Grand Prix Rejects

Like most people here I follow more series than just F1 and I've been thinking about who would be a reject if the website rules were applied to the other racing series. I've decided to make my first investigation into MotoGP for the riders who have ridden from 2002 to date (riders in italics have ridden CRT machines only, riders in bold are active in the 2013 MotoGP season, riders in blue also rode in 500cc era)

Javier del Amor (1 race, best finish 15th)
Blake Young (1 race, best finish 21st)
Michael Barnes (1 race, best finish DNQ)
Aleix Espargaro (48 races, best finish 8th)
Bradley Smith (8 races, best finish 6th)
Michele Pirro (24 races, best finish 5th)
Andrea Iannone (7 races, best finish 9th)
Hector Barbera (57 races, best finish 6th)
Danilo Petrucci (26 races, best finish 8th)
Yonny Hernandez (23 races, best finish 9th)
Claudio Corti (9 races, best finish 12th)
Michael Laverty (8 races, best finish 13th)
Karel Abraham (36 races, best finish 7th)
Bryan Staring (8 races, best finish 14th)
Lucas Pesek (8 races, best finish 16th)
Ivan Silva (21 races, best finish 12th)
David Salom (1 race, best finish 15th)
Aaron Yates (1 race, best finish 16th)
James Ellison (57 races, best finish 9th)
Jonathan Rea (2 races, best finish 7th)
Mattia Pasini (14 races, best finish 10th)
Steve Rapp (2 races, best finish 14th)
Roberto Rolfo (21 races, best finish 10th)
Franco Battaini (18 races, best finish 11th)
Kris McLaren (1 race, best finish DNQ)
Josh Hayes (1 race, best finish 7th)
Kousuke Akiyoshi (8 races, best finish 12th)
Damian Cudlin (1 race, best finish Ret)
Ben Bostrom (1 race, best finish Ret)
Mika Kallio (32 races, best finish 7th)
Roger Lee Hayden (2 races, best finish 10th)
Wataru Yoshikawa (2 races, best finish 12th)
Niccolo Canepa (14 races, best finish 8th)
Gabor Talmacsi (12 races, best finish 12th)
Michel Fabrizio (12 races, best finish 10th)
Anthony West (29 races, best finish 5th)
Jamie Hacking (1 race, best finish 11th)
Alex Hofmann (64 races, best finish 5th)
Kurtis Roberts (22 races, best finish 12th)
Fonsi Nieto (1 race, best finish 11th)
Chaz Davies (3 races, best finish 16th)
Akira Yanagawa (1 race, best finish 17th)
Andrew Pitt (20 races, best finish 12th)
José Luis Cardoso (23 races, best finish 11th)
Naoki Matsudo (2 races, best finish Ret)
Shane Byrne (20 races, best finish 10th)
Ryuichi Kiyonari (14 races, best finish 11th)
David Checa (3 races, best finish 13th)
Chris Burns (17 races, best finish 16th)
Neil Hodgson (16 races, best finish 8th)
Yukio Kagayama (5 races, best finish 11th)
James Haydon (3 races, best finish 12th)
Youichi Ui (4 races, best finish 15th)
Gregorio Lavilla (4 races, best finish 16th)
José David de Gea (9 races, best finish 19th)
Tamaki Serizawa (2 races, best finish 18th)
Pere Riba (7 races, best finish 13th)
David Garcia (1 race, best finish Ret)

Riders that who are rejects based on MotoGP results, but have sufficient results in the 500cc era:
Tadayuki Okada
Nobuatsu Aoki
Miguel Duhamel
Jeremy McWilliams
Garry McCoy
Noriyuki Haga
Tetsuya Harada
Jean-Michel Bayle


You've got to say out of the list that Bradley Smith is the most likely to unrejectify himself, although it will be a travesty if Aleix Espargaro doesn't get the equipment he deserves at some point. Hector Barbera's stats are probably the most disappointing, can't see him lasting much longer.

GP2

Rene Binder (1 6th)
Simon Trummer (1 6th)
Daniel Abt (1 7th)
Connor Daly (1 7th)
Daniel de Jong (1 10th)
Kevin Giovesi (1 10th)
Jake Rosenzweig (1 10th)
Sergio Canamasas (2 11th's)
Pal Varhaug (1 8th)
Fabrizio Crestani (3 10th's)
Ma Qinghua (1 21st)
Filipe Albuquerque (2 10th's)
Mikhail Aleshin (1 6th)
Vladimir Arabadzhiev (1 9th)
Can Artam (1 7th)
Marko Asmer (1 11th)
Victor Guerin (1 13th)
Ben Hanley (1 6th)
Sergio Hernandez (1 5th)
Carlos Iaconelli (1 11th)
James Jakes (1 15th)
Sergio Jimenez (1 5th)
Henri Karjalainen (2 DNF'S)
Mathias Lauda (1 6th)
Federico Leo (1 19th)
Kevin Mirocha (1 8th)
Giorgio Mondini (1 13th)
Markus Niemela (1 9th)
Paolo Nocera (1 17th)
Fabio Onidi (1 6th)
Nelson Panciatici (1 11th)
Milos Pavlovic (1 12th)
Edoardo Piscopo (1 7th)
Antonio Pizzonia (1 8th)
Felix Porteiro (2 6th's)
Marcello Puglisi (1 17th)
Davide Rigon (1 5th)
Ricardo Risatti (1 8th)
Giancarlo Serenelli (2 16th's)
Ryan Sharp (2 9th's)
Jason Tahincioglu (3 11th's)
Ricardo Teixeira (1 13th)
Toni Vilander (1 8th)

Of the current grid 11 drivers who have raced at some point in GP2 season are rejects. Also Julian Leal only escaped reject status at Silverstone where he was 4th while Rossi and Evans also started as Rejects not to mention Lancaster and Frijns although they are all non rejects. That rather says a lot about the quality of the GP2 field doesn't it. Daly might have unrejectified himself if he stayed in the series while of the others only Binder if he's on a good day will escape in my eyes.

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:GP2

Rene Binder (1 6th)
Simon Trummer (1 6th)
Daniel Abt (1 7th)
Connor Daly (1 7th)
Daniel de Jong (1 10th)
Kevin Giovesi (1 10th)
Jake Rosenzweig (1 10th)
Sergio Canamasas (2 11th's)
Pal Varhaug (1 8th)
Fabrizio Crestani (3 10th's)
Ma Qinghua (1 21st)
Filipe Albuquerque (2 10th's)
Mikhail Aleshin (1 6th)
Vladimir Arabadzhiev (1 9th)
Can Artam (1 7th)
Marko Asmer (1 11th)
Victor Guerin (1 13th)
Ben Hanley (1 6th)
Sergio Hernandez (1 5th)
Carlos Iaconelli (1 11th)
James Jakes (1 15th)
Sergio Jimenez (1 5th)
Henri Karjalainen (2 DNF'S)
Mathias Lauda (1 6th)
Federico Leo (1 19th)
Kevin Mirocha (1 8th)
Giorgio Mondini (1 13th)
Markus Niemela (1 9th)
Paolo Nocera (1 17th)
Fabio Onidi (1 6th)
Nelson Panciatici (1 11th)
Milos Pavlovic (1 12th)
Edoardo Piscopo (1 7th)
Antonio Pizzonia (1 8th)
Felix Porteiro (2 6th's)
Marcello Puglisi (1 17th)
Davide Rigon (1 5th)
Ricardo Risatti (1 8th)
Giancarlo Serenelli (2 16th's)
Ryan Sharp (2 9th's)
Jason Tahincioglu (3 11th's)
Ricardo Teixeira (1 13th)
Toni Vilander (1 8th)

Of the current grid 11 drivers who have raced at some point in GP2 season are rejects. Also Julian Leal only escaped reject status at Silverstone where he was 4th while Rossi and Evans also started as Rejects not to mention Lancaster and Frijns although they are all non rejects. That rather says a lot about the quality of the GP2 field doesn't it. Daly might have unrejectified himself if he stayed in the series while of the others only Binder if he's on a good day will escape in my eyes.

Those rejects include Derek Daly's son, the first ever Chinese driver in F1, the second best Russian single-seater racer after, a Turkish racing driver, an Estonian who tested for BMW, a current IndyCar driver, the son of an F1 legend, a third driver for the Midland F1 team, an official F1 Reject and a Le Mans racer.

If you're interested, there's this, this, and this to look at

good_Ralf wrote:

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:GP2

Rene Binder (1 6th)
Simon Trummer (1 6th)
Daniel Abt (1 7th)
Connor Daly (1 7th)
Daniel de Jong (1 10th)
Kevin Giovesi (1 10th)
Jake Rosenzweig (1 10th)
Sergio Canamasas (2 11th's)
Pal Varhaug (1 8th)
Fabrizio Crestani (3 10th's)
Ma Qinghua (1 21st)
Filipe Albuquerque (2 10th's)
Mikhail Aleshin (1 6th)
Vladimir Arabadzhiev (1 9th)
Can Artam (1 7th)
Marko Asmer (1 11th)
Victor Guerin (1 13th)
Ben Hanley (1 6th)
Sergio Hernandez (1 5th)
Carlos Iaconelli (1 11th)
James Jakes (1 15th)
Sergio Jimenez (1 5th)
Henri Karjalainen (2 DNF'S)
Mathias Lauda (1 6th)
Federico Leo (1 19th)
Kevin Mirocha (1 8th)
Giorgio Mondini (1 13th)
Markus Niemela (1 9th)
Paolo Nocera (1 17th)
Fabio Onidi (1 6th)
Nelson Panciatici (1 11th)
Milos Pavlovic (1 12th)
Edoardo Piscopo (1 7th)
Antonio Pizzonia (1 8th)
Felix Porteiro (2 6th's)
Marcello Puglisi (1 17th)
Davide Rigon (1 5th)
Ricardo Risatti (1 8th)
Giancarlo Serenelli (2 16th's)
Ryan Sharp (2 9th's)
Jason Tahincioglu (3 11th's)
Ricardo Teixeira (1 13th)
Toni Vilander (1 8th)

Of the current grid 11 drivers who have raced at some point in GP2 season are rejects. Also Julian Leal only escaped reject status at Silverstone where he was 4th while Rossi and Evans also started as Rejects not to mention Lancaster and Frijns although they are all non rejects. That rather says a lot about the quality of the GP2 field doesn't it. Daly might have unrejectified himself if he stayed in the series while of the others only Binder if he's on a good day will escape in my eyes.

Those rejects include Derek Daly's son, the first ever Chinese driver in F1, the second best Russian single-seater racer after, a Turkish racing driver, an Estonian who tested for BMW, a current IndyCar driver, the son of an F1 legend, a third driver for the Midland F1 team, an official F1 Reject and a Le Mans racer.

Christian Bakkerud should be here too but i left him out as a mark of respect

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:Christian Bakkerud should be here too but i left him out as a mark of respect

I see what you're thinking, but if that logic was applied to the entire site, we'd not have a profile of - say - Moises Solana or Ettore Chimeri. Christian Bakkerud didn't die on the track - and he'd also retired from racing a year before his fatal road accident; Chimeri, profiled here, did die on the track, and only two weeks after the solitary F1 entry that saw him eligible for a profile.

I always thought of Jose Luis Cardoso as the quintessential MotoGP reject, he had crap results at the start of his 500cc career and seemingly disappeared for a couple of years before coming back for 2006 and being miles off the pace of the rest of the field. The Harris WCM team also deserves a (dis)hounourable mention for getting themselves banned for using an illegal engine before coming back and being terribly slow and generally the laughing stock of the paddock.

A1GP REJECTS AND NON-REJECTS

A1GP (RIP, 2005-2009) was a competition between countries, one entry per country per race, with all points going to the country and no individual drivers' championship. So my criteria for a reject country in this series is the same as for drivers in F1 - to unrejectify a country, they have to have scored a minimum of three 6th places, or a 5th plus a 6th.

In order of best result (where results are equal, in alphabetical order):


So Indonesia did the minimum necessary to not be A1GP rejects, with Pakistan's next best result being a 7th in the first-ever A1GP race, therefore getting the best results possible to remain a reject. 17 winning countries, 4 non-reject non-winning countries and 8 reject countries. What is odd is that Brazil dominated the first ever round, winning both the sprint and feature races, and never won again. In fact, they only ever scored 4 more podiums... And their race winner? Nelson Piquet Jnr...

I'm actually surprised my country(Singapore) actually managed to end up ahead of Russia and Greece overall and tied with Japan. I always thought that Singapore was the worst team ever in A1GP. Although,admittedly,they got their sloe points at that race in Beijing. You know,the tight hairpin one.

I always had a soft spot for A1GP,it always contained some incredible races. I always long for its return,it was a fantastic concept that was carried out almost perfectly.Almost. Heck,my first recollection of me watching a race other than Formula One was the very first A1GP race,with Nelson Piquet Jr winning and that crash between Italy and Lebanon. Sorry for drifting off into fantasy land for my previous three sentences.

WaffleCat wrote:I'm actually surprised my country(Singapore) actually managed to end up ahead of Russia and Greece overall and tied with Japan. I always thought that Singapore was the worst team ever in A1GP. Although,admittedly,they got their sloe points at that race in Beijing. You know,the tight hairpin one.

I always had a soft spot for A1GP,it always contained some incredible races. I always long for its return,it was a fantastic concept that was carried out almost perfectly.Almost. Heck,my first recollection of me watching a race other than Formula One was the very first A1GP race,with Nelson Piquet Jr winning and that crash between Italy and Lebanon. Sorry for drifting off into fantasy land for my previous three sentences.

You and I share the same sentiments. I meant to create that list a while ago, but have only just got round to it. And that very first A1GP race? I was there, on the outside of Clearways bend. This incident was worrying. It happened at Paddock Hill, just out of our sight, but we saw the large dust cloud rising upwards. The replay on the big screens looked scary, but it reassured me that those Lolas were well-built. Still remains my favourite race series, better even than F1 or BTCC... And much, much better than Superleague Formula...

eurobrun wrote:I always thought of Jose Luis Cardoso as the quintessential MotoGP reject, he had crap results at the start of his 500cc career and seemingly disappeared for a couple of years before coming back for 2006 and being miles off the pace of the rest of the field. The Harris WCM team also deserves a (dis)hounourable mention for getting themselves banned for using an illegal engine before coming back and being terribly slow and generally the laughing stock of the paddock.

Thanks, I didn't really know much about Cardoso. I always wondered what it would have been like if Ilmor actually managed to race as they had planned. I'm thinking HRT pace.

watka wrote:

eurobrun wrote:I always thought of Jose Luis Cardoso as the quintessential MotoGP reject, he had crap results at the start of his 500cc career and seemingly disappeared for a couple of years before coming back for 2006 and being miles off the pace of the rest of the field. The Harris WCM team also deserves a (dis)hounourable mention for getting themselves banned for using an illegal engine before coming back and being terribly slow and generally the laughing stock of the paddock.

Thanks, I didn't really know much about Cardoso. I always wondered what it would have been like if Ilmor actually managed to race as they had planned. I'm thinking HRT pace.

The Ilmor was pretty crap iirc, It was slow but it could have got points in races of high attrition

David Thexton - V8 Supercars, nuff said

NASCAR has some but none worse than Clark Dwyer who raced during the early and mid 1980s.

Clark Dwyer, 56 NASCAR Winston Cup (now Sprint Cup) races, 1 top ten (a 10th), no lead lap finishes. He's King Reject.

I was searching for my list of A1GP rejects above (hoping for a list of drivers rather than countries ). But then I thought I would post here a list of driver rejects from the first season of FIA Formula E...

Formula E Driver Rejects: Season 1

Stephane Sarrazin
Oriol Servia
Salvador Duran
Oliver Turvey
Vintantonio Liuzzi
Takuma Sato
Justin Wilson
Ho-Pin Tung
Antonio Garcia
Simona de Silvestro
Michela Cerruti
Marco Andretti
Matthew Brabham
Fabio Leimer
Alex Fontana
Katherine Legge
Sakon Yamamoto

Meanwhile, Aleix Espargaro, Bradley Smith, Andrea Iannone, Danilo Petrucci and even Hector Barbera managed to unrejectify themselves in MotoGP. Among those who still weren't in MotoGP in 2013, Pol Espargarò, Scott Redding and even Yamaha Forward hero Loris Baz did the same, while former Moto3 champion Maverick Vinales is only one 6th place short of unrejectification.

One should make a IndyCar rejects thread.

Whiteshore wrote:One should make a IndyCar rejects thread.

Because this 2-year-old thread is just jam-packed with them, amirite?