Grand Prix Rejects

Some clear-cut nominations today

Kimi Raikkonen - Drove like a man who couldn't care less. It's 2008 all over again.

Kamui - What the hell was that?

But ROTR has to go to:

Sauber - They must be worried. Even Lotus with their horror weekend were faster than them. And Gutierrez continues where he left off in 2013. Dreadful performance from the lad.

Kobayashi - Torpedo coming

Bottas - Great drive, but that wall hit costed him

But of all, my personal opinion is:

TV ads - I miss the Vergne's drift

At this stage I'd have to say Sauber as well. Really poor, hardly saw anything from them all race, aside from Guttierez' spin at turn 3 at the start and being in the foreground of shots towards the end as Ricciardo and Magnusson closed in on them to lap them. Absolutely no pace, and aside from Esteban's first lap escapade, seemingly no serious problems at all. Could be wrong and maybe they were just trying to make the finish, but still. No-where near the rest of the field.

A lot of nominations this weekend- I have edited it due to recent events- Kobayashi has been removed.

Red Bull- Its clear cut for me- if the FIA tells you to do something then do it!! The FIA are in the right here.

Bottas- while he did recover he could have got second if he had not hit the wall

Mercedes engine (Hamilton's)- Could have been a great fight at the top.

Vettel's Red Bull - I wanted to see what he could do from 12th. But no.

Perez- Where the hell was he all weekend- Awful.

Raikkonen- Not a dream return- Alonso thrashed him.

but it has to go to

Sauber- 12th and 13th- Lotus were beating them despite their lack of running- Why couldn't Kobayashi taken one of their cars out instead- Massa would have had a faster car and the top 3 might have been different.

Dire from the team.

ROTR: Sauber - I expected the possibility of reliability issues for Red Bull and Lotus. I did not expect Sauber to be so horredously awful. Gutierrez is right now, in my opinion, the driver least deserving of a spot on the grid at the moment, and Sutil looks about as underwhelming as he was last year. And with their financial troubles, this could be the beginning of the end for them.

Kamui "Kobash" Kobayashi -- That was worse than Grosjean at Spa. Amateurish.

Gotta be Sauber - Just beyond awful.

I'm holding off judgement on the returning Kobacrashi (that didn't half look like 2010 all over again...) until we know if there was a brake problem or not. I suspect he'll take this race's award regardless, though.

Call me biased if you must, but I'm also going with Sauber. Yes, it's in my interests to do so seeing as I've publicly tipped them as my favourites for Reject of the Year, but I don't remember seeing either car on screen until the last lap or two, when they'd just been lapped and were conveniently in the same shot as Britney as he coasted to victory. If there's one thing worse than being talked about (for the wrong reasons, such as Kamui and Marussia's almost-non-start), it's not being talked about, and if anyone can find anything to say about Sauber that doesn't involve the word "anonymous", I'll be astounded.

The dishonourable mention goes to Sergio Pérez, because I've got him in my Fantasy Racers team and I need every bit as much out of him as I do from The Incredible Hülk. 11th place and the Golden Papaya wasn't what I was looking for.

Sauber.

Lotus - Slowish, had disastrous quali which saw them dead last and then double-DNFed. That's 2 races without points and counting
Sauber - Reliable but way off the pace, the only midfielders to be lapped

Honorable Mentions

Kimi Raikkonen - Battled with the Toro Rosso's and made several mistakes, in a Ferrari!
Sergio Perez - Anonymous, that's 1-0 to the Hulk already.

Well Lotus managed far more laps than I imagined so they saved it.

Nominations: Marussia - Both cars stalling on the grid (though both did go on to finish)
F1 World Champions: Raikkonen slow, Button bested by Magnussen, Vettel DNF, Hamilton DNF. (Alonso was okay though)
Sauber - Slow, but they don't take ROTR for me otherwise they will win it every race and face it the car has looked a dog even in testing!
Sergio Perez - Dominated by Hulk, but Perez may have been carrying damage from the lap 1 crash.

The true ROTR is:
Kobayashi, not the best way to come back into F1 after what was a decent qualifying effort.

dinizintheoven wrote:I'm holding off judgement on the returning Kobacrashi until we know if there was a brake problem or not.

I think they said he kind of blamed it on there being 2 formation laps and his tyres therefore got too cold. But it was the same for everyone, and only Koba made that mistake.


My nomination; Kamui Kobayashi.

Now for my traditional top 3, but not without Honorable mentions first.

Honorable Mentions

Lotus - The car is good, but reliability sucked. They miss my Top 3 because of how long they've managed to last in race conditions. There is hope yet.
Caterham - Oh dear... Although Ericsson looked good for a great result until he retired.
Kimi Räikkonen - He simply sucked and looked like he couldn't give a damn.
Ferrari - The season just can't go like this. Disappointing showing to say the least.
Sergio Pérez - Despite a puncture on lap 1, he should have done better.

Now for the top 3.

3. Kamui Kobayashi - His day was horrible to say the least. He had a great chance to capitalize upon the Marussia's starting from the pits, and he absolutely f***ed up by smashing Massa into the gravel trap. He looked way out of his depth and Kobacrashi was certainly in effect here.

2. Sauber-Ferrari - This was stupid. The car looks like a pig rolled in some weird mud. The car acts like it too. They have 2 drivers on the sidelines who would do a better job. In the end, 12th and 13th out of 14 classified is just bad and Nico Hülkenberg must be laughing at the failures the other teams he was rumored for late last year are putting on the table. They should be ashamed.

1. Sebastian Vettel - My God, I have heard enough from him. Call me an idiot, but let me explain why. He was not mentally in the game after qualifying. He seemed more stressed than calm, unlike Daniel. And to top it off Ricciardo just flat out smashed him all weekend. That combined with his whining makes me go Reject of the Race. The Red Bull car didn't allow him to show what he could have done, but the rest of the weekend made me say that he will not thrive until the bloody thing is fixed, and for the 4 time defending champion acting that way, what's there to gain? Not much. I probably shouldn't be this harsh, but it just got stupid, even if the car is a farce right now.

East Londoner wrote:Some clear-cut nominations today

Kimi Raikkonen - Drove like a man who couldn't care less. It's 2008 all over again.

Kamui - What the hell was that?

Seb Vettel - Oh dear me.

But ROTR has to go to:

Sauber - They must be worried. Even Lotus with their horror weekend were faster than them. And Gutierrez continues where he left off in 2013. Dreadful performance from the lad.

I'd agree with Kimi's nomination - whilst both he and Alonso were reportedly down on power, Kimi was compounding that with an unusually high number of errors under braking (especially the way that he gifted his place to Bottas by running off track). For a driver of his calibre, it was a somewhat scruffy race and a bit disappointing - mind you, Ferrari were disappointing all round this weekend given that they've not looked that quick in practise or qualifying and had to spend most of the race in a reduced power mode due to unspecified electrical issues.

Mind you, Hamilton's engine failure is another strong contender too - Mercedes could have had a pretty comfortable 1-2 finish there without his problems, and the fact that it was a new type of engine failure might raise a few concerns amongst the team.
As for Vettel, well, his race went as most were expecting it to go - retiring early with an engine failure, and possibly with a few signs of anger creeping into his radio messages too (reportedly he shouted "this is ridiculous" once he saw all of the other cars flying past him on the opening lap). The frustration is understandable - there is only so much a driver can do when his engine isn't firing on all cylinders - and the last thing that he would want to see is Ricciardo building up a healthy lead in the opening few races if things don't improve.

dinizintheoven, sadly there is one other word that a number of posters have used to describe Sauber apart from "anonymous", and that is simply "slow".
Sauber might as well have not been there and seem to be the strongest contenders for ROTR - Sutil did briefly run close to the points thanks to his strategy but fell back steadily as the race wore on, whilst Gutierrez made no impression either (even Chilton and Ericsson were able to pressurise him for a while).
They did at least make it to the end, but with pace that poor it might be the case that they are more worried about what is behind them than pressurising the midfield pack - their financial issues and lacklustre line up certainly seems to be catching up with them now.

Personal reject - my Twitter feed. Almost no one seemed to have good words for what was a quite decent first race of the new formula.

Reject Of The Race - Kamui Kobayashi. It was going all the way of Lotus until his brainfade at the first corner, which is the kind of event that usually grants a ROTR. I think Lotus also escapes by virtue of them staying on track for far longer than anyone expected. Dishonourable mentions for Räikkönen and Vettel, if he really did that "ridiculous" comment.

Kobayashi - Binned a good quali session

I'd like to give out an honourable mention to everyone nominating Kobayashi, since it's come out now that his rear brakes failed on the approach to turn one. Not really much he could've done about that.

I was gonna say Kobayashi, but Salamander posted just before I clicked 'Submit', so my nomination goes to Sauber. Dishonourable mentions for Perez, Raikkonen and the Ferrari team as a whole.

Also, what happened to Bianchi? He was lapped multiple times by Chilton!!

now it is clear that it was a result of rear brake failure, I change my ROTR from Kobayashi to Ferrari Customer teams:

Sauber slow, Marussia delaying the start with 2 stalls.

Hmm hard choices

Kamui Kobayashi: His honesty was impressive but the accident was not the best way to return to the sport for Kamui-san. Caterham and Marussia should just stick to Q1 eliminations because almost every time they get out of Q1 something goes wrong on the opening lap of the race. While Salamander says it was Brake failure i'll keep it to a HM

Kimi Raikkonen: If I remember rightly Danil Kyvat was hassling him at one point (albeit with quicker tires). His errors under braking and the way he gave up the place to Bottas by running wide summed up his afternoon

Seb Vettel's RBR: Rachel's right in saying that we were robbed of the opportunity to see what Seb could have done from 12th. Maybe Malaysia will present it

Sergio Perez: Where the hell was he all weekend? Hulkenberg thrashed him all weekend and even if he wasn't caught up with Guti he would have still been miles behind

Marussia: Well that was pretty embarrassing at the start for both cars to stall separately. At least Chilton finished and ran well for once

But ROTR just has to go to...

Sauber: Hmm let's see 14 cars finished and 4 cars missed out on points and the Sauber's were 2 of those. I didn't see a Sauber at all unless they were being lapped or getting caught up in accidents. The fact that both were lapped says it all too. Get GVDG in that car instead. Diniz is right in saying that it's better to be noticed for the wrong reasons like Kamui-san than to be like Sauber. Atrocious

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:Kamui Kobayashi: His honesty was impressive but the accident was not the best way to return to the sport for Kamui-san. Caterham and Marussia should just stick to Q1 eliminations because almost every time they get out of Q1 something goes wrong on the opening lap of the race. While Salamander says it was Brake failure i'll keep it to a HM

You're still getting an honourable mention from me for that.

wsrgo wrote:I was gonna say Kobayashi, but Salamander posted just before I clicked 'Submit', so my nomination goes to Sauber. Dishonourable mentions for Perez, Raikkonen and the Ferrari team as a whole.

Also, what happened to Bianchi? He was lapped multiple times by Chilton!!

Bianchi stalled on the formation lap and it took multiple laps to get the car back out on track. He effectively started the race à-la-Al Pease.

wsrgo wrote:I was gonna say Kobayashi, but Salamander posted just before I clicked 'Submit', so my nomination goes to Sauber. Dishonourable mentions for Perez, Raikkonen and the Ferrari team as a whole.

Also, what happened to Bianchi? He was lapped multiple times by Chilton!!

Because Bianchi suffered from the same issue as Chilton - the engine went into an automatic shutdown - it took several laps for the team to reset the electronics on Bianchi's car. Chilton was at least fortunate that his failure happened on the first formation lap, which gave the team just enough time to reset the system whilst the cars were returning to the grid for him to make a normal start from the pit lane, whereas the race was already under way before Bianchi could then make it back into the race.

If Ricciardo is disqualified I will nominate the new fuel flow rule. Or Red Bull for not sticking to it.

Lotus - not that anyone was surprised.
Sauber - meh team with meh drivers finishing on meh positions.

good_Ralf wrote:If Ricciardo is disqualified I will nominate the new fuel flow rule. Or Red Bull for not sticking to it.

Has to go to Red Bull when you consider that all teams know the rules and what happened to Vettel. From champs to chumps.

Yep, I'm saying Sauber too - they don't even have a Renault engine. Was going to say Kobayashi until I learned of his brake failure.

Now that Cowboy is cleared from all responsability, let's get to the facts

1.-The WDC's: Oh, boy. The champions went too safe in Albert Park, and while HAM and VET were out early, Alonso, Button and Kimi didn't battled at all.

2.-Sauber: As I said before, the car isn't particulary fast.

Dishonorable mentions to Caterham's reliability (brake failure for KK, Ericcson's engine give up) and Marussia's tech glitches (another hacker, maybe?)

The MasterCard Lola Award goes to Lotus with a weekend that they clearly wants to forget

While Räikkönen's performance was rather poor, I'm cutting him some slack because he's struggled with the car and setup all weekend. Not to mention the possible damage he suffered to his left rear when Kamikashi lost his brakes. He and Ferrari's technical team have lots of work to do to make the car suit him better.

Bottas made a rather amateurish error which prevented him from advancing further, but I can't nominate someone who went from 15th on the grid to finish 6th as ROTR.

With their serious fall from grace, I'll then nominate Sauber and Lotus-Enstone.

It's got to be Sauber, for me. They usually do well in the early rounds, but not today.

I cannot possibly kick Lotus whilst they're down; they expected to retire early, and ended up doing over half-distance...so that's reassuring.

It was nearly marussia for having a double DNS but they turned it around.

Has to go to Sauber, boring cars, boring colour scheme, boring boring drivers. I didn't realise they were even in the race till I read the classifications at the end.

Now that the DQ appears to be official, it's got to go to Red Bull.

Red Bull Red Bull, your race was a mess.

good_Ralf wrote:If Ricciardo is disqualified I will nominate the new fuel flow rule. Or Red Bull for not sticking to it.

This is exactly how I feel on the situation. It doesn't matter if the rule is BS (which it is), it's a rule and it should be followed, otherwise this happens. The FIA made it clear what the deal was, did Red Bull honestly expect that they'd get away with this? And then they have the temerity to appeal it?

Pissed me off.

3rd:Kimi Raikkonen: I know he might've been struggling with the car but I will be honest, he should've been higher than where he was. He made too many mistakes and was outshone by Alonso. Yes, he scored points, but his drive was not one of the best and was unimpressive really.

2nd:The Backmarkers: Caterham was plagued with mechanical difficulties which resulted in DNFs for both cars (and a DNF for Massa), while Marussia's cars went into automatic shutdown for no real reason. Attrition might help them get into the points but they need to have reliability and speed on their side as well, and I'm not sure either team has both.

1st:TIE - Sauber and Red Bull: Both for different reasons. With Sauber, it can be seen why; Sutil and Gutierrez were both anonymous at best, and looked nowhere towards getting points. Gutierrez especially, is just slow, and really is the Mexican equivalent of Riccardo Rosset at this point. Sutil was underwhelming, and to top it off Sauber has a decent engine, so really, it's both the car which is a POS and the drivers who I am afraid do not have the speed to break it into the points. It will be a trying year for them, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this year as one of the last for the team, either in its current guise (meaning, sold off and possibly renamed) or in general.

On to Red Bull: Not much to say here. Reliability woes got the better of Vettel while Ricciardo is stripped of 2nd place due to, well, his team. I know that it was great that he got 2nd place, but I will say this: rules are rules and if the team broke them, then tough for Ricciardo and Red Bull. As far as other matters go, yes, we know the car is fast, how fast? Was that fuel sensor in Ricciardo's car the piece that made it faster (and in reality the car is a lot slower)? Did Ricciardo just drive a great race and the car was a slow piece of crap? We've seen that with Alonso and the 2012 Ferrari Crapbox. Or was the car really fast and Vettel just got unlucky with mechanical woes? In any case, a fall from grace if they do get a double DNF, and while it shows Ricciardo is a great driver, a DNF is still a black mark in his resume, and the team can (and should) be blamed for that.

Dishonorable Mention:

Perez: Where was he? I heard he had some kind of mechanical problem but that was only addressed once during the race. I know he can be higher; he has the skill and the car to at least be with Hulkenberg, so what gives?

Dan B wrote: Perez: Where was he? I heard he had some kind of mechanical problem but that was only addressed once during the race. I know he can be higher; he has the skill and the car to at least be with Hulkenberg, so what gives?

Gutierrez spun into him at turn 3 on the first lap, causing a puncture. Then I think he got stuck behind Sutil after the safety car came in.

East Londoner wrote:

Dan B wrote: Perez: Where was he? I heard he had some kind of mechanical problem but that was only addressed once during the race. I know he can be higher; he has the skill and the car to at least be with Hulkenberg, so what gives?

Gutierrez spun into him at turn 3 on the first lap, causing a puncture. Then I think he got stuck behind Sutil after the safety car came in.

So that's what happened; NBC didn't say much about it and the only instance of that moment I saw was an onboard shot of Vettel and the commentators didn't say anything.

1. Red Bulls fuel flow sensor guy
2. Lotus, really quite pathetic
Dishonourable mention: Sauber, utterly anonymous

Let's redo that one now more information has been released and some events have occurred.

Honorable Mentions

Lotus - It was only making it as far as they did for me not to put them in the top 3.
Caterham - Oh dear... They could have capitalized on Marussia starting from the pits but no.
Kimi Räikkönen - He looked out of his game. In fact, he looked like he couldn't give a damn.
Ferrari - When Renault rebound, Ferrari will surely have the sucky power unit.

Now, the top 3.

3. Sergio Pérez - He undeservedly got a point. Not impressed. He was punted into a spin and puncture by Gutiérrez, who just as easily sucked, yet still only finished a few seconds up the road from Sauber. In this race, if your day saw being just a few seconds up the road from them, you didn't deserve points.

2. Sauber-Ferrari - So anonymously slow it was actually kind of funny that I remembered they were in the race. Plus, the car looks and acts like a pig rolled in mud. That can't be said for much of anyone else!

1. Infiniti Red Bull Racing-Renault - What a bunch of muppets. They build just a crap car internally. Horrible preseason testing. Not a good race here. Seb Vettel was out of his game. Seb Vettel's car fails in 5 laps. Ricciardo gets 2nd place. Oh wait, their muppetry off track allowed the FIA a perfectly valid reason to disqualify Dan. Now, instead of 18 points and a fantastic start, they can kiss all that buzz goodbye. What an absolute failure and their antics this weekend just simply make me say Reject of the Race.

On Kobayashi's first corner smash: Even without it being a brake failure, I was prepared to not give it to him, because in any event it looked to me like he was completely surprised by the reaction of the brakes when he hit them and locked up, that is to say, they didn't do what he thought they were going to do, thus losing traction, and skating into Massa, and also giving the impression that he had gone in too deep.

Anyway, ROTR nomination for me has to go to Red Bull. They did well this weekend to put in a stronger performance, and Vettel's power train issues that caused him to retire from the race weren't surprising or rejectful. But what is absolutely rejectful is not listening to the FIA and Charlie Whiting when they stated quite clearly that whatever Race Control gets for fuel flow readings is automatically considered indisputably correct, regardless of what any other data collected by the teams might say. And they were warned as well that the consumption was too high during the race, but chose to ignore this as well in the flawed belief that their data would save Riccardo from exclusion. The result: one of the feelgood moments of the first race and probably an early contender for one of the highlights/feelgood moments of the 2014 season have been utterly destroyed, and will be further covered in shite by the appeal that Red Bull in all probability will lose. I genuinely feel for Dan Riccardo, he did well this weekend, and did well to finish where he started, and absolutely deserved his spot on the podium, only to have it all yanked away.

As an aside: does anyone believe that Red Bull are Machiavellian enough to have done this on purpose, with the intent of damaging Riccardo's confidence, thus paving the way for Vettel to assert psychological dominance over him? Just a possibility I considered, I don't think they would actually go that far, so soon, but who knows?