active puppy while ATS was still tooling around in the midfield like he had been all season. Its well past the time to drop the MGs now but the team is in such a state these days that they are unlikely ever to be able to afford to build new cars again. The fact that they operate in a small corner of BMR's shop sums up their recent fortunes quite well.

[Dj_bereta]

Wales failing to qualify to world cup despite being a pot 1 seeder and the biggest positive surprise of Euro 2016 will put the team in my ROTY podium of 2018 World Cup for sure or even the overall ROTY. Although Argentina could beat it if the team manages to fail to qualify for the world cup.

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

BTCC 2017

(Dis)Honorable Mentions

Josh Cook - Earning five strikes ought to be enough to make the ROTY podium but his performance with Maximum in the early season plus taking Triple 8's two best results save him. Still Cook has certainly lost himself several fans this season, first for leaving Maximum in the lurch for what was by that point the clear worst car on the grid (to be fair I heard he didn't have the funding to complete the season for Maximum and Triple 8 were cheaper) and then racking up strikes like no tomorrow, costing Triple 8 their only shot at a podium finish all season in the process.

Stewart Lines - Still out of his depth but he was only ever in the car so his team could hold onto their TBL after Cook left them.

Martin Depper - Seemed to take a step back in mediocrity this season. Invisible all season.

Will Burns - The most disappointing of the rookies this season. Did nothing of note and was the only driver to start the season that never scored points. He made me wonder just how poor the depth of talent in Ginetta Supercup is. Getting injured at Silverstone was a sad way to end his season.

Jason Plato - Were it not for Knockhill, Plato would be on the ROTY podium for sure. Brands Indy was the only other meeting he challenged Sutton and even then he got himself wrapped around Matt Simpson and spun into the pitwall. The rest of the season he barely outperformed Cole and Price let alone challenged Sutton and his performance most recently at Brands GP had the feel of someone who had given up trying.

Onto the podium itself

3rd - Aron Taylor-Smith - Even considering Triple 8's shocker, this was a poor season for him as he continues his gradual drop down the field in recent seasons. Only one top ten all season in the wreckfest that was Donnington Race 3. He even managed to collide with his teammate Dan Lloyd twice before the latter jumped from the sinking ship. Then came his injury at Croft which did nothing to help his cause. The final nail in the coffin was Cook returning and earning all of Triple 8's headlines (both good and bad) while ATS was basically unnoticed way down in the lower midfield. A sad way for a once promising career to pan out.

2nd - Stephen Jelley - For a returning race winner, Jelley would have to be the most disappointing driver of the season. Never finished higher than 15th and never once looked like doing any better. In fact I just looked it up, Derptra actually scored one more point than Jelley last season in the same car. Alex 'Derptra' Martin of all people! Enough said really.

ROTY - Triple Eight Racing - Was it ever going to be anyone else really? In fact I'd say they had this wrapped up since Lloyd and ATS collided during Donnington Race 1. There were some races where their pace was around one second off where they were last season with the exact same cars. How does that even happen? The MG is now comfortably the worst car on the grid. The only meeting they got close to the front was Rockingham where Cook got a 4th in the first race only to piss away the rest of the meeting by driving like a hyper active puppy while ATS was still tooling around in the midfield like he had been all season. Its well past the time to drop the MGs now but the team is in such a state these days that they are unlikely ever to be able to afford to build new cars again. The fact that they operate in a small corner of BMR's shop sums up their recent fortunes quite well.

My revised BTCC 2017 RotY podium:

3rd: Will Burns - The only newbie not to score, the only driver to contest most of the season not to score!
2nd: Stewart Lines - When you're dead last on count-back, behind even the one-off wonder Swede you replaced, surely that can only mean one thing, you're out of your depth and your team should try to find someone else?
1st: Triple 8 MG - When was the last time a works team performed this badly?

Dishonourable Mentions:

Jason Plato - He seems to be getting worse since the Subaru arrived, 7th last year, 12th this year, a sign of decline, Jason?

Stephen Jelley - It would have been harsh to put him on the podium as we've grown used to under-performing comebacks in recent years with the exception of Andy Priaulx and Jelley is hardly Gio or Menu or even Chilton and let's not forget, he under-performed in his first season in 08 when the BTCC was a lot less competitive but he did have that breakthrough pole in the last meeting of that season so one would have thought he would have had a breakthrough moment this year but alas not.

Tom Chilton - What is it with Chilton and Vauxhall's? Every time he drives one, he under-performs although this year, he has an excuse, the NGTC Astra was a new car to the BTCC and he hadn't competed in the BTCC since 2011 and was also continuing in the WTCC at the same time but aside Brands Hatch, he could manage no better than 9th anywhere else and Rob Huff showed him up by almost scoring a win! See what I mean about below-par comebacks?

Adam Morgan - His first winless season since he started driving the Merc and to add insult to injury, Moffat in the other Merc won twice!

Aron Taylor-Smith - He's been slipping further and further down in the Championship since his first full season in 2012, even his one-off in 2011 ranked him higher than this!

[CarloSpace]

Wales failing to qualify to world cup despite being a pot 1 seeder and the biggest positive surprise of Euro 2016 will put the team in my ROTY podium of 2018 World Cup for sure or even the overall ROTY. Although Argentina could beat it if the team manages to fail to qualify for the world cup.

Argentina survives but USA and Netherlands mount a serious challenge for the ROTY award. In my opinion USA is the clear winner after losing the decisive match against rejectful T&T and finishing fifth in the qualifying group behind such giants as Costa Rica, Panama and Honduras who qualify to the inter-confederation play-off against Australia.

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

Football in general, both local and International. It's never been my fave sport.

[Rob Dylan]

My nominations for the FIA European Formula 3 2017 Season:

3. Mick Schumacher - not because he was terrible on his own, per se, but because he delivered a single podium in a season where most of his mid-field peers were scoring a fair number of podiums and shock results. When he achieved that third place in Monza, it looked like the start of a good season, but that was actually the high-point. This, combined with him having the tv cameras on him at every point in every race, meant there was a huge amount of pressure on the young guy, and although I feel bad for putting him on this podium, I feel it is deserved simply because he was just disappointing.
2. Joey Mawson - frankly, throughout most of the season he was simply erratic and a hazard. A few shock results save him from the reject trophy imo, but he's lucky he had those saves for his reputation's sake. Pau especially saw him at his worst, and was possibly the defining reject performance of any weekend this season.
1. Keyvan Andres Soori - the quintessence of the "also ran". He will be remembered by few except people like me who hear the name and go "oh yeah, he was also there that season". Although there were other drivers with greater expectations lumped upon them, they at least had shock results ala Harry Newey that gave them some kind of up-side to their season.

Dishonourable mentions:
- Ferdinand Habsburg (not the king of Mexico) - he got a very lucky win with a completely different strategy, although there were a lot of other drivers on the grid this year who were stronger but less lucky than he was. Saved himself from the podium by his ability to pull out results on strange occasions.
- Lando Norris's racecraft - he's definitely going to need to learn how to pass without crashing into everyone. Max Verstappen is a great role model and all that, but Norris needs to learn that passing as quickly as possible all the time isn't going to work forever as a strategy. A solid championship win, but I see warning signs ahead if he's going to F2 next season.
- Ralf Aron - someone else whose racecraft seems to leave something to be desired. A very topsy-turvy season, but he at least had the ups for balance.

[dinizintheoven]

Dishonourable mentions:
- Ferdinand Habsburg (not the king of Mexico) - he got a very lucky win with a completely different strategy, although there were a lot of other drivers on the grid this year who were stronger but less lucky than he was. Saved himself from the podium by his ability to pull out results on strange occasions.

But an honourable mention for his many names, which would look fantastic on a cricket scorecard...

...provided he was playing for Sri Lanka.

TEAM NEWS
England: AN Cook, MJ Stoneman, DJ Malan, JE Root (c), AD Hales, BA Stokes, JM Bairstow (wk), MM Ali, CR Woakes, SCJ Broad, JM Anderson.
Sri Lanka All-Stars: FZMBKMOABL von Habsburg, DSBP Kuruppu, EMDY Munaweera, HDRL Thirimanne, DPMD Jayawardene (c), RJMGM Rupasinghe, HAPW Jayawardene (wk), WPUJC Vaas, HMRKB Herath, UWMBCA Welegedara, ARRAPWRRKB Amunugama.
Umpires: HD Bird, HDPK Dharmasena.

[Dj_bereta]

My ROTY of Road to Russia 2018:

3rd - Chile: Won two Copa America titles in-a-row and was the runner up in the last Confederation Cup. In other hand, struggled in the qualify group. The team improved a bit in the last rounds, but not good enough to secure a place in the world cup. A wasted opportunity.

2nd - USA: In the qualify zone and a last match against the weakest team in the group. What could go wrong? Well, everything. Not only the team lost to Trinidad & Tobago but both Panana & Honduras managed to won their matches, kicking out USA of world cup. This basically killed the momentum the USA team had build since the last world cup. And considering the world cup is going to be in Russia, I don't think Americans will bother to watch it.

1st Italy: For the first time in over 60 years, the Italian team is out of a World Cup. The team failed to score a single goal against Sweden in both matches. And Sweden isn't the strongest team out here. Easily the most rejectful moment of qualifiers in years. Ventura career as national team manager is effectively over. Also, this was a sad farewell for Buffon.

Special mentions:

Wales: The Leicester City of Europe.

Paraguay: Had a legitimate shot to qualify but lost to Venezuela at home. Yeah, lost to the weakest team in the group, at home.

Ghana & Ivory Coast: The strongest forces in Africa lost to teams which were out of World Cup for decades.

Dunga: Tite made him look like a fool. While Brazil under his command was out of the qualify zone, under Tite command, the team racked a lot of victories and curbstomped the entire group. He only missed the ROTY podium due traditional teams failing to qualify.

[Rob Dylan]

Rob Dylan's Officially Unofficial GP3 Reject Of The Year Podium
3rd - Marcos Siebert: With the exception of a lucky 4th in Monza, Siebert has had a disaster of a season in GP3 this year. Regularly caught up in incidents, and one of those drivers where "when they show a replay of him, you know it's going to be exciting". That's not a good thing.
2nd - Tatiana Calderón: This was her second full season in GP3, and she was one of the very last of the drivers to get on the scoreboard over the season. She's one of the oldest drivers on the grid, and by now should have the experience and racing know-how both inside and outside of the series to do well against the GP3 crowd. With the exception of a few late-season grabs, a dismal season.
1st - Steijn Schothorst: a driver whose name I never heard outside of "bringing up the rear is..." and the occasional backmarker incident of no note to the outcome of the race. There were a few times that he was racing around the points region, but almost every time he was erratic, and just didn't grasp any of his many opportunities to shine this year. Reject of the Year in my opinion.

Honourable Mentions
- Jack Aitken: easily the weakest of the ART drivers this year in my opinion. He lacked the pace that Fukuzumi and even Hubert showed throughout the season, and owes most of his runner-up position to the failures on the former's car. Russell trashed him when many were predicting a close fight, and Nirei had the edge on him in pace, but suffered much more bad luck. Should count himself lucky that he finished as well as he did.
- Niko Kari: Won a race in Abu Dhabi, but as Johnny Herbert pointed out, it was too little too late. He didn't pick up his first points until the third round of the year, and though he was certainly aggressive with overtaking, it did come across to me like it was the kind of aggression that shows a driver is desperate to perform. I sense a lot of pressure was placed on Niko by the Red Bull Junior Team, which needs good drivers in their collection. Niko just didn't perform under the pressure, and was dropped. It would be wrong to put him on this list, as his performances certainly improved towards the end of the season, but as I said, too little too late.
- Leo Pulcini: One of the great anonymous drives I've ever seen. Second place in the very first race of the year, and then never finishing in the points for the rest of the entire year (excepting a fastest lap grab in Hungary). It's a performance that puts Fisi '05 to shame. I just don't remember enough about his year to be inspired to put him on the podium, however.

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

F3000 in 2002:

3rd: Tomas Enge for failing that drugs test, costing him the win in Hungary and ultimately the title.

2nd: European Minardi for being the only team not to score and losing their only point of the season to a disqualification.

1st: Nordic Racing, the dominant team of the previous season reduced to a one-point wonder and one that only came as a result of ...A DISQUALIFICATION! Even Ferrari in 1980 doesn't compare to that!

[Rob Dylan]

Rob Dylan's Officially Unofficial 2017 F2 Reject Of The Year Podium
3rd - Jordan King: started off the season as a promising challenger for the world championship, but just how quickly that dissolved! Finished the season barely ahead of his teammate, the not-exactly-highly-rated Sette Camara, who ended up winning a race! It felt like he spent the whole season trundling around in the midfield, and never actually getting anywhere. When he started having regular incidents from about Hungary onwards, he had lost all hopes of saving his season.
2nd - Johnny Cecotto Jr.: One of those drivers who caused so much trouble and gave so many memories in such a small amount of time. By something of a miracle, he got a podium at Monaco in the sprint race, but that's the singular positive to his season. I was not at all surprised that he got replaced after Baku - that crash coming out of the pitlane was Coulthard-level shenanigans.
1st - Ralph Boschung: My goodness, I had something of a pet hate for this guy over the F2 season this year. An absolute menace on the track, it seemed he couldn't overtake without hitting someone. Ironically his strongest weekend for points was, in my opinion, his craziest and weakest, at Baku. He was very unreliable except in the expectation that he would hit somebody, and even Lando Norris in his first race for the team was on the same pace in his car. Sorry, Ralph, but you were clearly the Reject of the Year in my opinion.

Honourable mentions
Now these are interesting. There were quite a few people on the border of Rejectdom this year, but a surprising number of them ended up winning races, which made me hesitant in being able to pick them! But I'll put them here anyway - they're not getting away that easily.

- Nabil Jeffri: certainly wins my award for Anonymous Stint of the Year for this series. Don't you remember all those things he did?
- Sérgio Sette Câmara: Not only did he win in Spa, but he was on the podium the following weekend at Monza! Incredible. That's all that saved him from my nomination. Instead of being like King and trundling around the midfield, Sette Câmara was trundling around the back. But he sure as hell made up for it. And that brings me along to...
- Antonio Fuoco: Boy, oh boy, was I tempted to place him as Reject of the Year. He is so very, very lucky that the shenanigans at Monza occurred when they did so as to inherit that win. He was woefully off the pace of his teammate. I'd at least understand if he wasn't as good as Leclerc - I mean, nobody was! - but he could at least have picked up more than two points after the first eight races! His pace picked up in the last few races, but it was far too little too late, and Prema lost an easy Teams Championship win due to this pillock. Go home Antonio and think about what you've done.
- Alexander Albon: I hear he partnered Leclerc last year? Like King, he was touted as one of the title favourites, and was mostly uncompetitive. It's a shame that he had that injury to miss Baku, and it does feel a little bad to place him in this list due to forces outside of his control. But, regardless, he was pretty disappointing, and Matsushita was definitely the stronger of the ART drivers this season. Albon had better be hoping for a better season next year if he wants a chance at anything greater.

[Normal32]

Normal32's Totally Legit ROTY for All-Japan F3:

3rd - Bruno Carneiro - While I wasn't expecting much from someone who came from Chinese Formula 4, his championship win gave him a mild sense of credibility. But he proved to be amongst the worst drivers in the Championship class. He was very slow and always at the back of the class, never finishing on points on merit. Some serious improvement is needed here.

2nd - Ritomo Miyata - He is here for one main reason - his crash with Sho Tsuboi at Fuji. This crash ended up costing the championship for Tsuboi. This is his teammate, by the way, and he crashed him out of the race while leading. Other than that, Miyata's debut season was an standard affair from someone jumping from JF4 to AJF3, which wouldn't be too bad, but with how Sho performed this season, it pales horribly.

1st - Honda Formula Dream Project - What a fall. From the team that brought us the likes of Nirei Fukuzumi and Naoki Yamamoto, this team was reduced to a lower midfield plebbery for the better part of the season. The fact that their car is gonna get replaced by Toda in 2018 is not a surprise in the least.

[Normal32]

And now...

Normal32's Legit, We Are Not Kidding Here, Check The Back of The Box ROTY for Super Formula:

3rd - Narain Karthikeyan - Oh my. What a bad, bad season. Not only that, but he got completely outclassed by Daisuke Nakajima. Granted, a few times were due to bad luck, but you can only give yourself so much scapegoats. His perfomances in the past, while not the best, were still better than this, and I would argue he was able to give his teammates at least a run for their money on a good day. Here? Karthikeyan seems to have given up entirely. Hopefully he improves if he comes back next year.

2nd - B-MAX Racing Team - Talk about dissapointment. The establishment F3 team was not able to do much in the face of their first season, inheriting Kogure from the defunct Drago Corse. Their stint reeks of lack of experience, but it also of money. Their test results didn't look any better either, as they wasted the somewhat promising Takaboshi to nothing. The sad thing is, B-MAX does have a lot of potential. Their huge F3 portfolio is prove of this, as well as their connections with Nissan. But they just seem to be amounting to nothing so far.

1st - Pierre Gasly - While I wasn't expecting anything at all, it's his results that matter. He was put first by Mugen while Yamamato was having his personal issues (read: best time) and then was able to fluke his way into 2 wins and a podium thanks to the strategy and setup skill of his team. Luck doesn't even begin to describe his stint. His luck's just on a whole new level of fluke. He managed to get two wins without really pulling a finger (thanks to Nojiri f*cking it up in Autopolis, for example). And despite this "record", he loses against a guy that hasn't raced open-wheelers in 5 years or so. Oh well.