Reject of the Race - Azerbaijan

Post by **Londoner** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:21

Hoooo boy, where to start here? Knock yourselves out chaps. :deletraz:

You-Gee-Eee-Day · Post by **You-Gee-Eee-Day** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:23

1. Michael Masi
1.5 Hamilton
2. Pirelli
3. Bottarse

Spooder918 · Post by **Spooder918** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:23

Verstappen. Has to be.
Also to a lesser extent, Turn 15. So many crashes there.
Dishonorable mentions to Pirelli and Michael Masi (although I do want to marry Masi now, the standing start choice was still dumb)

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:25

Thinking about it, I blame the entire disaster and everything that happens after on Pirelli.
Masi decisions may have been questionable, but he had to make all of them under enormous pressure with very little time to do it, the very opposite in how penalties and the like have been handled in recent years.

1) Pirelli - Dangerous tyres leading to carnage and robbed results for Verstappen and Stroll.

2) Bottas - You lucky bastard, any other race you'd easily slam dunk it, but because of the carnage you will probably get away with it. Shockingly bad drive.

Ciaran · Post by **Ciaran** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:25

Lewis Hamilton for the OMEGACHOKE. You said it yourself, this is a marathon, you could've settled for 18 points and instead you've finished behind Bottas.
Pirelli, for living up to the meme of Italian unreliability.

tBone · Post by **tBone** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:27

A very dishonorable mention for Valtteri Bottas. Awful performance.

2. Pirelli punctures - what a mess and not because tyres were run longer than they should have.

1. Lewis Hamilton - cracked under pressure like in Imola, but this time he had run out of (insane amounts of) luck with the red flag incident.

RAK · Post by **RAK** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:28

1) Tyre failures: Knocked out two drivers, including the race leader. Not going to blame Pirelli yet without any further details, but it was pretty embarrassing to see regardless.

2) Lewis Hamilton: From taking back the lead in the championship to nearly binning it in a single lap. The overheating brakes contributed, but it dropped him right to the back at the same time, scoring nothing off his rival's misfortune.

Dishonourable Mention: Valterri Bottas: From sublime to ridiculous. Off the pace again this weekend; at least Hamilton showed some race pace.

IceG · Post by **IceG** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:29

(1) Pirelli - nothing more needs to be said

(2) Mercedes - off the pace until Q3, sacrificed Bottas for His Majesty "remember guys, it's a marathon not a sprint", Hamilton, who then messed up after the restart and Bottas just seemed incapable of getting anything out of the best car and engine combination on the grid.

Aislabie · Post by **Aislabie** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:29

I don't even know where to start. Actually yeah I do

Nicholas Latifi's race engineer

Second nomination to be shared between Masi, Pirelli, Bottarse, Hamilton, Mazepin and the four red flags in quali

Ferrim · Post by **Ferrim** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:29

One of the easiest in a while

1. Pirelli
2. Lewis Hamilton

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:33

1. Left rear Pirelli tyres
2. Mercedes drivers

went · Post by **went** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:43

1 - Hamilton: Luck (and Pirelli) gift you a 14-point lead in your toughest championship in a decade, and this is what you do with it: you finish behind Mazepin. Okay.

2 - Masi: For taking almost an entire lap to deploy the SC in both incidents. Come on, there's a car in the middle of a straight in a narrow street circuit, with debris all around. And he closed the pit lane after three seconds the first time, so it's not like he needs to call a bloody committee to decide.

3 - Bottas: For spending the entire race outside the points entirely on pace. Sure, Hamilton obliterated his own race through a lethal mistake on the worst moment imaginable. Bottas was just nowhere all day, from start to finish, and ended behind Giovinazzi on merit.

4 - "Stay out" engineer: Ruining Latifi's race in the dumbest way imaginable.

rachel1990 · Post by **rachel1990** » 06 Jun 2021, 14:53

Hm- Lewis Hamilton. Probably should have won (which would have been very annoying). But he choked. And Max has an extra point on him.
HM- Ferrari. No pace on Sunday and very disappointing.
HM- (and bloody luck to miss out due to the below) Valtteri Bottas. Dreadful again. Could cost Mercedes the constructors and that is what Mercedes care about. At least Hamilton is competitive. Bottas really isn't. How many weekends have we said that now. This must be the weekend that broke the camels back for Mercedes (but how many times have we said that)

2nd- Michael Masi. Who knows about the red flag. However the time it took to get the safety cars out was a complete joke. Again. We had these issues in Singapore in 2019 and once again 2 minutes is simply not good enough.

1st. Pirelli. Total disgrace. Tyres should not blow out like that. Especially since Pirelli gave the advice about how long the hard tyres would last. We seriously could have seen a death today. Crashing at that speed for both Lance and Max could have been deadly.

Francophone · Post by **Francophone** » 06 Jun 2021, 15:01

1/ Pirelli - I do think the teams have some blame trying to run the tyres for so long , but I think that it is unacceptable to have the tyres fail without any warning , and at 200+mph to boot , caused two horrific crashes.

2/ Bottas. Jesus. P14 on legitimate pace in an apparantly healthy Merc!? Getting passed by Giovinnazi made me have to do a double take - I remember Alonso wrestling a broken McLaren to 7th or something like that a couple of year ago... His confidence seems utterly destroyed.

I now think that Mercedes are in serious trouble with the constructors championship especially now seeing that Checo is on it

DHM : Lewis Hamilton (He did as well as he could before his unfortunate moment with the brake magic) , Carlos Sainz - bit of a quiet one...

I was surprised they restarted the race with two laps to go but I'm not complaining

Meatwad · Post by **Meatwad** » 06 Jun 2021, 15:40

I'll go with Pirelli, with Lewis Hamilton getting a dishonorable mention (and very close to getting the vote).

pi314159 · Post by **pi314159** » 06 Jun 2021, 16:30

No shortage of options once again.

Valtteri Bottas had a nightmare of a weekend. At no point did he ever challenge for anything higher than ninth while Lewis competed for the win. If his boss was Helmut Marko, he'd be out of a job after this race.

Lewis Hamilton only made one mistake, but a spectacular one that cost him dearly. Moments like these can decide championship in retrospect.

Latifi's engineer - no comment needed

But it is hard to look past Pirelli for this one. Accidents like these just shouldn't happen. Tyres unpredictably blowing up at over 300 km/h are unacceptable. Reject of the Race should go to Pirelli for once again supplying tyres that put the health and lives of drivers at risk. This year's rule changes were meant to prevent this exact kind of failures. It turns out they did not.

Enforcer · Post by **Enforcer** » 06 Jun 2021, 16:32

I thought I'd be thinking outside the box a little by suggesting Hamilton for his choke into T1 on the restart. Then I remember why I post here. Like minded individuals.

That said, I really can't look past Masi / Race Control for taking half a lap to call the SC on Stroll and Verstappen's incidents. They're only on a 200mph stretch of the circuit, not dangerous to leave the race live at all. He made the point about double yellows to McLaren, but drivers treating double yellows as advisory cos there's no set in stone rule on how much you have to slow down, is not a recent phenomena.

Even if it takes a minute to decide if you need a full SC to clear the car, then VSC it first whilst you're making up your mind.

koshiro · Post by **koshiro** » 06 Jun 2021, 17:33

Sir Lewis Hamilton: He had everything in place. He had managed to seal another deal with Lady Luck to turn what was going to be a mediocre result (a 3rd against Verstappen's victory was not ideal) into a potential championship turnaround victory, or in the worst case, retaking the championship lead by a good margin. But then, in what looked like a Botta's moment, he screwed it big time. And many F1 fans rejoiced.

Bottas: Totally unacceptable performance. Awful qualifying, even worse race. And this time it's entirely on his.

Pirelli: Ruining Verstappen's sure victory (and almost shattering his championship momentum) is almost meaningless if we realise of the potentially deathly consequences of two people crashing at almost 300km/h because of their faulty tyres.

H.M: Latifi's "stay out" engineer.

Pinkd56 · Post by **Pinkd56** » 06 Jun 2021, 18:22

Slam dunk for Bottas regardless of all the stewarding/tyre nonsense.

PNowhere all weekend and slumped to 6th in the standings in the best car. In the bin!

eagleash · Post by **eagleash** » 06 Jun 2021, 18:34

Bottas; very poor...

Hamilton; easy 18 pts, with Max not scoring either, thrown away

Spectoremg · Post by **Spectoremg** » 06 Jun 2021, 18:53

1. Pirelli. I'll be interested to read what they have to say.
2. Botthas. Mercedes need to 'streamline' their driver line-up.

SammiRei · Post by **SammiRei** » 06 Jun 2021, 19:11

Another race, another surprisingly large pool of potential nominees.

First place and most rejectful goes to Pirelli: Two rear-left tyre failures at high speed is not a good look. I know races where tyre wear is a complete non-factor is kinda boring, but there has to be some middle ground.

Runner up, for the humour goes to whoever at Mercedes decided that a button that disables the brakes should be in a position where a driver could hit it accidentally: Seriously, that's apparently what caused Lewis to miss turn 1 at the restart. Whoops.

A trio of dishonourable mentions today:
The Stewards: Verstappen and Stroll went off pretty much at the same place, and if anything Stroll's car was more dengerous as it was close to the pit entrance, so why did Verstappen's crash warrant a red flag but not Stroll's?
Valteri Bottas: Apparently the rumours are getting to him, because that performance was atrocious. Running around at the wrong end of the top 10 was bad enough, but then to lose 4 places on the restart and drop out of it entirely is just embarassing.
Nicholas Latifi's race engineer: Stay out normally means 'don't go in the pits', not 'go through the pits without stopping'.

Hermann95 · Post by **Hermann95** » 06 Jun 2021, 19:29

- Pirelli
- Masi

-HM Hamilton and Bottas (not Mercedes. Yeah they do lack some pace but this time the drivers choked it badly)
-HM Latifi's race engineer

CaptainGetz12 · Post by **CaptainGetz12** » 06 Jun 2021, 19:32

1) Pirelli. Tire failing at a high-speed course like Baku 10 laps earlier than suggested is a bad look, especially since it caused severe accidents at 200 mph twice this race.

2) Mercedes drivers. Hamilton cooked his brakes from a wrong button push, Bottas was swamped in the midfield, and no points to show while Red Bull take a race win. Not what they want to see if they want to win the Constructor's.

(Dis)honourable Mentions:
Stewards (Should have called a red flag for Stroll if Verstappen's crash was given one)
Haas pitcrew (Brainfade moment with Schumacher)
Williams strategists (Farcical direction for Latifi)

Alextrax52 · Post by **Alextrax52** » 06 Jun 2021, 19:46

As well as ROTR I’ve chosen my own personal award for this one called Reject of the weekend (ROTW) firstly ROTR:

Hamilton: If anyone on the grid wasn’t going to follow his own advice it was Lewis “Marathon not a sprint” Hamilton. Normally he gobbles up these open goals but not today.

Michael Masi: Yeah let’s take a whole minute to deploy a SC when we’ve had two high speed punctures on the straight. He’s no Charlie Whiting

Pirelli: this brought back memories of when I was at Silverstone 2013: someone clearly miscalculated the tire life. I felt something wasn’t right when people were pitting after just 10 laps.

Latifi’s engineer: I’m expecting a P45 to be handed out after that. Not saying he would have done but with Russell retiring Williams blew a shot at points with a stupid mistake

Ferrari: Surprised they haven’t had more mentions. Race pace wasn’t there, Sainz made a mistake and Leclerc would have gone from Pole to 6th on merit without the drama.

Right it’s time to give out a ROTW award because this guy’s weekend was so bad I felt it deserved a separate category:

Valterri Bottas: Jesus Christ where do I begin?

It all started with his flight to Baku being delayed leaving him stranded for 5 hours at the airport and come Sunday evening I bet he and all his fans wish they hadn’t bothered.

Free practice: Consistently slower than Hamilton by a whole second and that was even when Lewis was struggling down in 11th on Friday afternoon. This saw the incredible sight of Bottas being SIXTEENTH!!! on merit in that same session. That’s right he was only quicker than Williams and Gene Haas’s mob.

Saturday was another bad day and made worse by Hamilton getting his act together. Some might argue why Mercedes sacrificed Bottas to give Lewis a tow but come on it’s not rocket science. Bottas wasn’t going to do anything this weekend so why not put all the effort around the lead driver.

After qualifying 10th on merit he made absolutely no impact on the cars in front of him until the safety car. I’ve seen a clip of his restart on Twitter and oh my god his racecraft is nothing short of diabolical. I’ve said it before but he is the easiest driver on the grid to both attack and defend against in traffic and when 40+ Raikkonen in the Alfa Romeo is passing you like that then questions need to be asked. When the red flag came out only Russell and the 2 Haas cars were behind him. Finished 12th on merit.

I haven’t seen a performance this bad from a driver in one of the top cars since Jenson Button’s diabolical performance in Canada 2012. Bottas has now dropped to 6th in the championship and considering that Red Bull finally have 2 cars near the front to the point where they could perform their own double team on Hamilton here if Bottas doesn’t improve then he could not only lose his seat for 22 but be out before 21 Is even over.

So ROTW to Valterri Bottas it is. I know what I’ve wrote makes it sound like I’m being really mean and don’t get me wrong I’m always happy to see VB do well but with the package he has, the performance he put in this weekend and the ever increasing threat of Red Bull it just can’t be ignored and I’m sure Mercedes definitely won’t be ignoring it.

dj_vicious · Post by **dj_vicious** » 06 Jun 2021, 19:54

1. Tire Failures: Maybe more information will come that clears Pirelli, but two major RL tire failures are effectively the same part of the track is not a good look. Both times the tires were within there purported lifespan

2. Valteri Bottas: Coasting like it's his last Friday after giving his two week's notice. This was a BAD performance.

Chrisdude · Post by **Chrisdude** » 06 Jun 2021, 21:15

2. Shared between Michael Masi and Pirelli - Those incidents clearly needed an instant safety car, it should have been a no-brainer, why the delay? Two almost identical tyre failures, causing pretty much the most dangerous kind of accidents. Fortunately everyone walked away and they didn't become multiple car incidents.

1. Bottas - The Masi/Pirelli subjects are more serious issues but Bottas gets my vote for being comically shite. Driving a Mercedes in which his teammate is challenging for the win, it was a 100% rejectful effort to be legitimately slower than both Alfa Romeo. Slower than a slow thing and twice as dull to watch.

James1978 · Post by **James1978** » 06 Jun 2021, 21:56

Think Bottas deserves it just above his teammate and Pirelli.

Post by **mario** » 06 Jun 2021, 22:12

2. Pirelli: As others have noted, there were two major tyre failures that could have had serious repercussions.

It is somewhat fortunate that both drivers involved didn't have another car in close proximity to them - if they'd spun back onto the track and had another car hit them, that could have been extremely ugly. Similarly, having no people there might have been a blessing in disguise - at least one of those crashes had a quite large chunk of debris thrown over the safety barriers, and having that land in a busy grandstand is very worrying.

1. Masi: It's not just how slow he was to react to some of those crashes - we heard Leclerc angrily demanding over the radio to know why Masi wasn't bothering with a safety car after Verstappen's crash, and indeed took so long to deploy the safety car that the entire field had already passed Verstappen's car. You should have known from the Stroll crash earlier that a safety car was needed, so why wait so long to react?

However, what really disgusts me is the way that Masi reacted to McLaren when they radioed him to complain that Tsunoda was ignoring the yellow flags and not slowing down as he passed Max's car. Masi's response was along the lines of "well, I don't think any of the drivers are slowing down enough, but I can't be bothered to investigate them and so can't be arsed to deal with Tsunoda" - which is disgraceful.

One of the key responsibilities for the race director is the safety and welfare of all participants. If there are reports that a driver is speeding under a yellow flag, Masi shouldn't be going "meh, it's too much effort to deal with it" and ignoring it - that is the sort of dangerous culture of carelessness that will get somebody injured, or worse.

There may have been many others who made mistakes, but at least they were trying to do their job, even if poorly - but Masi gave the attitude that he was barely bothering to try at times, and that is far worse to me. It fundamentally makes me feel that he is just not fit to hold that role - the tendency to blame others, a refusal to listen to criticism and communications between race control and those at the side of the track being increasingly dysfunctional really is a terrible sign.

Post by **Miguel98** » 06 Jun 2021, 22:35

Oh, boy, there is a lot to unpack, so I'll do my best to do so and provide my opinion.

So, had the race run its normal course, the clear winner would have been...

Valtteri Bottas - I have many questions regarding Bottas' weekend. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, based on the assumption that he and Hamilton were on very different setups, and Hamilton's setup seemed much better in unlocking some of the potential the Merc chassis around here and fixing some of its problems. But even with that, the Mercedes is one of the two best cars on the grid - Bottas finished 12th on merit. If it wasn't for the red flag and stoppage, he would have finished 14th. In one of the best cars of the grid. Was this the worst performance by a top runner since Button in Canada 2012? Without a doubt in my mind: yes.

Honestly, I think Bottas is done at Mercedes. Not only because of these type of performances, but he also seems to be done with the team in some sort. His confidence is gone. If you see the restart where he drops from 10th to 14th in just a matter of corners, you can see that something is terribly wrong. That is not the Bottas we remember. That's a man that has been beaten down and crushed. I'm not sure how he can turn this around to be honest - but maybe he'll surprise me.

Obviously, Bottas was a shoe in for ROTR until... these two intervenients happened.

Pirelli - Why? How? How are we still having this discussion regarding the quality of Pirelli tyres? What happened today was very weird. They claimed it was debris that caused the lamination, but I don't buy it. It doesn't make sense. Firstly, because while on Stroll's case its possible it was - on Max's, it wasn't. Bear in mind, I think Red Bull are partially at fault here - I don't get why, with the gap Max created, they didn't told Max to just cruise home at that point. He kept going for fastest laps, and after what happened with Stroll, it just seemed... reckless for me. Bear in mind, I get why they did so: Pirelli told them it was ok and safe. Perhaps it wasn't.

But yeah, I don't buy the debris excuse, sadly. If it was for debris, it would have to be a big chunk to cause that type of failure. Even if it was a small piece that got ingrained into the tyre and eventually allowed to cause the failure, the teams would have detected it with sensors, surely? I don't know. It all felt very weird and unsafe - and given how early the cars were pitting, it was perhaps a bit clear that tyre degradation wasn't as low as expected. I think there plenty of things that need to be discussed, and I'm feeling a bit of 2013 Silverstone vibe to all of this - except, this time, the teams don't seem to have ignored the recommendations set by Pirelli.

But, for me, the ROTR award should go to...

Michael Masi - Honestly, at Bahrain, I already wrote much what I thought about Masi's tenure as a steward. I'll add more: today he showed he's not fit for the role. Simple as that. He's not. Masi did so many stupid and careless decisions today that I really put the question forward: how was this allowed?

Firstly, the safety car deployments. Now, this has been a recurring problem for a while, but today was a whole lot worse given that the two accidents ocurred at the fastest section of the track - and no way in hell would those cars been removed without a SC or red flag. So, that's the first indication that something is off here.

Secondly, we have the whole section of the post-Verstappen crash scenario. So, not only does he take a full minute almost to release the SC, but when he does - he then decides to put out a red flag over the request of a team? With 3 to go? Ok, what? I was really baffled by this, in all honesty. I've never seen anything quite like that. And the way he spoke to McLaren after they talked to him about to Tsunoda was a level of no-kers about things I haven't heard since Fisichella didn't have KERS to win at Belgium 2009. Seriously: watch this video. This is not the first time this has happened, and it will one day result in an injury or worse. Perhaps, by that time, they will put Masi to the ground. He's no good.

Oh, and also: if he was the one who decided that F1 needed to have a green-white-checkers basically, he really needs to be put in his place. He doesn't have the respect of the teams or drivers and he's clearly far out of his depth here - more than Mazepin. Rant over.

Honorable mention to Lewis Hamilton - fantastic way to ignore your own advice there mate - and to McLaren - was expecting them to fight for a podium on proper pace, but they just didn't have it this weekend. Red flag kind of saved them from a very disappointing result. Oh yeah, and to Latifi's race engineer. What the hell was that?

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 06 Jun 2021, 22:39

Among all the carnage...

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:Latifi’s engineer: I’m expecting a P45 to be handed out after that. Not saying he would have done but with Russell retiring Williams blew a shot at points with a stupid mistake

Has anyone noticed what Latifi's engineer has cost Williams? Because Mick Schumacher finished 13th after Latifi was given the penalty, this leaves Haas ahead of Williams in the Constructors' Championship, despite having a car that's so far off the pace that it's in Caterham/Marussia territory.

Nessafox · Post by **Nessafox** » 06 Jun 2021, 22:48

People nominating Pirelli The first research seems to suggest it was a cause of debris, not a problem with Pirelli. If the investigation turns out to be exactly this, i'd like to have Pirelli DSQ'd from ROTR nominations, if the investigations however prove Pirelli was at fault, go ahead and nominate them as you like. Either way i still don't get why people are so hard on Pirelli when Pirelli is just doing what the FIA asks of them and deserved almost none of the criticism they ever got. How often has a race been ruined by Pirelli? Maybe once every 5 years? Yeah, that's the maximum. Pirelli's doing a great job. But yeah, people love to give weird unfunded criticism because they need a scapegoat to hate this era for. Whilst at the same time defending era's that F1 was unwatchable.

Mercedes Since Hamilton did a costly mistake and Bottas was absolutely nowhere, one could argue the whole team failed today.

Row Man Gross-Gene · Post by **Row Man Gross-Gene** » 07 Jun 2021, 02:44

mario wrote:However, what really disgusts me is the way that Masi reacted to McLaren when they radioed him to complain that Tsunoda was ignoring the yellow flags and not slowing down as he passed Max's car. Masi's response was along the lines of "well, I don't think any of the drivers are slowing down enough, but I can't be bothered to investigate them and so can't be arsed to deal with Tsunoda" - which is disgraceful.

If that's what Masi truly meant, I would agree, but I heard it differently. The way I heard it is that so many drivers (if not all of them) failed to follow the rules of the double-waved yellow, that were Masi to enforce the rule uniformly, the resulting penalties would have resulted in no net changes to the running order. Given the eventual response from McLaren, it sure seems like that must not be an uncommon occurrence. The rules should be followed, but since it seems that pretty much all of the drivers reacted to the double-waved yellows as if they were single-waved yellows, he let it go. I don't necessarily agree with that course of action, but I can understand it.

As far as the length of time to deploy the safety car, I'd need someone to really take me through the thought process there to explain why it should be considered a dereliction of duty rather than just an instance of indecision within acceptable limits.

For pure rejectfulness, the call to Latifi was pretty hilarious, I'm surprised there is no language protocol for "go through the pit lane but don't box".

Aerond · Post by **Aerond** » 07 Jun 2021, 04:34

I don't care about Pirlelis and I don't care about FIA , they actually have us somehow a great ending :glasses:

So, nominations...

1. Mercedes: Hamilton involved again in a buttongate. Shittas was very shittas.

2. Latifi engineer: "Stay out" :facepalm:

Batty · Post by **Batty** » 07 Jun 2021, 04:46

First the HMs

Sainz - Great start and then reversing after going into the escape road.

Lewis Hamilton - Foiled by his own switch that he hit accidentally. Could have come away with points but didn't.

[Bottas - He was given a raw deal in qualifying. Giving a tow to Lewis and then sent out first. Was on a good lap before Yuki and Sainz happened. But he did nothing in the race except go backwards

Stewarding - VSC before SC should have happened first but I can't imagine the pressure being a steward and how you have to be quick with decisions while all teams are radio-ing to you at the same time.

Pirelli - Same tire for Lance and Max. Pirelli weren't concerned after Lance's incident. Max noted that Pirelli will blame debris and Pirelli did just that.

However cause it's Rejects - Nicholas Latifi's race engineer - "Stay out" is sheer hilarity and cost them 9th in the constructor's standings to Haas. Hilarious!

Jan Magnussen · Post by **Rob Dylan** » 07 Jun 2021, 07:11

My nominations are basically everything Freeze-O-Kimi gave as a nomination (I'm too lazy to write it all out!), especially about Bottas. The most damning thing was I kept expecting to hear "oh bathplug my engine or something is dying" and we would all go "ah ok that's why he's slow", but the silence was deafening. Bottas appeared to have zero problems. The problem appeared to be Bottas.

And then what Mario said about Michael Masi. It's been clear for a long time that the rules are just made up as they go along, and F1 is just lucky it didn't give a farcical Hamilton or Vettel win.

Lewis Hamilton was already a candidate for ROTR after crashing, but the fact that he said on the world feed "remember Lewis, don't be silly and throw away a bunch of points on the restart" five minutes before he did so was really funny :lol:

Pacific Edge · Post by **Pacific Edge** » 07 Jun 2021, 09:14

Points finish:
Latifi's engineer. Stay out? There was a recovery truck on a very narrow street course. Latifi got hung out to dry.
Michael Masi: Eventually Jonathan Wheatley had to take control
FIA/FOM Mandating one tire supplier, then making it Pirelli

Top 3:
3rdBottas: Just nowhere all weekend long

2ndHamilton: Suggested playing the long game, then changes his mind as soon as he got going, and blew it.

1st Pirelli Something needs to be done, F1 is supposedly the pinnacle of motorsport This is FAR from Pirelli's first day in the dog box, I hope this gets un f'd before someone gets hurt.

UncreativeUsername37 · Post by **UncreativeUsername37** » 07 Jun 2021, 10:37

2. Mercedes drivers. Hamilton saying to himself to be conservative and then lasting zero corners... loool. But Bottas was even worse by being so slow he didn't have points to throw away in the first place.
1. Whatever the cause of the tyre failures turns out to be. Debris, Pirelli, one of each, something else....

Fetzie · Post by **Fetzie** » 07 Jun 2021, 20:16

After letting the shitshow that was Baku sink, I've decided on the following nominations:

1. Race Management.

All for the show. Safety be damned.

Seriously, what the bathplugging hell was that pig's breakfast?! Sure, leave a driver sitting in their half-disintegrated car while the field whizzes past at 300 kph. Twice. What could possibly go wrong? I mean, other than somebody T-boning Stroll or Verstappen at speeds that would mean there might not be a body to bury. Where was the safety car? It took them way too long to get the cars under control, and the entire field should have been given a stop-go penalty for ignoring double-yellows, plus penalty points on their licenses. What will they get instead? A stern telling-off at Paul-Ricard? Ridiculous.

And then they go and restart the race that they could have perfectly-safely finished behind the safety car, which at Baku in particular is extremely risky. If Hamilton slid a foot or two to the side when he locked his brakes at T1, he'd have taken out Perez and Gasly. Possibly also Vettel.

2. Pirelli
Look, I know they're only doing what the FIA told them to do. Make tyres that are durable, until they aren't. What is dangerous about these tyres though, is that they fall to pieces before the rubber loses its tractive potential. They need to go back to the drawing board and design tyres so that they lose traction in a controlled and predictable manner, and become undriveably slow long before they start to disintegrate.

3. Mercedes
Bottas just had the worst result he could probably have had. Thing is, he didn't have a bad race. He wasn't particularly unlucky, he didn't have a bad pit stop, he didn't have any major mistakes that cost him a bunch of positions. He was just really, really slow. Competitive with practically nobody, he started in 10th. You could call the timing of the red flag that ended his Q3 hot lap unlucky, but then who put him in that position to start with? Yes, he didn't get a tow, but he was 1.2 seconds slower than his team-mate and the tow only accounts for half of that (and no, he didn't have a faster lap in either of the other two sessions either). Has Toto maybe told Bottas that this year is his last at Mercedes and he's just phoning it in?

Hamilton hit the "move brake bias all to the front button" by accident on the grid. That locked his front wheels as soon as he went anywhere near the brake pedal, and his brakes were practically on fire while he waited for the field to line up as it was. Why did Bono not have this information flashing in red on his computer screen?

This was Mercedes big chance to put Red Bull dozens of points behind them in the WDC at a track that is more to Horner's lots' liking than Toto's. The last two races have been uncharacteristically bad for the Brackley team, and they need to stop this in France or Red Bull might just run away with this title.

IceG · Post by **IceG** » 07 Jun 2021, 22:21

Fetzie wrote:Why did Bono not have this information flashing in red on his computer screen?

He may well have done but is there not a rule against coaching a driver on the way to the start line?

Pick your Reject of the Race!