Grand Prix Rejects

Looking at a thread on the HWNSNBM forum where they discussed Senna maybe getting WDC and ROTY on 1990, I thought of something.

It'd be interesing to compile Rejects of the year from times before the site.

And not just given cases like 97,92 and 90 (Lola, Moda, Life respecively).

So, how does the idea sound? Might even be a nice little addition to the site.

Well, I have followed entire seasons since 1993, so here's my opinions for those

1999 As I mentioned earlier, probably battle between Damon Hill and Alex Zanardi.

1998 Rosset is probably unbeatable in this category. Although Olivier Panis also had quite bad season, he should end in a podium.

1997 Mastercard Lola. Enough said.

1996 Not a clear candidate IMO, so a bit difficult to choose. The company that bought Forti (and therefore probably destroyed the team) would be probably choice here.

1995 At this point there was still some pay-drivers there. Since Taki Inoue drove all the season, I would probably give the award to him.

1994 Pacific team was way off the pace and Belmondo out of depth in F1. Well, the team was rookie so I wouldn't treat them so harshly since at least they survived the season. Lotus had dismal season, so I would rate them highly in this. Of the drivers, well I mentioned Belmondo already.

1993 Michael Andretti hands down.

1980-Jody Scheckter: an utter disaster of a season for the reigning champion. Mediocre car didn't help.
1981-Toleman: for being the most struggling team all year.
1982-Ferrari: bad luck completely messed up what should have been a wet dream season for the Italians instead of a dry-throat nightmare.
1983-Ligier: a team that was among the best only 2 years before came out of the season pointless with a mediocre and ugly car.
1984-Tyrrell: the cheaters paid the price.
1985-Niki Lauda: what was going on with the reigning champion to fare so badly?
1986-Brabham: gorgeous yet horrible car and Elio de Angelis death spelled trouble for Ecclestone & Co.
1987-Andrea de Cesaris: master of disaster.
1988-Williams: the loss of Honda engines affected them badly.
1989-Jean-Marie Balestre: chauvinism stole Senna the title.

99 Hill, unfortunately
97 Schumacher for a) trying to do a Suzuka/90/Senna and b) FAILING
94 the chicane at Eau Rouge
92 Amati
90 Senna for Suzuka

Someone want to take a crack at 1991?

Am I the only one that remembers (and thinks it's a good idea that) ROTY's are always drivers? I haven't been following F1 long enough to contribute anything else to this topic, but...

bduddy wrote:Am I the only one that remembers (and thinks it's a good idea that) ROTY's are always drivers? I haven't been following F1 long enough to contribute anything else to this topic, but...

Williams won a couple years back.

1997 Magnussen / M.Schumacher
1998 Rosset
1999 Zanardi's Clutch

Phoenix wrote:1980-Jody Scheckter: an utter disaster of a season for the reigning champion. Mediocre car didn't help.
1981-Toleman: for being the most struggling team all year.
1982-Ferrari: bad luck completely messed up what should have been a wet dream season for the Italians instead of a dry-throat nightmare.
1983-Ligier: a team that was among the best only 2 years before came out of the season pointless with a mediocre and ugly car.
1984-Tyrrell: the cheaters paid the price.
1985-Niki Lauda: what was going on with the reigning champion to fare so badly?
1986-Brabham: gorgeous yet horrible car and Elio de Angelis death spelled trouble for Ecclestone & Co.
1987-Andrea de Cesaris: master of disaster.
1988-Williams: the loss of Honda engines affected them badly.
1989-Jean-Marie Balestre: chauvinism stole Senna the title.

Some pretty good nominations there, although you could argue that in 1980 not just Scheckter but Ferrari in general deserved the award for the 312T5 (with the famous description given by Gilles of it's capabilities - which I won't repeat as this is supposed to be a family forum).
The Brabham BT55 is, to a certain extent, a classic example of what might have been - although Murrary was brilliant, and the car looked very radical, it was (by his own admission) far too ambitious. On the other hand, the BT55 was said to have provided Murrary with inspiration for the MP4/4 in 1988, so ironically a rejectful car was in some ways the trailblazer for the most successful car in F1.

I wonder if anybody is going to go even further back? In a way, given that it is 60 years since the championship started, it would be appropriate to celebrate by producing a list of the all the rejects from 1950 to now.

Some proposals:

1990: I can´t say Senna because what happened in Suzuka was just the consequence of the FIA-Senna war after 1989 Japanese GP. I would give ROTY to Lotus, which was really incompetent after Piquet´s exit.

1991: Alain Prost, for his Ferrari affair. Although the Ferrari was a bad car, Alesi made him look like a moaner and was totally lost and unable to develop the car.

1992: Ivan Capelli.

1993: Michael Andretti and Dallara

1994: Accidents: Lehto, Lamy, Ratzenberger, Senna, Wendlinger, Barrichello ... The list of heavy accidents is endless. Also, the pay-driver parade.

shall we do a reject of the race from every race?

thehemogoblin wrote:

bduddy wrote:Am I the only one that remembers (and thinks it's a good idea that) ROTY's are always drivers? I haven't been following F1 long enough to contribute anything else to this topic, but...

Williams won a couple years back.

Car or team, fine... more then Williams, how could I forget Honda? But awarding the title to all these silly abstractions or whatever is pointless, to me. And a lot of these "nominations" are based off of one race...

1990 - Life
1992 - Either Andrea Moda or the Competitiveness of F1
1993 - BMS Scuderia Italia
1994 - The Pay Driver Parade
1997 - MasterCrap Slowla or Michael Schumacher
1998 - Riccardo Rosset

thehemogoblin wrote:Someone want to take a crack at 1991?

Aerond wrote:Some proposals:

1991: Alain Prost, for his Ferrari affair. Although the Ferrari was a bad car, Alesi made him look like a moaner and was totally lost and unable to develop the car.

While initial expectations were understandably quite low, AGS did their best to do even worse than that. Running a year old car, sacking Stefan Johansson in favor of big-hair Barbazza, falling from from the 'top 13' to pre-qualifying ranks, dropping Tarquini for the mirrorless Grouillard, and then shutting up shop midseason just as the new car got off the drawing board.

The Williams reliability that cost Mansell a title could also make an effort to get acknowledged.

It's interesting to note that, of the 10 ROTYs we have awarded so far (Wurz, Button x2, Yoong, Pizzonia, Pantano, Sato, Williams, Honda, Piquet Jnr), most - with the exception of Yoong, Pizzonia and Pantano - were given to chronic underachievers rather than drivers/teams who are/turn out to be actually rejects.

Even then, guys like Pizzonia and Pantano were widely regarded as being talented and who massively underachieved. Yoong is the only mediocre driver who did as much as could be expected, and yet was awarded ROTY regardless.

I say that because I really wouldn't know who we would have given ROTY to in years past (and I've been following F1 since about 1987 and watching it since 1989), but it may not necessarily be one of the regular DNQ/DNPQ teams ... although I think we would have been hard-pressed not to give it to Life in 1990 and Andrea Moda in 1992.

But for, say, 1991, would we have definitely given it to AGS or Coloni? Or Pacific in 1994? I don't know. The point is, even then we knew that those teams had awful cars and would miss heaps of pre-qualifying cuts. They did as expected - they didn't underachieve.

Perhaps in 1991 we would have given it to Thierry Boutsen. Yes the Ligier was a dog with its Lamborghini engine, and the way Ligier was run at the time was a shambles, but Boutsen was a three-time GP winner in 1989-90, and yet could not lift the car at all.

Likewise for 1997, we'd probably have let Mastercard Lola off the hook because they only competed in one event. I think I would have been tempted to look more disfavourably, for ROTY purposes, at guys like Gianni Morbidelli for his anonymous run in the Sauber, or likewise Jos Verstappen for Tyrrell.

for me:

84 - Tyrrel (Silver: Brabham Reliability - Bronze:Cecotto)
89 - Balestre (Silver: Lotus - Bronze: Piquet)
90 - Life
92 - Andrea Mode (Silver: Brabham - Bronze: McCarth)
93 - Michael Andretti (Silver:Lola - Bronze:Tyrrell)
94 - Drivers/Cars/Circuits Security (Silver:Benetton's Illegal parts - Bronze: Pacific)
95 - Nigel Mansell (Silver:Simtek - Bronze: Forti)
96 - Forti (Silver:Rosset - Bronze:Lavaggi)
97 - Stewart reliability (Silver: Lola - Bronze: Schumacher's "Dick Dastardly" Move)
98 - Ricardo Rosset (Silver: Prost - Bronze: Tuero)
99 - Damon Hill (Silver:BAR - Bronze:Zanardi)

This wrote:shall we do a reject of the race from every race?

I actually had some of these but I'm missing a paper where I had those. I will write them when I'm back home today (still some six hours).

Thoughts for 1990 to 95:

1990 - Lotus Lamborghini - chronically slow, unrelaibel and some said dangerous car which put Lotus on a terminal downward spiral and nearly killed Martin Donnelly
1991 - Porsche - this one is by a distance, massively heavy, unreliable V12 which was basically two Tag V6s bolted together. A shameful attempt to enter F1
1992 - Perry McCarthy - through no fault of his own, but his F1 career must go down in reject history! Ivan Capelli ran him close though...
1993 - Micheal Andretti - need I say more?
1994 - tricky one for obvious reasons, but on balance I'll go for Pacific - starting F1 with an ancient, abandoned Reynard (which according to the team had the torntional rigidity of a paper bag) is not a good idea
1995 - Nigel Mansell - small car, big arse, nuff said...

Wait... the 1994 ROTY should be given to "Those Silly Chicanes That Proliferated Everywhere After The Imola GP"

Well, my ideas aren't really needed, but you can have'em anyhow, so:

1999 - Damon Hill (I guess it has been said enough...)

1998 - Prost (After coming off an impressive 1997, we just expected way more)

1997 - Jos Verstappen (after showing lots of talent in slower cars as Simtek or Footwork he was rather ... uninspired)

1996 - Eddie Irvine (aside from his debut podium, he was absolutely appealing, extremely slow even for a Schumacher slave)

1995 - Ukyo Katayama (his 1994 form was so promising and now?)

1994 - San Marino Grand Prix (obvious nomination is obvious)

1993 - Michael Andretti (high expectations weren't met)

1992 - Ivan Capelli (the Ferrari performance that gave his F1 career a terminal disease gives him ROTY as well)

1991 - Thierry Boutsen (not scoring a point and just having the upperhand against a debuting Érik Comas is just bad)

1990 - Lotus (their downfall continued there on full pace with a horrible car and the loss of Camel sponsorship)

For laughs, how about awarding the 1958 ROTY to Bernie Ecclestone for his failed attempts as a driver, considering his subsequent successes as a driver manager, team boss and F1 Supremo?

dr-baker wrote:For laughs, how about awarding the 1958 ROTY to Bernie Ecclestone for his failed attempts as a driver, considering his subsequent successes as a driver manager, team boss and F1 Supremo?

I'd rather give it to Ferrari for their awful luck despite winning the Drivers championship.

1988 - Ligier - A pathetic season, even if the 80's was crap in general for them.
1989 - EuroBrun - A very difficult decision, but they were the only team without a start.
1990 - Life - They had low expectations but come on!
1991 - Footwork - They were a disaster in 1991.
1992 - Andrea Moda - Do I really need to explain?, Capelli was a close 2nd though.
1993 - Tyrrell - No points, a major blip for the team.
1994 - Tyre Chicanes - Absolutely ridiculous.
1995 - Ukyo Katayama - Everyone probably had high expectations, he definitely didn't live up to them.
1996 - Forti - A tough decision, there were no stand out rejects.
1997 - Mastercard Lola - Once again, do I really need to explain?
1998 - Ricardo Rosset - Miles off the pace of everyone else.
1999 - Damon Hill - My favourite driver of all time driving for my favourite team of all time, it pains me to say this. Sorry Damon.

For the years that I've watched the sport:

1994: Driver safety - obvious one really, this incorporates the deaths/injuries and the fix-all solution of tyre chicanes.
1995: Taki Inoue - looked completely out of place even before all of the bizarre incidents.
1996: Forti - kind of went backwards after their first season.
1997: Michael Schumacher - Adelaide Part 2, although he got DSQed this time.
1998: Williams - 3 podiums all season after winning the last 2 championships.
1999: BAR - bullish expectations, no points. Either that or Ferrari for not replacing Schumacher with Badoer.