Grand Prix Rejects

Looks like Captain Hammer is AWOL again. 4 laps to go in the race and no one has started this thread.

I don't have an obvious candidate so far ... so please give me your suggestions!

Massa - Why did he bother?
Maldonado - P9 to somewhere or rather. It's like he disappeared.
Webber and Alonso - Stupid, stupid, stupid strategy. At least Mark got pole.

Fernando Alonso: - Having shot into the lead failed to do his own race, choking for the red bull early stops and then spent the last 30% of the race trundling around on hards

Alonso - when was the last time a race leader ended up lapped on pure pace and strategy?

FOM race live feed directors. There were two crashes. Were they driver error or mechancal failure? I've no idea, seeing as we were denied replays.

I think Ferrari as a whole should get it to be honest!

Sorry, but it has to be Webber. He just can't seem to get the car rolling, can he?

A mention to Alonso, for just falling of a cliff after a fantastic start, and Vettel, for making me snore again.

I would nominate Williams, but their bunch of fail is nothing unexpected by now and at least they cleary had the upper hand against Lotus. Seriously, sign Barrichello and Maldonado for 2012 and forget about this year, maybe give the car to another pay driver to get more money to develop the new car.

My usual nomination is only confirmed in Barcelona: McLaren's (qualifying) overalls. They get stupider each time.

Jaime Alguersuari was nowhere in his home race and looking bad, although STR was not good at all here.

If the accident was his fault, Heikki Kovalainen.

Felipe Massa really pulled a 2010 in this race as well.

But the number one nomination must be: FOM race director; seriously, no pictures from the back of the grid at all and the midfield only got scenes when there was actually a race at the front. Massive F- for him and his lackeys.

Massa, for me, unless he was nursing some kind of problem. Or if not, simply Ferrari for general mediocrity in the face of being the third fastest team.

1st Felipe Massa
What can you say...nothing went particularly balls up, he was just plain slow all race. Ending up in the gravel epitomised his race, the only way was backwards for him this weekend.

2nd Mark Webber
Why is he here instead of Alonso? Because he has the best car in the field. Alonso is driving a somewhat mediocre machine. Don't forget that. Pole to 4th is never a good result, but considering he has equal equipment to Vettel, this is a terrible result.

3rd FOM Race Director
Piss poor coverage. No replays for several incidents, staring at an empty pitlane while Alonso was pulling a switchback move on Webber, and cutting to random empty parts of the track at other times (plus coming very close to missing Heidfeld passing Perez for 8th). A poor showing by TV3.

Here are my nominees:

All teams except for McLaren and Red Bull - are you on the same racing class?

Massa - Very anonymous. Alonso still tried to compete and had a fantastic start, but Massa was never up to the challenge.

Barrichello - if RotY candidate Maldonado does this more often, he'll look really silly.

Every team not called Red Bull or McLaren for being completely outclassed.
The race director for failing to show the midfield fights at all. Even the Chinese commentators called them crap for cutting away to show Vettel's stop right as Alonso was repassing Webber.
Mark Webber's strategy. It's hard to lose a race from pole at Barcelona. It seemed like it would be almost impossible to end up 4th in a straight fight in the fastest car in the field. Then Red Bull decided to stick Webber behind Alonso for half the race just to show it isn't.

1. TV directors - the first Spanish GP for about ten years which has actually been worth watching, and they manage to miss 50% of the action. Worse than useless.

2. Felipe Massa - never looked remotely on the pace and was wobbling all over the place throughout.

3. Pastor Maldonado - looked like he was about to light the touchpaper and finally show us what he can do, but made a rubbish start and turned into another damp squib.

Massa - Being overtaken by a Sauber, even if the driver was Perez, is not a good thing. Same goes for someone WHO STARTED 24TH ON THE GRID
Laughingly bad day for Massa.

Kovalainen - Not anybody's fault but his that he crashed into the wall!

Ferrari: Terrible race really considering they are the 3rd fastest team. Sure, Alonso led for a good majority of it but then he started pootling around in 5th on hard tires, while Massa just had a bad race altogether. The Speed commentators said that Ferrari are working on the 2012 car; does this mean they stopped development of the 2011 car already? If so, that's a rather dumb move considering we have around 14 races left. As for Massa, well, that was a terrible race; what else can be said?

FOM Live Feed: What happened with Liuzzi? Noone knows, as we never saw it. And the only thing we saw from Kovalainen's crash was an onboard shot of Vettel passing who I think was Massa.

Williams: They're quickly becoming a back marker team. While I would love to see them score a podium, it's not going to happen this season, and probably not for a while. And didn't I see an HRT ahead of one of the Williams at one point?

Mark Webber: Got pole and did absolutely nothing, and Vettel has the same equipment. I feel like he has only himself to blame for this result.

Nominees:

Massa - Couldn't find a setup all weekend. At least got his gearbox failure out of the way when it didn't really matter.
Kovalainen - Only driver-related retirement.
Webber - Very poor performance compared to Vettel on a track where he's had the edge over him in the past. Still has only led a couple of laps over Seb all year!
FOM TV Direction - Even worse than Turkey. Either showing too much of leaders at a time, or not enough. Find a balance! Not showing Kovalainen's crash and Liuzzi's retirement was bad enough, but they also cut away from Alonso as he was just about to re-pass...


Winner:

Williams - They have to win this award sooner or later? Even after Pastor qualified 9th and Rubens saved all the tyres, they still only managed 15th and 17th.

The Race:

-Massa . The guy just looks like a lost rookie. He locked up almost every time the camera cut to him and then ditched his car haplessly, he also spun the car. One of his very very bad days. Maybe he should quit, he's the worst driver of the top 3 teams. Permanent sulking victim mentality means he's gone from endearing nearly man to just irritating passive-aggressive dweeb.

-Petrov - In a superb position and ends up losing out to his teammate starting from last place. Not cool.

I can't believe Alonso is being mentioned, because it was strategy and the car that screwed his race. His actual driving was extraordinary off the start and he pulled off some brilliant breathtaking overtakes and defensive moves.

The externals:

DRS- Poor position meant it didnt really work
TV director- Constantly cutting to irrelevant things in the middle of dramatic sections, missed the crashes- and what is the continental obsession with wanting to stare at tyres bouncing off kerbs very very very slowly?

Heikki giving HIMSELF a shout for ROTR

H_Kovalainen Heikki Kovalainen
Bad race today, poor call on the 1st stop, was left out for too long losing lot of time, had to push to limit the damage, went off...

Ferrari.

For the reasons mentioned above. Very poor strategy call for Alonso, and Massa was just hopeless. Looked like he just gave up by the end!

razta wrote:Heikki giving HIMSELF a shout for ROTR

H_Kovalainen Heikki Kovalainen
Bad race today, poor call on the 1st stop, was left out for too long losing lot of time, had to push to limit the damage, went off...

At least he was honest - though it doesn't detract from the fact it was a silly mistake.

However, bad though that was, I'd have to say that the FOM TV Director has to take the biscuit here - yes, the races can be a bit confusing when you've got so many stops going on, but repeatedly cutting back and forth between the circuit and pit lane for no apparent reason makes it far worse. We missed the Alonso-Webber battle in Turn 10 for a pit stop, saw only occasional glimpses of the mid field, and had to watch Massa forlornly walking back down the pit lane whilst Vettel and Hamilton were going at it hammer and tongs on track.

Moreover, there was no explanation for why the drivers that stopped out on track did so. OK, we now know why Heikki stopped - accident due to driver error - but I wasn't even aware that Liuzzi had retired until after the race, and it took a fair bit of searching elsewhere to find out why Massa stopped.

fjackdaw wrote:Massa, for me, unless he was nursing some kind of problem. Or if not, simply Ferrari for general mediocrity in the face of being the third fastest team.

According to the BBC Radio 5 team, Massa stopped out on track with a gearbox failure, so it is possible that he might have been trying to nurse that gearbox home until the end of the race (now that the gearboxes have to last for five race distances). IF that was the case, then I can understand more clearly why Massa was struggling for pace (and it may explain that strange half spin he had, where it almost looked like the rear end had locked up).

That said, whilst Alonso gave it everything he had in the early stages of the race (full credit to him for keeping his foot in when Vettel was trying to pass Webber off the line), Ferrari as a whole were not competitive today, especially on the harder tyre - Alonso was at least moderately fast on the soft tyre, but most of that time loss came during his stints on the harder tyre. OK, Hamilton and Vettel really were in races of their own today - and probably will be for the rest of the season - and Button successfully pulled off a different strategy to beat him, but, considering this circuit is a test of raw downforce and chassis performance, Ferrari looked to be wanting (although their good mechanical grip might just save their bacon for Monaco).

That could well prove to be a major problem for the rest of the season; after all, this hard compound is going to be used in multiple races (certainly the British GP, and I think also for Valencia - we'll have to wait and see what Pirelli decides to do for the remaining races). Being lapped by Vettel and Hamilton, when at the start he'd been leading both of them, must have hurt - especially since that was on raw pace alone.

Massa.

Felipe Massa - Only Gilles Villeneuve can drift a Ferrari F1 car. Not you. Stop.
Williams - No other reason than I've nominated them for every race so far I think.

Felipe Massa: Off the pace, embarrassing retirement, poor show all round.

TV director for reasons already mentioned (esp. the Webber-Alonso battle)
Massa, though I see he might have an excuse

Williams- Its starting to become overious that the team A) lacking funds or B) Lacking Downforce

Massa and FIA proposed 2013 engine regs. Both are full of fail and both, hopefully, won't be in the sport in 2013.

Ferrari - All went wrong for Alonso and ended up a lap down, and Massa was just crap by lucking his way into Q3 and being disappointing all race.

Maldonado's performance was comparable to Nico's pole in brazil last year. They clearly had it on saturday but the car meant they couldn't hold it for sunday. I don't hold it against him, he drove well for that P9.
Therefore I direct my rage at FOM, watching Fernando Alonso pootle around in P5 while the leaders are .5 apart is not fun at all.

Felipe Massa. Poor pace yet again and wasn't going to get points before the retirement.

Felipe Massa was the only person to have a truly bad day today, nobody else stood out for me.

Petrov. Because even if Heidfeld had a lot more better tires, petrov should never end up behind him when he's starting 18 places ahead...

but also:
all the drivers getting lapped that should not get lapped
the director wasn't great, although i've seen worse
williams dissapointing again

TV Directors because, after seeing the GP2 race, where they followed the midfield, where was action instead of frontrunner, where was less action, I hoped to see similar things, but no.
To sum it up:
-Crashes: missed, bad replays
-Overtakes/overtake opportunities: mostly missed
-Cutting to replays during a overtake manouver: done perfectly

Massa. He just hasn't been the same since his near title win back in 2008.

Massa takes this one for me. He was just nonexistant today, and he just had an awful weekend in general. Also, the TV Director really should get a shout. I believe that during the Webber-Alonso battle, they cut to Vettel exiting the pits and we failed to see the repass that Alonso had. Also, it appears that all the exciting bits of the race occured when SpeedTV was in commercial break.

TV Directors: Concentrated on Webber vs. Alonso for half of the race, and when Webber dives under Alonso they cut to the pit straight to see Vettel coming out of the pits (IIRC this was before Hamilton pitted as well). Also a mention to One HD's commercial breaks, as they made the Australian viewers completely miss Kovalainen's crash.

For me it was Massa. He was hopeless in this race and compounded that with a retirement. The first for a top team driver this year...

My nominations:

The TV directors: People, there are more than 5 cars on track you know.
Martin Brundle/David Coulthard: I know this is a controversial nomination but both of them missed vital bits of action all weekend (For example they missed Kovy's Q1 lap which forced people to switch onto softs as those people had no idea whether Heidfeld would be able to set a lap before the end of qualy and they spent an eternity trying to figure out why Alonso put on hards at his first stop when I had figured out the final strategies of the top 5 by about lap 22)
Felipe Massa: His 2011 season is fast becoming a repeat of 2010. Bright start at the beginning before falling off the edge of a cliff.

But my ROTR is:

Williams: Barrichello had a gearbox problem in Q1 which didn't fully account for the 3.5 second gap to his deadbeat teammate while said deadbeat teammate goes off in practice and both do sod all in the race. 2006 looks like a pipedream compared to this mess.

My nomination is Vettel, partly for his singing over the radio. But mainly for headbutting the FOM camera man, when he got out of the car. Violence & then waving your finger around at the cameraman isn't going to scare him away.

Seriously though can't argue against Massa or Barrichello. Both had poor showings not for the 1st time this season.

My ROTR nominations are:

1st TV Directors:

I've seen some bad focus before in races and I know that they can't show everything at once, but this was just outright awful.

2nd DRS Zone:

There should have been at least two zones for DRS. One starting at the end of turn 16 once the track his the front stretch and the straightaway between turns 9 and 10.

3rd Webber:

On pole only to not finish on the podium.

Honorable mention Myself:

Couldn't get into the race until the last few laps where I though maybe Hamilton could over take Vettel.