Reject of the Race Round 8: The French Grand Prize

[Bobby Doorknobs]

Going into the weekend I thought Race Organisation looked a strong candidate. I still think it is, but I also think there's a strong case for Local Heroes: Gasly and Ocon eliminated on the first lap, Grosjean's qualifying accident, Sainz's Renault starting to feel insecure at the end...

[You-Gee-Eee-Day]

The track for being a warped Picasso that was harder to watch than Octopussy.

[good_Ralf]

In the end, all three Frenchmen were (technically) beaten by the Monegasque driver! So France in F1 would be my first choice, it would be similar to when Japan won the award for their home race in 2008.

I'm also nominating Sebastian Vettel for the 1st corner incident and ruining Bottas' race, the talk about the Finn being the unluckiest man in F1 is becoming vindicated.

And McLaren too, every time you think they can't do any worse, they manage to do so.

[IceG]

McLaren, I team I support and have followed for over 20 years. What was that?

[Meatwad]

I nominate McLaren. They haven't been particularly good lately, but this weekend was absolutely terrible. Both cars out in Q1 and nowhere in the race. Alonso's race was especially awful.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

In the end, all three Frenchmen were (technically) beaten by the Monegasque driver! So France in F1 would be my first choice, it would be similar to when Japan won the award for their home race in 2008.

Seeing this, I'm going to combine my nominations into a France in F1 nomination, as I think it perfectly encompasses both the organisational element and the on-track problems for everybody flying the French flag.

[You-Gee-Eee-Day]

In the end, all three Frenchmen were (technically) beaten by the Monegasque driver! So France in F1 would be my first choice, it would be similar to when Japan won the award for their home race in 2008.

Seeing this, I'm going to combine my nominations into a France in F1 nomination, as I think it perfectly encompasses both the organisational element and the on-track problems for everybody flying the French flag.

Seems like if we add it all together, (track included) we could just nominate "France".

[Rob Dylan]

Ok, here we go:

DRS - far too easy to pass on track. I've always been against DRS, and this race only worked to cement my opinion. It would have been good to see Vettel and Bottas really struggle to get back to the front, instead of the incredibly easy passing that happened.
TV director not showing live overtakes - the coverage missed almost every piece of non-track action.
McLaren - what a fall from grace.
The trophy - I thought Raikkonen was lucky to be on the podium, and then I think Ricciardo was the lucky one! God those trophies were unlucky.
Williams - Very slow, though unfortunately this is becoming the norm.
People not being able to get to and from the track -
Freddo-Gate - see McLaren

But mainly:
Paul Ricard layout + chicane shenanigans - where the drivers weren't even in agreement as to which corners they should be taking. Almost everybody cut at least one corner on the first lap and not a single driver was punished for it as far as I saw. Also, with the track so stripy and ugly, I couldn't see what was happening. Also the people there couldn't see what was happening on the track, because they couldn't get to it Also the race was boring. This race was certainly wanting for improvements!

[mario]

Well, although the race was probably better than most had initially anticipated, there were still a lot of nominations there.
1. General organisation of the race - although it sounds as if things did improve a bit, it was still one of the dominant themes of this weekend. Dieter Rencken did note that the organisers had pushed back the timing of some of the support events and other activities - whilst officially done to avoid clashes with World Cup matches, he suspected the real reason was to give those travelling in more time to try and make it to the circuit.
2. Williams - they've been terrible for some time now, and this weekend was more of the same. Stroll's clumsiness and seemingly inevitable blowout after those lock ups just seemed to sum up how they're drifting so haplessly now.
3. McLaren - how the mighty have now fallen so low: reports of major tensions within the team and worsening results in recent races have underlined that something is severely wrong at McLaren right now. You do wonder how long Alonso will tolerate the current situation before he decides that he's had enough and goes elsewhere - he's fighting as hard as ever, but at the same time there does seem to be that dimming of the light that once burned so bright.
4. Vettel - whilst his recovery drive was pretty good, he shouldn't have put himself into that position to begin with. At the very least he cost himself a podium finish, and perhaps even a chance of pushing Hamilton for the victory - as it was, instead of either minimising his losses or even extending his lead, he ended up gifting Hamilton a 15 point advantage instead.
Mind you, the fans who decided to vote Vettel as "Driver of the Day" are not much better either - again, whilst it was a solid recovery drive, it was a performance that he shouldn't have put himself in a position of needing in the first place...

[Spectoremg]

The run off areas - do something to slow the cars down instead of them just being short cuts (Verstappen).
McLaren. Will Ron only lift the curse if they have him back? They're lucky they have Williams to cushion them from rock bottom.

[This Could Be You]

My main nomination for reject of the race has to go to Lance Stroll, for perfectly emulating the French lower-midfielders/backmarkers from the time Paul Ricard last hosted a Grand Prix- his blocking of Ricciardo and Raikkonen was pointless and frustrating, and then he binned it as a result of brain fade. Perhaps he should change his name to Allot...

The only other candidate at this event for the "honour" of Reject of the Race (DRS' a problem everywhere really) must be the roads surrounding Paul Ricard, for being woefully ill-prepared for the raceday (or even Free Practice-day) traffic.

[James1978]

McLaren - they no longer can blame Honda as an excuse.

[Rob Dylan]

Poll is up! You have 48 hours to pick your Reject of the Race for the 2009 French Grand Prix.

[Rob Dylan]

And so after all the crap that went down in Paul Ricard, our winner for the Reject of the Race in France... is France!

This included the organisation getting to and from the track, the local heroes like Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon crashing, Romain Grosjean's accident in qualifying and Sainz's Renault breaking down towards the end. Also all the French drivers were beaten by the Monegasque Leclerc.