2017 Australian Grand Prix - Reject of the Race

Post by **Ataxia** » 26 Mar 2017, 07:48

The first race of the season is now over! Feel free to select your Reject of the Race nominees, based on the worst performances from any driver/team/thing across the weekend.

Remember, your first choice receives 10 points and your second choice receives 6 points, helping determine the forum's ultimate ROTR. Vote now!

Meatwad · Post by **Meatwad** » 26 Mar 2017, 07:57

1. The Australians' home curse: When will it be lifted? A rare crash for Ricciardo in qualifying, followed by a race where everything went wrong. Still no podium...
2. Kevin Magnussen: One word is enough: awful.

Dishonorable mention: Jolyon Palmer

Post by **mario** » 26 Mar 2017, 08:35

1. Magnussen: He performed terribly throughout the race weekend - terrible pace and utterly trounced by Grosjean, followed by a clumsy race trailing around towards the back of the field with multiple unforced errors. If he wanted to try and show Renault that they made a mistake by not holding on to him, it backfired on him about as badly as it could.
2. Renault: This might be a bit of a surprise, but honestly I expected better performance from the team than what they showed this weekend. Palmer performed badly, but to be fair he can at least point to what sounded like fairly major brake issues in the race - however, I was expecting more from Hulkenberg (managing to get into the lower end of the points at least), particularly given the misfortunes that befell Ricciardo, Alonso and Grosjean along the way.

Dishonourable mentions: Palmer, Stroll, Haas's reliability, Ricciardo's misfortunes.

UncreativeUsername37 · Post by **UncreativeUsername37** » 26 Mar 2017, 08:38

1. Magnussen; where was he?
2. The stewards; I know they're supposed to be more lax this year, but even the most clear-cut things they gave nothing for

Aislabie · Post by **Aislabie** » 26 Mar 2017, 09:28

1/ Kevin Magnussen - And I really thought he'd do well this year.

2/ Jolyon Palmer - "The car was horrible." Eh, that might be because you smashed it to bits a few hours ago. Twat.

Aguaman · Post by **Aguaman** » 26 Mar 2017, 09:31

10. K-Mag - Destroyed Ericsson's race with a clumsy move and retired.

6. Palmer - Just nowhere this weekend.

golic_2004 · Post by **golic_2004** » 26 Mar 2017, 10:11

1. Magnussen: Really K-Mag? Really?

2. Ricciardo's luck: nothing went right for him all weekend

TheFlyingCaterham · Post by **TheFlyingCaterham** » 26 Mar 2017, 10:46

1. Magnussen. Took Ericsson out and had a mediocre race until his retirement.
2. Ricciardo's luck. A driver error in quali, a perhaps unexpected gearbox penalty, electrical failure getting to the grid, and a final mechanical failure to put an end to an awful weekend for the Aussie.

Dishonourable mentions to Palmer for being a skrub as always and the graphics for being sub-par.

andrew · Post by **andrew** » 26 Mar 2017, 11:04

1. K-Mag: seriously, what was that?
2. Palmer: I was thinking stroll but at least he didn't cry about the car when he qualified badly.

Alextrax52 · Post by **Alextrax52** » 26 Mar 2017, 12:56

1 Kevin Magnussen: Completely unnecessary clash with Ericsson. Forgot he was still racing until I saw his retirement. Completely trounced by Romain too

2 Jolyon Palmer: Crashed in practice, Slowest qualifier, really earns points for blaming any feature of the car possible

HM's to the timing graphics for being more sub par than usual for the season opener and Ricciardo's car for its lack of Co-operation

WaffleCat · Post by **WaffleCat** » 26 Mar 2017, 14:28

1. K-Mag. Like….dude.

2. FOM Graphics. Glitch out completely in Q1, and then decide to assign random teams' colours to whatever random driver in the race. Only reason you're not tied with K-Mag are the cool little box-timings. We'll let that slide.

Post by **Miguel98** » 26 Mar 2017, 14:30

1. FOM Graphics - Its 2017 and you can't graphic properly.
2. Kevin Magnussen - Awful perfomance - trounced by Grosjean in every sense of the word.

Normal32 · Post by **Normal32** » 26 Mar 2017, 14:35

1. Kevin Magnussen
2. Jolyon Palmer

FullMetalJack · Post by **FullMetalJack** » 26 Mar 2017, 15:09

1. Kevin Magnussen
2. Jolyon Palmer

RAK · Post by **RAK** » 26 Mar 2017, 15:31

1) Kevin Magnussen: A sloppy mistake which ended up spoiling Ericsson's race.

2) Daniel Ricciardo's car: Ricciardo didn't deserve that, especially at home.

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 26 Mar 2017, 15:32

1. FOM World Feed
From start to finish of the race weekend, the graphics consistently failed to work correctly. A brief blip I can understand, but at no point during the entire weekend did they function correctly. The new regs were an open window for new fans, and they botched the presentation.

2. Renault
Pre-season promised better performances than last year. They didn't materialise - Hülkenberg was somewhat ineffective, and Palmer had a nightmare weekend. It looks like they haven't advanced as much as many had predicted after all.

HM
The "graffiti art" in parc ferme. What was that all about?
Kevin Magnussen.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 26 Mar 2017, 15:54

DemocalypseNow wrote:The "graffiti art" in parc ferme. What was that all about?

It is to be auctioned off for charity.

good_Ralf · Post by **good_Ralf** » 26 Mar 2017, 16:57

1st place goes to Haas as a whole, on one side of the garage you had Magnussen with terrible pace and a disastrous race (is he finally becoming his dad?), while on the other the team managed to throw away a top 8 finish with Grosjean's car failing, they just can't afford to have more races like this if they want to build on 2016, which in turn had many races with unfulfilled potential.

Runner-up goes to Renault, I'm confident that they can get it together but after pre-season testing, a points finish for Hulk should've been a slam-dunk. And then you have Jokyon's expensive antics on top of that.

rachel1990 · Post by **rachel1990** » 26 Mar 2017, 17:11

Following the crowd here

1- K- Mag- The parallels of his dad are becoming clearer by the season. Could be another who wasted their potential.

2- Renault- Wanted to just give to Palmer but I did expect more from them for this season. And there was me thinking Hulkenberg might get a podium.....

WeirdKerr · Post by **WeirdKerr** » 26 Mar 2017, 17:18

Ferarri pit stra.... wait they finally did a thing!

K -Mag for that silliness :facepalm:

and the sauber graphic for nearly giving me a heart attack

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 26 Mar 2017, 17:45

1. Anyone who wrote off the entire season on the basis of two practice sessions.

2. Eh, Magnussen, I guess. Yeah, Magnussen.

James1978 · Post by **James1978** » 26 Mar 2017, 17:49

Gonna go for something a bit different:

Mercedes strategists - great way to lose the race putting Hamilton back out in traffic allowing Vettel to get the overcut. Guess they're not used to having such a big challenge from another team.

Kimi Raikkonen - where was he? Miles off his teammate.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 26 Mar 2017, 18:40

Me. For watching the whole of qualifying and seeming to know that Giovinazzi was a Sauber driver, but not realising that he was a substitute driver for Wehrlein, or that he was missing. Something to do with it being too early on a Saturday morning?

lance_rambert · Post by **lance_rambert** » 26 Mar 2017, 19:29

1. Whoever does the FOM scoring graphics and Kevin Magnussen - The former gets it because... wow. We got jack squat for scoring throughout most of the race. One would think they got their shite together after having this problem the last couple of Aussie GPs. The latter gets it for just being pretty damn useless compared to teammate Grosjean. Magnussen has been incredibly disappointing to me during his Renault stint, but this is on another level.

2. Daniel Ricciardo's Car - Part of it may be due to his cockup in qualifying, but come on.

takagi_for_the_win · Post by **takagi_for_the_win** » 26 Mar 2017, 20:22

1. K-Mag
2. Palmer

novitopoli · Post by **novitopoli** » 26 Mar 2017, 20:44

1. The scoring graphics guys - is it really that hard to get those things to work?
2. Jolyon Palmer - as usual.

RedEyes504 · Post by **RedEyes504** » 26 Mar 2017, 22:54

Kevin Magnussen - Doesn't get much more rejectful than qualifying 11 places behind your team-mate and then making a clumsy move on the first lap that takes you and another car out of contention for any sort of result. Starting to think he might never better his debut race.

Jolyon Palmer - New season, same Jolyon. 3.2 secs slower than Hulk in qualifying and trying to blame the car and lack of running which he caused by crashing in practice. I have no idea how he managed to keep his drive for this year and will be amazed if he still has it a the end of the season.

This Could Be You · Post by **This Could Be You** » 26 Mar 2017, 23:04

1. Kevin Magnussen; Far slower than Grosjean, and seemingly driving rather carelessly all weekend (or his brakes are hopeless) including that shunt on Ericsson. It makes you wonder whether Abiteboul's complaints about his work ethic at Renault weren't so unfounded...

2. Palmer; Wayward and slow, and came across as a bit of a twerp over the radio with his constant complaints, considering he was the one that forced it to be rebuilt anyway with his FP2 crash.

DHM:
Mclaren; still (albeit less) slow, still unreliable
Stroll; seemed unprepared what with his strange sawing at the wheel and constant lockups, despite his year's preperation (more so than Giovanazzi, who arguably did a better job) and was nowhere near Massa or the points.
Haas; poor reliability let down both drivers, and this time it wasn't the brakes

Nessafox · Post by **Nessafox** » 27 Mar 2017, 04:09

1 Haas as a whole. Though K-mag did everything he could to avoid a good position, the reliabilty issues caused Grosjean to miss on what seemed to be a certain points finish.

2 Palmer. It's his second season, he's not improving, and he's running out of excuses. The more difficult cars seem to highlight that he's not the greatest driver in here.

Dishonorable mentions: Ricciardo's luck, Flemish media somhow calling Vandoornes result 'promising', McLaren-Honda as a whole, but they're probably going for reject of the year so no need to nominate them here.
Stroll has the excuse of inexperience and Renault might not be in a good position yet, but at least seem to have made a little bit progress compared to previous year. And last but not least the giant Sauber advertisment that scared the shite out of me.

Dj_bereta · Post by **Dj_bereta** » 27 Mar 2017, 05:45

The former Renault duo K-Mag (1) and Palmer (2). Poor race, completely beaten by their team mates and could end the year without a seat if they don't improve, considering there are potential replacements (Giovinazzi and Sainz respectively).

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 27 Mar 2017, 06:23

1 - Renault. Just awful
2 - The New Rules. Only because I read a few comments from drivers stating that the new cars were incredibly difficult to overtake. And I like overtaking in F1.

Fetzie · Post by **Fetzie** » 27 Mar 2017, 06:36

1. Whichever idiot at the fia decided that what you need to do to improve racing is to make it damn near impossible to overtake without drs overspeed. If you want to have people overtaking then you don't make the front wing even more susceptible to turbulence.

2. Pascal Wehrlein for committing career suicide by allowing Giovinazzi to show his team that they don't need him.

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 27 Mar 2017, 08:44

Salamander wrote:
DemocalypseNow wrote:The "graffiti art" in parc ferme. What was that all about?

It is to be auctioned off for charity.

I was guessing as much, but not sure that particular item is going to be attracting high bids... :roll:

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 27 Mar 2017, 08:46

Fetzie wrote:1. Whichever idiot at the fia decided that what you need to do to improve racing is to make it damn near impossible to overtake without drs overspeed. If you want to have people overtaking then you don't make the front wing even more susceptible to turbulence.

This.

Normal32 · Post by **Normal32** » 27 Mar 2017, 09:39

After a bit of reconsideration, I changed my bids a bit:

Myself yesterday wrote:1. The new rules
2. Kevin Magnussen

Bleu · Post by **Bleu** » 27 Mar 2017, 19:59

1. K-Mag
2. Ricciardo's car

Spectoremg · Post by **Spectoremg** » 27 Mar 2017, 20:23

A supplemental HM: Hamilton's sudden concern for not being able to overtake?

watka · Post by **watka** » 27 Mar 2017, 20:55

Easy for me, and for once I won't take the opportunity to nominate Palmer (at least he had a bit of an excuse)

1. Kevin Magnussen - absolutely no reason for him to have been so far off of the pace of Grosjean (who admittedly was fantastic), he had all of the same chances as him. Look who he outqualified: Palmer - in a busted car, Stroll - a rookie in a busted car, and Vandoorne - in a fundamentally flawed car. This is a track where he qualified 4th and finished 2nd on his debut. Then in the race in the only driver to make any serious driver error in hitting Ericsson. In evidence here alone (not a good way of looking at it, but) he's not an upgrade on Gutierrez.

2. Daniel Ricciardo's weekend - crashing out in qualifying was bad enough, but then not being able to start his home grand prix on time must have been hard to take. Then the final kick in the teeth was to send him out despite being laps down instead of saving the car and having the cruelest luck in burning through an engine, which is really going to set him back for the season.

Post by **mario** » 28 Mar 2017, 09:00

Spectoremg wrote:A supplemental HM: Hamilton's sudden concern for not being able to overtake?

He had been predicting that they would have difficulty in overtaking pretty much since the new regulations were introduced. I even wonder if, to some extent, he has become so convinced that it would be difficult that he ended up making it more difficult for himself in Australia.

Equally, wasn't Verstappen complaining during the practise sessions that he thought that it had become harder to follow another car (contrary to his comments in testing when he thought that it was much the same as before)?

madmark1974 · Post by **madmark1974** » 28 Mar 2017, 15:30

mario wrote:
Spectoremg wrote:A supplemental HM: Hamilton's sudden concern for not being able to overtake?

He had been predicting that they would have difficulty in overtaking pretty much since the new regulations were introduced. I even wonder if, to some extent, he has become so convinced that it would be difficult that he ended up making it more difficult for himself in Australia.

Equally, wasn't Verstappen complaining during the practise sessions that he thought that it had become harder to follow another car (contrary to his comments in testing when he thought that it was much the same as before)?

James Allen's site has quite a damning article on the current state of F1, amongst other things he is most critical on the new, tougher Pirellis :

All the signs are that in listening to the F1 drivers, who wanted tyres they could ‘push’ on, the sport has suffered; it has had a detrimental effect on the overtaking as the cars are all doing basically the same thing, rather than mixing it up and having big performance differences at various stages of the race.

So the drivers are happy, they are having fun. But the racing has suffered and actually the drivers from 6th place downwards have all suffered because they have no chance of getting a big result now. The low degradation tyres are another thing that keeps the top teams ahead.

Seems like he's pretty disappointed with what he saw, some of the article might be a bit exaggerated doom-and-gloom but there's certainly some truth in it.

https://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2017/03/analysis-f1-overtaking-crisis-why-listening-to-f1-drivers-is-bad-for-the-racing/