Grand Prix Rejects

I just want to get this out of the way and nominate Haas. The ongoing Rich Energy debacle and Grosjean's pit lane crash practically sealed it already for me, and what we've seen from them today just makes it a formality.

I can confidently say that even the entire top six taking each other out couldn't top this.

EDIT: Try all you want, Seb, you're not taking this away from me!

Haas drivers - The hell was that?

The idiot that sent out the safety car - Always love when a safety car ruins the flow of a race and screws over certain drivers, especially when its presence was a massive overkill.

Vettel - Almost can't even be bothered nominating him. Colliding with others is almost expected of him at this point.

1. Haas. What an absolute shambles of a week this team have had. Their drivers colliding was the cherry on the shite sundae. Gene and Guenther need to burn everything to the ground and start afresh in 2020.

2. Sebastian Vettel. At this point I think it's more a question of "when", not "if" he announces his retirement from F1.

Honourable mention to Sergio Perez. I honestly believe Stroll has been outperforming him this season.

Haas should sweep all before them for the award, but honorable mentions go to:

Vettel: Ouch. Not exactly helping his cause as the guy labelled as the main man to take the fight to Hamilton and Mercedes, what a daft incident. Imagine what he felt when Hamilton lapped him.

The timing of the safety car: Completely ruined what had been an excellent battle for the lead. Even if Lewis would've taken the lead eventually, he was handed it on a silver platter today. Not the first time I find myself saying that either. Also, Leclerc (temporarily) and Norris were badly compromised too.

1. Haas - Yeah, the whole Rich Energy saga throughout the week culminated in both your drivers crashing into each other and retiring. Straight up ROTR.

2. Sebastian Vettel - Ever since Germany last year, this has been mistake after mistake... It's sad seeing one of the best of all time struggling mentally like this. He seems more like a broken man driving than the old self. Needs a sabattical.

Honorable mention to Sergio Perez for just sucking ass today.

Vettel tried hard to win the award but Haas truly excelled this time. Haas is my reject of the year so far.

(1) Vettel - this is a former world champion continuing to make rookie mistakes whenever he comes under pressure

(2) Haas - what a disastrous weekend

I feel Haas deserves this one. The whole thing with Rich Energy has been incredible (not in a good way), and the race ended in pretty much the worst way for them.

1) Haas - Obviously bad team work
2) Vettel - WTF was he thinking?

1- Vettel- Every time I look at it it gets worse. Another wheel to Wheel moment from Vettel and he messes up again. Screwed up Verstappen's race.

2- Haas- Lapped by lap 3 and the drivers hit each other and took each other out. I would be surprised to see both Drivers there next Season.

3rd: Ferrari Strategists. Gave Leclerc the short end of the stick..... again....

2nd: Vettel. Clumsy from a 4 time champ. On another day, he would get the award, but today it went to even worse.

1st: Haas. Where to start? There's the whole Rich Energy fiasco, the drivers colliding on track, and both cars out with less than a quarter of the race gone. They have done well to get this ROTR, and I think they will. As much as I like Grosjean and Magnussen, I think there will be a drive or two available for next season.

Haas/Rich Energy. I think I'm going to need to re-watch that race just to see the whole rejectfulness of their performance this week.

Dishon. mention: Vettel. What the hell is happening in his head?

Haas - both team and drivers. They, along with Rich Energy are starting to challenge Williams for Reject of the Year in my head now. In a year with a very strong driver line-up, Grosjean and Magnussen are sticking out like sore thumbs as two drivers who've always been fast but erratic - right now all either seems to be doing is making mistakes.

Vettel - uwotm8?

Rich Energy - ... --- ...

The decision to send out the Safety Car - Bit excessive, in my opinion. And as pointed out, it denied us of a second fight between Hamilton and Bottas.

Perez - Amateurish error.

1) Haas. Everyone else has said what needs to be said both here and in the Rich Energy thread. A double DNF before a quarter of the race is done is definitely ROTR for me.

2) Sebastian Vettel.An amateurish mistake from a 4-time world champion. And people wonder why he is not rated as highly as Hamilton...

(Dis)honourable Mentions:
Sergio Perez (Fell off the pace while Stroll remained in contention for points after a Q1 start)
Antonio Giovinazzi (Rather clumsy way to DNF)

Surely this one is obvious:

- Haas: what a weekend all round. One to forget.
- Sebastian Vettel: stupid move, especially when he's in danger of repeating 2014 and getting beaten by his new young teammate. This really isn't the time to be making mistakes and contact, but we've been seeing this kind of driving since about 2017 quite often now.
- The safety car: it ruined the front of the race for me, though I suppose it did probably give us those great fights between 3rd and 6th.

Haas - When both your cars are out that early due to slight contact then something’s wrong...

Kumar Dharmasena - shocking decisions during the final which ultimately cost New Zealand the World Cup.

Psyclepath wrote:The decision to send out the Safety Car - Bit excessive, in my opinion. And as pointed out, it denied us of a second fight between Hamilton and Bottas.

That said, what were the other options available to the race director once Giovinazzi's car became stuck in that gravel trap?

Leaving Giovinazzi's car beached in a gravel trap at the end of a major braking zone wasn't really viable. In the later clash between Verstappen and Vettel, Verstappen potentially would have ended up hitting Giovinazzi's car if it had been left where it was - so it was just as well that his car was removed from the gravel trap.

If we accept that the car needs to be moved, then the only two options are either a Virtual Safety Car or a full Safety Car given the need to bring heavy lifting equipment onto the circuit - neither of which help Bottas, and indeed the former probably puts him even further behind Hamilton than a full Safety Car.

That said, in retrospect it looks like Bottas was losing that race even under normal running. He was having problems with front left tyre wear in the practise sessions, and therefore he seems to have been fairly committed to a two stop strategy for the race - Hamilton, though, seems to have decided during the race that a one stop strategy was viable as he was able to maintain his tyres in better shape than Bottas could.

The end result, therefore, would probably have been the same - even if Hamilton came out behind Bottas, all he had to do was to sit a few seconds back from Bottas, keep his tyres in decent shape and then just wait for Bottas to pit, giving him the lead that way instead.

Back to nominations for ROTR, given Haas and Vettel have got quite a few nominations themselves, I do think that Perez does deserve a mention for his clumsy move against Hulkenberg - that was a bit amateurish, and it meant he managed to finish last on track.

I'm also going to throw into the mix poor TV coverage, which I am surprised hasn't been mentioned yet - there were a few moments where it seemed like the person directing the coverage was zooming to the wrong camera shots at the wrong moments and denied us the opportunity to see moments on track (such as cutting to the crowd during the Hamilton-Bottas moves earlier on, and snapping between cameras at points when Leclerc and Verstappen were fighting that meant we missed part of the action).

mario wrote:I'm also going to throw into the mix poor TV coverage, which I am surprised hasn't been mentioned yet - there were a few moments where it seemed like the person directing the coverage was zooming to the wrong camera shots at the wrong moments and denied us the opportunity to see moments on track (such as cutting to the crowd during the Hamilton-Bottas moves earlier on, and snapping between cameras at points when Leclerc and Verstappen were fighting that meant we missed part of the action).

I agree with this completely. It seemed like the director was trying too much and/or wasn't 100% sure which camera to cut to. Not F1 level imo, and this is coming from someone who has done his share of live sports directing as well.

I specifically remember the incident in the pits which was completely missed, and then awkwardly zoomed in on. Even after two replays I still had no idea what I was supposed to be looking at.

Now that I look back on it, I suppose I was too emotional with the whole safety car thing. I guess I'll retract my nomination, though it remains eminently frustrating how lucky Hamilton gets in these situations, especially when it's easy enough for him to win anyway.

Ferrari, when are you going to realize that you're pissing away points by prioritizing Vettel?

Cameras/Coverage, I only saw the highlights, but even in those snippets I could see more interesting things happening on the position bar to the left that weren't being shown. Hell they barely had any footage of LeClerc and Verstappen to show!

mario wrote:I'm also going to throw into the mix poor TV coverage, which I am surprised hasn't been mentioned yet - there were a few moments where it seemed like the person directing the coverage was zooming to the wrong camera shots at the wrong moments and denied us the opportunity to see moments on track (such as cutting to the crowd during the Hamilton-Bottas moves earlier on, and snapping between cameras at points when Leclerc and Verstappen were fighting that meant we missed part of the action).

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Now that you mention it, the director gets my DHM, there were times where I too was thinking "Why are we looking at this?" When there was something more interesting going on elsewhere.

1. Haas - I thought Grosjean was getting the boot at the end of the season anyway but Magnussen is dragging himself into serious trouble as well.

2. Sebastian Vettel - Pure racecraft meister. What a joke this is.

3. FIA FOM TV coverage - Battle between Leclerc/Gasly and TV switches to show the God damn fans in the middle of it? This is the same shite as Rick Mears' wife on the last lap of 1982 Indy 500. Liberty goes Always Bad Coverage here and I sure hope it's not a recurring trend

Not to predict that it will be anything, I am humouring you all by opening this as a poll you have 48 hours to decide your reject of the race!

I'm coming back from my very long hiatus here just to say that Haas has had, at 2019 mid season so far, and in the very brief period of 3 years and a half:

- it's drivers hitting other drivers,..
- it's drivers hitting the barriers at 20 km/h...
- it's drivers hitting each other...
- it's drivers and crew going emotional everywhere...
- it's drivers cursing everybody, themselves and the car...
- it's drivers and manager cursing each other and the pitwall...
- it's driver and crew throwing their toys away at the paddock...considering championship points as toys too...
- It's drivers basically being laughted at and hated to death by other drivers despite not winning enything remarkable...
- the title of drama queens of the paddock already tatooed all over themselves...
- a team manager who is the actual real copy in the flesh of Dick Dastardly... voice included...

.. and, speaking from the very bottom of my heart, at the edge of tears, I could not ask anything more from the ideal formula 1 team crafted in heaven.

So don't even dare to nominate them again. You of all people!



PS: Yeah, they do not run Life W12 engines, that's the only missing link there.

Well, Popi_Larrauri, we are glad you have returned! And just in time to see the aforementioned quite rejectful team, Haas, take the crowning glory of Reject of the Race. And this might just be the most deserved one of the year so far. In an age of complete and total, almost artificial, perfectionism in our beloved sport, Team Haas are doing their utmost to show us that rejectfulness and downright silliness are still possible in the modern F1. As their dodgy title sponsor implodes in upon itself, a team that already hates its drivers (and likewise) suffers a double-retirement from the first lap after said drivers hit each other. It's been a weekend... to forget.