Grand Prix Rejects

Hi,

What is the most imagative/ridiculous/best or even worst excuse you have heard in F1 for whatever reason (i.e. crash, or being too slow, or a team owner gave for poor performance etc)

A few examples to kick the thread off with.

Gerhard Berger, Monza 1994.
Crashed in sunday morning warm up. The excuse Gerhard gave was that "he simply forgot that the car was full of fuel".

David Coulthard, Australia 1995
When DC crashed into the pit wall, I believe he blamed it on the Renault engine "idle strategy". Of course it was DC, no way could it have been your fault.

Paul Belmondo, Monaco 1994
I think this was the first race Paul Belmondo ever qualified for (& his home race too). However I believe he retired from the race after about 30 laps. The reason was he was too tired to carry on.


It would be great to hear other examples people might be aware of.

BMW at the Bahrain GP in 2009. Specifically, they blamed their poor performance on the wind blowing in the wrong direction. That may or may not be true, but it's still ridiculous either way.

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:BMW at the Bahrain GP in 2009. Specifically, they blamed their poor performance on the wind blowing in the wrong direction. That may or may not be true, but it's still ridiculous either way.

I remember that! It was, at least, ludicrous. Since I liked BMW, the saddest part is that I wanted to buy it and actually bought it... Just until the next GP that is! But we need not to go far in time. McLaren excuse for Button short-cut overtake was that they were waiting for a clarification from Charlie Whiting, aka, a ridiculous one. They should have known it didn't work since they tried that before (either at lie-gate or at spa-stewards-gate can't remember which).

DanielPT wrote:

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:BMW at the Bahrain GP in 2009. Specifically, they blamed their poor performance on the wind blowing in the wrong direction. That may or may not be true, but it's still ridiculous either way.

I remember that! It was, at least, ludicrous. Since I liked BMW, the saddest part is that I wanted to buy it and actually bought it... Just until the next GP that is! But we need not to go far in time. McLaren excuse for Button short-cut overtake was that they were waiting for a clarification from Charlie Whiting, aka, a ridiculous one. They should have known it didn't work since they tried that before (either at lie-gate or at spa-stewards-gate can't remember which).

Perhaps in 2009 the wind always blowed in the wrong way for BMW, especially at Monaco.

Yes I thought that Button / Mclaren decision in Australia was pretty stupid aswell. I mean it was clear to everyone else (including Martin Brundle & DC in their commentary) that Button would have to give back the place. I suspect that even had Mclaren asked Button to give the place back, Button would have refused the instruction anyway, as Button seemed very annoyed on the radio during the race.

After the race in the BBC forum, when Brundle enquired about this decision, Martin Whitmarsh seemed to me to get pretty angry with Martin Brundle questions. I thought it was funny to watch.

Another excuse I remembered was James Hunt in Brands Hatch in 1978. Bascially James retired after a poor performance, & the pitlane reporter asked what the trouble was, James casually mentioned the tires were the wrong sort of shape for the car. I couldn't tell if he was being serious or not?

ibsey wrote:Paul Belmondo, Monaco 1994
I think this was the first race Paul Belmondo ever qualified for (& his home race too). However I believe he retired from the race after about 30 laps. The reason was he was too tired to carry on.

Might as well correct you here.

Monaco 1994 was indeed the race where Belmondo retired from physical exhaustion, but it wasn't the first race he had qualified for (it was that season, though), as he had raced F1 in 1992 for March, and he is not Monegasque, but French (Beretta comes from Monaco).

Anyways, whenever Bourdais blamed the sun getting in his glasses.

tommykl wrote:

ibsey wrote:Paul Belmondo, Monaco 1994
I think this was the first race Paul Belmondo ever qualified for (& his home race too). However I believe he retired from the race after about 30 laps. The reason was he was too tired to carry on.

Might as well correct you here.

Monaco 1994 was indeed the race where Belmondo retired from physical exhaustion, but it wasn't the first race he had qualified for (it was that season, though), as he had raced F1 in 1992 for March, and he is not Monegasque, but French (Beretta comes from Monaco).

Anyways, whenever Bourdais blamed the sun getting in his glasses.

Thanks for the correction. My memory isn't what it used to be.

Anything by Rubens Barrichello but this one takes the cake:

Germany 2009: "The team made me lose the race."

Eddie Jordan a few races into the 2000 season where his yellow cars had retired from several points positions.

"Well if you want to make a fast car, you have to make a fragile car."

Come the end of the season the EJ10 had dropped back from the front of the grid a little and still wasn't any more reliable. And the 1999 car wasn't fragile. So that's not cutting any ice.

Wizzie wrote:Anything by Rubens Barrichello but this one takes the cake:

Germany 2009: "The team made me lose the race."

Or Australia 2011: "The tires made me hit Nico Rosberg."


Nelson Piquet, Jr in NASCAR truck qualifying this weekend: "I would have made a good qualifying run but I hurt my foot..."

yeah maybe in a helicopter, Nelson.

Wizzie wrote:Anything by Rubens Barrichello ...

I was waiting for someone to say that. Otherwise I would have said it myself!

Enforcer wrote:Eddie Jordan a few races into the 2000 season where his yellow cars had retired from several points positions.

"Well if you want to make a fast car, you have to make a fragile car."

Come the end of the season the EJ10 had dropped back from the front of the grid a little and still wasn't any more reliable. And the 1999 car wasn't fragile. So that's not cutting any ice.

I remember that - their gearbox was basically a "sh!tbox" (Courtesy of Panis )

Don't know where my earlier post went, but I'll say it here anyway - Nigel Mansell blaming his spinning out of the 1984 Monaco GP on a white line was quite funny.

And I seem to remember a race in 1991 or 1992 where he complained about his teeth hurting.

Indeed. Mansell was known for being somewhat of a whinger (something I personally don't agree with considering his commitment on track).

In his book, the excuse he gave for his poor performance at the the 1987 Italian & Portguese GP's was that Honda had reconfirgured his engine slightly to give him less power, as according to him they wanted Nelson Piquet Sr (a Honda driver in 1988) to win the 1987 title.

Not really an excuse however my favorite example of Mansell's apparent whinging is during (I think) the 1986 Candian GP. In the early stages of the race, Mansell was order to save his turbo boost whislt his rivals (most notably Rosberg) ran off into the distance assisted by using more boost. Apparently, all throughout those early laps, Mansell was whining (in his Brummie accent) in the radio to Patrick Head saying that "it's not fair" & asking "when can I turn up my boost?".

I heard this story from Patrick Head some years later & he still seemed very irritated when recalling Mansell's constant whinging during that particular race.

Just watched the Moto Gp at Jerez, & was reminded of Alesi's frantic qualifying for the 1997 GP, to which Alesi gave serveral excuses for his poor performance. Leading up to qualifying Alesi had destroyed his race car in morning warm up after posting I think 2nd fastest time. Then Jean spun twice in the spare car during qualifying, before actually posting a time. A list of excuses Jean gave over the radio...

"the circuit map is completely different" (I think Jean meant the engine map...if your wondering)

"Gerhard blocked me on my hot lap" (this was true but Alesi being Alesi, then blocked Gerhard on his next hot lap. Classic!)

"honestly, I don't know what the problem is".

Wasn't Hamilton, last year when losing ground (and the race) to Button in the China GP (I think it was in China at least), that complained to the team that something was broke in the car in order to explain the fact that he was losing ground to Button?

Also, Schumacher excuse of "I lost it" when he parked at rascasse was hilarious!

ibsey wrote:In his book, the excuse he gave for his poor performance at the the 1987 Italian & Portguese GP's was that Honda had reconfirgured his engine slightly to give him less power, as according to him they wanted Nelson Piquet Sr (a Honda driver in 1988) to win the 1987 title.

Prost said something similar in late 1989 though when he was moving to Ferrari and Senna was staying with McLaren, so I think there's actually something in that!

James1978 wrote:And I seem to remember a race in 1991 or 1992 where he complained about his teeth hurting.

Reminds me of this Taki Inoue interview.

Right, I'm feeling notstalic, so i'm going to list these examples;

I think I learnt on the Appreciating Alesi article on this site, it tells a story about Jean Alesi using the shadow of a bridge, tree or something as his breaking point for a corner. Every lap, Jean would start his breaking at a certain point where his car would go into this particular shadow. However despite this, Jean evenually spun out at that very corner because he had braked too late.

Appartently Jean was confused as to why this should be, because he was sure that he was breaking at the same point in the shadow, as he had done for many laps before. However what Jean appartently failed to take into account was the shadow had moved because the sun was starting to set. Probably true but still brilliant.

Also Johnny Herbert at Sliverstone 1998 spun out of his home race. The reason Johnny gave was he was too busy waving his teammate Alesi past (who was on a different strategy) & Johnny spun because he couldn't drive one handed whislt trying to wave Jean through. Although this seemed like a dig at Sauber, as at the time Johnny was becoming increasing unhappy with the treatment he was getting at the Swiss team. What I could never understand was Team order's were banned at the time (in light of Australia 1998), so why didn't Johnny & Sauber get penalised for impletementing team orders?

Johnny Herbert at Monza 1998. Johnny complained that a spanner was left in the footwell of his car & that got caught under the brake pedal (possibly payback from Sauber for Johnny's dig's at them & his decision to move to Stewart in 1999), so he couldn't slow down for the 2nd Lesmo. I believe this was probably an innocent mistake by the team, but I like to read between the lines.

Then of course there is the classic by Rene Arnoux at Monaco 1989, where Rene said he wasn't used to driving normally aspirated car after all that time driving turbos. James Hunt famously dis-agreed.

Sorry to be hogging this thread, but when Montoya (on the correct wet tyres) crashed into the back of Pizzonia (trying out grooved slicks on a damp track) in Spa 2005, I think Pizzzonia said, something like "I was trying to let him through". When it appear obvious that Pizzonia was too busy trying staying on the track, to notice who or what was behind him.

Milka Duno, after being confronted by ryan hunter-reay after qualifying had this conversation:

Ryan "You were blocking me on my hot lap. What's your problem?"

Duno "No, I was moving over for you"

Ryan "You moved from slightly off the line to right on the line."

Duno "But I didn't see where you were"

Ryan "Listen hon, if you're gonna be this slow, you gotta drive in your mirrors."

Right just rememebered a couple of excuses from DC (a bit of an expert at making up great excuses), which if added together are quite hypocritical.

1st one - Came during an interview with Murray Walker prior to the 2000 Canadian GP. The excuse DC gave for not being reguarly as quick as Mika or Micheal in 1998 & 1999 was that he was younger & more inexperienced than both of them. DC also suggested that now he was a bit older & more experienced he could challenge them more often.

DC says pretty much the opposite thing a few of years later....

2nd one - At interview during 2003, when asked why his younger team mate (Kimi Rakkionen) was outperforming him. DC answers that it was a disadvantage being older & more experienced than Kimi, because when he is driving the car he is thinking for example, "will these tyres work better at Interlagos, or will they work better at Suzuka?". Whereas, DC argues, Kimi has no such database of experience so is able to just drive what is underneath him & rely on DC's feedback.

"Prost has yet to take his fellow Frenchman René Arnoux who says, the reason i'm going so slow these days is that i'm used to Turbo cars and these normally aspirated cars are a completely different kettle of fish to drive, he says"

No points for following that up

MaxZero wrote:"Prost has yet to take his fellow Frenchman René Arnoux who says, the reason i'm going so slow these days is that i'm used to Turbo cars and these normally aspirated cars are a completely different kettle of fish to drive, he says"

No points for following that up

What a lame excuse. He could just (justifiably) say his car was shite.

1989 Portugues GP, Mansell: "I didn't see the black flag."

Jean Alesi's excuse for missing his pit signals and running out of fuel during the 1997 Australian Grand Prix belongs in this thread, I think. He said that the Benetton garage was located precisely at a point on the start-finish straight where he was changing up a gear, and was therefore concentrating on looking at the rev-counter instead of reading his pit board.

midgrid wrote:Jean Alesi's excuse for missing his pit signals and running out of fuel during the 1997 Australian Grand Prix belongs in this thread, I think. He said that the Benetton garage was located precisely at a point on the start-finish straight where he was changing up a gear, and was therefore concentrating on looking at the rev-counter instead of reading his pit board.

Weren't all the mechanics hanging out off the pit wall onto the straight frantically waving at him towards the end though? I seem to remember something along those lines happening!

AndreaModa wrote:

midgrid wrote:Jean Alesi's excuse for missing his pit signals and running out of fuel during the 1997 Australian Grand Prix belongs in this thread, I think. He said that the Benetton garage was located precisely at a point on the start-finish straight where he was changing up a gear, and was therefore concentrating on looking at the rev-counter instead of reading his pit board.

Weren't all the mechanics hanging out off the pit wall onto the straight frantically waving at him towards the end though? I seem to remember something along those lines happening!

In an interview at the following the race, Flavio Briatore was asked what he would do, should Alesi decide to ignore his pit board again. Flavio, said this something along these lines...

..."on the 1st lap I shall wave my fists. On the second lap I shall wave a big gun. If that doesn't work, on the 3rd lap I will start shooting".

Nigel Mansell in CART, 1993... "I don't understand these restarts!" ... the worst part about it is that he later conned Wally Dallenbach into letting him play games on the start of the race and took title rival Emerson Fittipaldi out of contention by giving him a drive through...

Davey Hamilton blamed Tomas Scheckter after he spun himself out of the Indy 500 last year -- on the first lap. He raged about it on ABC, that's for sure...

Then there's Michael Andretti getting passed by Robby Gordon @ Phoenix with two laps to go... and Andretti claimed he had no idea that he was in the lead or that Gordon passed him for the lead on the broadcast...

Bernoldi's Arrows in Britain 2001. According to the team, a hamburger wrapper caused its retirement (possible but ridiculous even if true).

Fisichella hitting Nakajima in Turkey 2008, with Fisi blaming Bourdais (who was clear of both of them at the time of impact). 12 months later, even Fisi found the excuse so bad that it was funny (judging by the BBC interview)...

Chandhok's and Yamamoto's substitutions at Hispania in mid-2010 "not to do with money" if you believe Colin Kolles. Had Hispania not gone for pay drivers, this might have been believed, but they didn't and it wasn't.

Aryton Senna's immdiate reaction after hitting the wall in Dallas 1984 was; “I know I didn’t make a mistake – the wall must have moved.”

Although this may sound like a ridiculous excuse at first glance, it actually proved to be true. The story as told by Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering (Ayrton's first race engineer with Toleman in 1984)...from a book called Memories of Senna (An excellent read):

"Dallas was what I would call an ‘old-fashioned’ North American street circuit, delineated with concrete blocks. It was a very tricky circuit, and bumpy enough to make even Monaco look smooth: the drivers literally had to fight their cars all the way round as they skipped and jumped from bump to bump. I remember during the race, Ayrton hit the wall, and then later retired because of the damage. When he eventually made it back to the pits, he didn’t seem to understand how he could have hit the wall. It seemed to come as a complete shock to him that he had hit the wall, and his immediate reaction was “I know I didn’t make a mistake – the wall must have moved.” Remember, we were talking about a twenty tonne concrete block here, but he was so insistent that he persuaded me to walk round the circuit and take a look. When I did so, the wall had indeed moved – somebody had clearly clipped the previous block and in doing so, displaced the next one by only about 4cm. Instead of the transition from block to block being smooth, a 4cm difference had caught the rear wheel, broken it and punctured the tyre. That was when it really came home to me, the precision to which he was driving, and made me think he was a bit special… And remember this was a guy in his first season of F1, straight out of F3…"

When JV crashed at St Devote in 2005, his excuse was "I crashed because I was trying to avoid hitting my teammate (Massa)".

I disagree...you crashed because you lost control of your car.

Simliarly a day earlier, Montoya came up with a pretty lame excuse defending his actions, when he brake tested Ralf Schumi & caused a 4 car pile up.

The meaning of this topic, is very easy.
What are the "Because im black" excuse moments in the formula 1 ?
To speak clever language, what are the lamest excuses drivers/team managers/mechanics/Job Clear etc ever gave .

Rubens Barrichello said in 2009 the team cost him the race when himself set the 11th fastest lap of the race...says it all.

David Coulthard, after crashing in the pitlane, blamed his engine (I think) for driving him into the wall. Although, he recently admitted it was his own fault on the BBC coverage, but it was still a rubbish excuse.

You might be interested to learn, that I posted a similar thread entitled "ridiculous excuses" a couple of months back. It has some cracking examples in their & I'll try to think of more to add. Here's the link; viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4030

Perhaps a Mod could merge the two threads together?

The one I thought of straight away was the 'gearbox failure' that Williams claimed Mansell had at Montreal in 1991, when he retired at the hairpin on the final lap.

To be honest, I think it would be good if the two threads could be merged together so examples aren't duplicated, but a funny general one I've just thought of is most Michelin teams in 2004 (I think) were clutching at straws using the fact that the conditions were too cool for their tyres to work properly against the superior Ferraris on Bridgestones, and this was in places like Malaysia and Bahrain for heavens sake!!! They were two of the hottest venues of the calendar!

Helmut Marko blaming Mark Webber for the 2010 Turkey incident, when it was clearly Vettel's fault.

It's done. I've merged ibsey's and f1-gast's threads

Jean Alesi Barcenlona 1996 - Jean claimed that water was getting into his engine air box which resulted in less power & as a result he was unable to overtake JV for the whole race. Now I love Jean Alesi... but M Schumacher was following JV (& Jean for that matter) for a few laps & managed to past them both without any supposed water adversely affecting his engine's BHP?