Grand Prix Rejects

Please, post your ROTR nominations!

Kvyat's car.

Qualifying hands down. That failed so bad.

In terms of the race, I guess I would say Ericsson's side of the garage for costing him 20 seconds. Nothing else was really rejectful.

Toro Rosso for wasting a good opportunity to score more points. A lot went wrong there today after a brilliant qualifying.

Qualifying. Has to be rejectful for that format to be overturned before the grid that qualifying decided had even formed up on the grid...

In-race, Button, qualifying suggested points were possible, but instead he finished lower, despite retirements ahead of him.

Whoever told Vettel to keep S-Soft for restart. Ruin the win chance

I think Max Verstappen takes it for me. Far too petulant for my liking, and looked like an accident waiting to happen in the last 20 laps. Karma for Singapore, I guess.

Honourable mention to Sky Sports F1 for being dreadful. Trashing the halo at every given opportunity, Crofty being worse than ever on commentary, and actually putting "Ferrari Fail" on the screen when analysing how the race went away from Maranello's clutches. Can't wait for C4's live coverage...

Now, for once, one can say there aren't that many candidates (and I can't vow for the Sky one, since we now have F1 in free TV!).

Toro Rosso - I'm not going to nominate Max Verstappen, but rather the whole STR team. The Verstappen situation only happened because STR made bad strategy calls all race long (placed Sainz in traffic, but he still made the undercut work, then pitted both cars and Max and a slow stop because the team wasn't ready to receive him), and in the end, their debriefing is a MMA fight between a angry teenager and a man who can't get any luck.

FIA - No comments about this one. You know what you did FIA. You know it.

East Londoner wrote:Honourable mention to Sky Sports F1 for being dreadful. Trashing the halo at every given opportunity, Crofty being worse than ever on commentary, and actually putting "Ferrari Fail" on the screen when analysing how the race went away from Maranello's clutches. Can't wait for C4's live coverage...

They also sounded painfully smug during the race about Ferrari's chances slipping away...

I vote (not that it means anything ):

Max Verstappen - Still has a lot of growing up to do.

Anyone who said Mercedes were going to dominate - Might be early days yet, though.

Qualifying - A rushed format, it seems, even if I still think it has potential.

I'm gonna nominate the Team Principals & F1 rulemaking in general - and no, it's not because the qualifying was a new thing which offended my purism. Rather the way it was hastily introduced and hammered through, then delayed, then the delay was cancelled, then the teams didnt understand how it worked, then the exact Q3 anticlimax that the same people that who had approved the format, would predict to happen 5 minutes after the rule was introduced happened, and an unanimous agreement was reached that the decision was bad, and some other culprit was quickly found to blame, was super amateurish and rejectful. To add to that - the overnight changes to the radio rules (which, admittably, worked well today), and that silly "don't throw the visor strips on the track" "oh wait thats a bad idea, lets delay it"..

..oh, lawd.

Not going to nominate the whole qualifying farce as everyone else already did.

Kvyat's car - While Ricciardo was showing Red Bull's potential, everything went wrong for his teammate.

Toro Rosso - A 50:50 mix of bad luck (shared with Ferrari) and poor strategical choices made them from potential podium contenders to 9th and 10th.

For the race

1) Ferrari strategy - was obvious they'd get leapfrogged without changing tyres

2) Max Verstappen - For whinging about not being let past then almost taking himself and his team-mate out, pathetic

Dishonourable mentions

1) Qualifying - reject of the weekend hands down
2) David Croft's awful puns in commentary

1. Qualifying
2. Max Verstappen (or his mouth, to be precise)

1)Qualifying: When the big guys of FOM say that you are "Rubbish", you're done

2)Toro Rosso's strategy Went full Manfred with the calls

Dishonorable mentions to Ferrari pit crew (botched that final pitstop), Kimi's and Kvyat's bad luck (please, someone find them a 4-leaf clover)

The I Need to Learn to Shut my Mouth Award goes to Max Verstappen: Kid, just STFU!

(1) Qualifying

(2) The lack of team radio. I now feel further removed from the drivers state of mind (apart from f**king obviously f**king Max f**king Verstappen) and the teams race strategy thinking.

giraurd wrote:I'm gonna nominate the Team Principals & F1 rulemaking in general - and no, it's not because the qualifying was a new thing which offended my purism. Rather the way it was hastily introduced and hammered through, then delayed, then the delay was cancelled, then the teams didn't understand how it worked, then the exact Q3 anticlimax that the same people that who had approved the format, would predict to happen 5 minutes after the rule was introduced happened, and an unanimous agreement was reached that the decision was bad, and some other culprit was quickly found to blame, was super amateurish and rejectful. To add to that - the overnight changes to the radio rules (which, admittedly, worked well today), and that silly "don't throw the visor strips on the track" "oh wait that's a bad idea, lets delay it"..

..oh, lawd.

Pretty much.

1) Qualifying
Because... yeah.

2) Super-Soft Tyres
The supposedly fastest tyre didn't give the cars any real pace advantage over those drivers using the mediums, it just ran out quicker.

I don't think there was anything that rejectful *looks at the strange bulge of a qualifying system under the carpet* nope... nothing rejectful.... *wanders off carrying a brush*

WeirdKerr wrote:I don't think there was anything that rejectful *looks at the strange bulge of a qualifying system under the carpet* nope... nothing rejectful.... *wanders off carrying a brush*

In many ways, there are probably quite a few thankful individuals who are happy that the race was eventful and managed to knock the haphazard disaster that was qualifying out of the headlines. It still doesn't really solve the underlying issue that changes are being forced through in an effort to "shake things up", just obscures it for now - had the race been duller, I think that the general tone would be quite different...

I can't really comment on qualifying since I haven't seen it personally, but considering how much crap it has gotten from the motorsport press thus far I will have to at least give it 3rd. It was one of these changes for change's sake decisions that has plagued F1 in recent years, but at least here the powers that be are reverting back to the prior 2015 system.

Second goes to Jenson Button, who was a complete non-factor in this race. Even with attrition he was not able to get points, and with the upcoming race in Bahrain I don't see many chances there either, considering Australia is a weird track, being a quasi-street circuit and all.

First though would have to be Max Verstappen. First was the whole thing with the pits. Yes, Toro Rosso were not ready, but from what Franz Tost said it sounded like Max came in rather unannounced and thus put him behind Sainz. Should Toro Rosso get some blame for that? Maybe, but Verstappen's immaturity seals the deal here. As the old adage goes, deal with it and pass him. And if you can't, well, that's racing.

Dishonorable mentions:
Marcus Ericsson: So anonymous that I probably misspelled his name because I could barely remember where he was until his car had enough.

Ferrari strategists: Well, chalk it up to first race of the year rustiness I guess. Still rather poor considering Vettel had the upper hand prior to the red flag.

Raikkonen and Kvyat's luck: The Australian GP hasn't been kind to them lately has it now.

The new qualifying system: Absolutely stands out, especially as they've decided to scrap it immediately.

Kvyat's car: Pity that we didn't get to see all 22 drivers competing.

3rd Max 'Overrated, Overaggressive, Petulant Whining Baby' Verstappen - Actually found myself swearing at the TV because of him. Far too aggressive, nearly took out his damn teammate who is the one driver who doesn't need more bad luck and threw his toys out the pram after the race. Is fast becoming my least favourite driver since Lewis.

2nd Red Flag Rules Would the FIA like to explain to me why allowing teams to make pitstops under red without loosing any time or position is even remotely fair.

Winner The FIA Not so much for introducing this elimination format for qualifying and still sticking to the same tire limit but giving up entirely on it after just one attempt when I feel the solution to make this system work is simple. Just give the teams one more set of tires for qualifying at least. This system should have worked in theory, its just the execution that needed tweaking.

Dishonorable Mentions

Williams Got more points than they deserved but I had a feeling they may slip down the grid a little this season.

Jenson Button Complete non-factor, just retire already and let Vandoorne start his career.

Ferrari I did just slate the red flag pitstop rules but when you are offered the chance to switch tires without loosing anything, there is no reason not to take it. You did about as much as the rules did in screwing over Vettel's chance at victory.

Reject of the race for me is the Toro Rosso team. Sure they entertained radio wise, although the race didn't needed that, but overall their race was compounded by a mix of strategy mistakes and pitstop mistakes that led to Max Verstappen to show his ugly face.

I have a one only obvious choice here...

The allmighty Strategy Group, 'nuff said

Toro Rosso hands down. Threw away an excellent chance of scoring good points (a potential 5th and 6th place finish) with a bad race strategy and bad pitstops. I'm not nominating the qualify system because, you know, this is a qualify session stuff. Verstappen jr itself is worth a mention too.

I like to mention Alonso too, since he said it was his fault for his crash with Gutierrez.

The Strategy Group is the only choice for me. Sure, not much preparation and forethought was put into the new qualifying format, and factors like the Pirelli tyres and the radio traffic limitations didn't help, but scrapping and giving the promising system absolutely no chance of development really drives me up the friggin' wall.
If the end of Q3 hadn't been so dull, I bet the system would still be in place for Bahrain.

My silver-medal choice has to be Toro Rosso for that poor strategy call. I hope the team and the drivers don't start throwing away points on a regular basis.

Traditionally, the opening RotR is for some new introduction that is a total disaster (2004 rules, 2010 season over-hyping), so qualifying gets it for me.

Lots of good candidates for this weekend...

The qualifying format was obviously rushed in, and resulted in the most anticlimactic Q3 I ever remember seeing. Basically the format looked good in Q1, started wobbling in Q2 and then fell completely flat on its arse in Q3. What they forgot in the strategy group is that adding a fancy elimination format doesn't increase the amount of tyres with which to make the qualifying laps.

Ferrari threw away a potential win by deciding not to use the free pitstop under red flags. Also, that's already one of Kimi's five engines now gone. Meanwhile Toro Rosso also screwed up their pitstops, which leads us to...

Max Verstappen, who has seemingly evolved backwards and is now more childish than in his first season. Coming to pits despite not confirming the team is ready, being arrogant and petulant over the team radio and finally nearly taking out both himself and his team mate. Yep, I'm going to stick with my current avatar for a while...

1. Qualifying - let's put it back on the fridge along with all the other great ideas like medals and water sprinklers
2. Max Verstappen - bet he's glad the qualifying incident happened, because he finished 10th after demanding special treatment over Carlos Sainz, whom he did not pass, yet complained about constantly, made contact with once and threatened to a dozen other times.

People are talking about Toro Rosso not being able to develop at the same pace later on in the season due to the 2015 engine holding them back. Well they possibly just missed their greatest result of the year...

The new qualifying session. it could have worked with a few tweaks and the teams knowing when to send their cars out so they could actually set a lap before they were eliminated. The teams agreed to use this session in the first place and now they agree to revert to the old session.

I know its Reject of the race but by far the most rejectful thing this weekend was qualifying. I could have told you a long time ago that the format would not shake up the grid at all; how is giving the slowest cars even less of a chance to surprise (by eliminating them early from the session, thereby giving them less time) going to achieve that. And then there's the farce of eliminating cars every 90 seconds when it takes maybe 300 to do an in-lap, change tyres, do an out-lap and then a flying lap. That's 3 cars eliminated at once basically. Thank goodness they had the sense to scrap it going forward.

I must say though allowing 3 compounds of tyre for each race is one of the best rule changes I've seen in a while.

Other candidates:
Kyvat's car - didn't work in either quali or the race. No fair, would have been good to see how he'd compare to Ricciardo
Ferrari - that's a race win thrown away by not pitting under red, and by the look of Mercedes pace, they are not going to have that many chances to win this season
Toro Rosso - poor points return in the end for the team with the 3rd fastest car
David Coulthard - Channel 4's coverage was excellent (better than BBC's in some ways). But Coulthard's joke about people happily willing to pay £800 for Vettel's (wheel)nuts let the side down

1. Qualifying: You know it's bad when even Bernie is calling it crap.

2. Torro Rosso: Interteam fighting cost them valuable points.

Dishonorable Mentions:

Kyvat's Car: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Ferrari's Strategists: Cost them an almost certain race victory.

watka wrote:David Coulthard - Channel 4's coverage was excellent (better than BBC's in some ways). But Coulthard's joke about people happily willing to pay £800 for Vettel's (wheel)nuts let the side down

Well, it is Channel 4 isn't it?

1 - Qualifying
2 - The smugness of every team principle being interviewed after Qualifying.

I add to the nominations the Driver of the Day voting. Why?



And F1 lets you vote more than once so...

mario wrote:In many ways, there are probably quite a few thankful individuals who are happy that the race was eventful and managed to knock the haphazard disaster that was qualifying out of the headlines. It still doesn't really solve the underlying issue that changes are being forced through in an effort to "shake things up", just obscures it for now - had the race been duller, I think that the general tone would be quite different...

Good point - the tune would be far different if the Mercedes drivers had just waltzed into the distance. As it is, the race proved that the qualifying system doesn't need to be tampered with - we ended up with a largely normal grid anyway, and the race was eventful and interesting.

As for ROTR, well it's hard to look past Saturday isn't it?
Increase the variables, and watch the interest rise. Simple as. They just need to do away with the "must use two compounds" rule now to really open up the possibilities.

Miguel98 wrote:I add to the nominations the Driver of the Day voting. Why?

And F1 lets you vote more than once so...

I predicted this would happen. The sheer mass of each of their fanbases essentially guarantees the win to either Rio Haryanto, Max Verstappen or Lewis Hamilton, no matter the circumstances that surround the race.

Something I noticed on Twitter regarding the vast majority of the Indonesian fanbase is a shocking lack of ability to comprehend how sports works. They seem to think that Haryanto is the best driver of all time and therefore is entitled to the best car out there, for the sole reason that he is Indonesian. Oh, and Manor obviously sabotaged his car, because Wehrlein was faster and finished, and that can't possibly be right!

tommykl wrote:I predicted this would happen.

This is a good result, though, surely? The concept of it is bobbins, obviously, but Haryanto winning it, I think, is hilariously fabulous.

1. Ferrari strategists
2. Qualifying format - You know I'm long past being actively upset at all these sorts of rule changes for the "show", I actually found myself having a laugh at the various team principals squirming in front of camera. Then again if it teaches the "strategy group" to be more inclined to leave well alone in future, maybe it'll be a positive lesson for the sport overall.

DM for Verstappen - I don't have anything particularly for or against either Toro Rosso driver but I wonder how much Verstappen's widely-praised "NO!" in one of the races last year when the situation was reversed came back to bite him. No way was Sainz going to let him through after that and rightly so,

DOSBoot wrote:1. Qualifying: You know it's bad when even Bernie is calling it crap.

I think most fans out there would have gone berserk, if Bernie had it his way instead. I bet it would be more hilariously dumb than anything else, ever, with all teams trying to go 10th instead of 1st.

tommykl wrote:Something I noticed on Twitter regarding the vast majority of the Indonesian fanbase is a shocking lack of ability to comprehend how sports works. They seem to think that Haryanto is the best driver of all time and therefore is entitled to the best car out there, for the sole reason that he is Indonesian. Oh, and Manor obviously sabotaged his car, because Wehrlein was faster and finished, and that can't possibly be right!

Wait, this sounds familiar...