Grand Prix Rejects

1. Haas. The Q1 contretemps, two rookie drivers clearly at war with each other, another collision on lap 1, and being legitimately three laps behind at race end. Expectations are low for Haas, but this was another level.

2. Yuki Tsunoda. Absolutely blown away by Gasly all weekend.

Mercedes' late race antics:
James: (Pit Bottas late) "Now, don't go fast."
Bottas: "... bathplug you..."
James: "NO! STOP!"

1) Sergio Perez: Dropped well back through the grid thanks to flat-spotting and barely managed to carve through the slower half of the grid. DotD nominations were a joke when considering Gasly's performance.

2) Yuki Tsunoda: While his teammate was a solid "best of the rest" and even managed to beat Perez decisively, Tsunoda was comprehensively outdriven during the whole weekend.

Dishonourable Mentions: Mercedes - Messed up the strategy; Hamilton's complaints - "Bono, my tyres are gone" with multiple fastest laps made him look a bit whiny.

Londoner wrote:1. Haas. The Q1 contretemps, two rookie drivers clearly at war with each other, another collision on lap 1, and being legitimately three laps behind at race end. Expectations are low for Haas, but this was another level.

I'll take that one. Can't go wrong with mentioning Sebastian Vettel for his vintage s[ b ]in or Mercedes GP for that mess at the end or George Russell for speeding in the pitlane and making a mess in qualifying.

1. Aston Martin: Absolutely nowhere all race. Then seem to yo-yo from best of the rest to dead-f******-last in alternate races

2. Nikita Mazepin: Tried to make a big deal out of the 'I was supposed to go first' qualifying incident and almost put Mick into the pit wall in the opening laps.

DHM: Mercedes strategists. They banned team orders for a period in 2002 because of teams blatantly nerfing the #2 driver's race. I don't care for Bottas, he was too slow and Lewis needed the fastest lap point more than him, but as a fan I cannot stand the 'Valtteri, it's James' Radio calls. I accept the hate I'm going to get for this, but I would love for Formula One to 'announce' that James Vowels and Toto Wolff will not be involved in the sport anymore. Instead of shaking up the rules, it's time to shake up the teams.

Haas: To quite a well known picture: “Our expectations for you were low but Holy f**k”. From the Qualifying debacle reviving yet more tensions between the drivers to the usual lack of pace, 2022 can’t come quick enough.

Yuki Tsunoda: Obliterated by Gasly all weekend. Didn’t even know he was in the race until his retirement

McLaren: Probably the least impressive weekend the Woking squad have had since the dark days of 2018. They weren’t quick at all and have lost a lot of ground to Ferrari. Where’s the next race again? Oh yeah Italy.

Mercedes team orders: I know the drivers championship is at stake but the treatment of Bottas has now got to the point where he’s more or a whipping boy than a wingman. He proved that by not exactly being too defensive to Verstappen and then the fastest lap fiasco. It’s not reached Maverick Vinales and Yamaha levels but the mood is not well and it feels like the inevitable is nigh.

(1) Williams - from qualy to the race they seemed to get everything wrong when it could have been so much better

(2) Bottas - you are in one of the fastest cars but you are nowhere near your team-mate, you are paid to be a number 2 but you don't follow team orders so forcing Sir Lewis to pit for a risky extra point when we could have had a epic race to the flag - see also IIotR

Williams was quite unremarkable after a couple of impressive weekends. It was unexpected to see both drivers crash out in Q2. Russell did a good job in the race (apart from the pit lane speeding) but was forced to retire, Latifi ended up behind Kubica who didn't even get to drive on Friday and Vettel who struggled all weekend.

Dishonorable mention to Vettel (bad weekend by his standards) and Haas (not even surprising but still disastrously slow).

1 Haas- I know it was bad but this weekend was a new low. Jesus.

2 Mercedes- I have no idea what happened at the end with Bottas and Hammy but it just caused a load of further stress that really was unnecessary.

Hm- Yuki Tsunoda for being so far off the pace- I wonder if a couple of questions might be asked about his future after this...

HM Vettel. Seb nearly went from the hero of the paddock to nearly wiping out Bottas through his own spinning.

1. Haas - a new low of ineptitude after Kubica jumps in from the couch and still beats them in both qualifying and the race. Mazepin mouthing off also suggests there is something clearly wrong behind the scenes. Schumacher was miles off in the race after they pitted him early and he was losing more time when everyone lapped him on such a short track.

2. Yuki Tsunoda - back to bad Yuki this weekend. Maybe it's the question of new track for him but he got thoroughly outperformed by Gasly.

1. Helmut Marko... I always thought from the start he should have given Yuki another year in F2, if Albon was in that AT seat they would comfortably be 5th in the championship

2. Haas

1. Aston Martin - Vettel had a miserable sunday - awful strategy and a SBIN - and Stroll was stuck behind Russell all day. Never even came close to a pass and the team didn't really attempt anything to overtake the Williams.

2. Williams - Two crashes in qualiying, Russell got a pitlane speed violation penalty and Latifi then was nowhere sunday. Jesus god.

3. Haas - They perform as expected but their incompetent management shows up once again. Please control your drivers before they kill each other on track.

Honorable mentions to a dismal performance by Yuki Tsunoda, to Sergio Pérez and to Antonio Giovinazzi's luck - he deserved more today.

Plenty of nominations this week:

- Aston Martin: Terrible weekend for both drivers, way off the pace of the middle pack teams, and with Vettel spin almost wrecking Bottas.
- McLaren: One point is an awful result for the team.
- Tsunoda: I finally lost the faith on this boy. Ashamed by Gasly, I start to think he won't be there next year.
- Bottas: This is ironic, because I'm also nominating him as Driver of the Race, but... His fastest lap antics were extremely unprofessional and out of place. If he lost his seat at Mercedes, it was (almost) entirely his fault. Going for a meaningless fast lap (for him) against team orders looked like a child's tantrum.

DHM:
- Perez: Horrible qualifying partially compensated during race.
- Haas: My expectations were so bad, that they don't even disappointed me.

Best regards

Reading through this thread is making me realise that it was a tale of two races for each half of the teams, huh.

My immediate nomination would be Williams for, yeah, coming back down to Earth. While they benefited from the blind luck at Spa and from the blind luck + keeping the cars on the road in Hungary, our first regular race comes along and everything just collapses into amateurism. As I said yesterday, both drivers made unforced errors when the car had pace for a double Q3 appearance. Then Russell speeds in the pitlane, robbing him of any chance at possible points, and then Latifi drops back behind Kubica, who was hardly the star of the show in 2019, and only got the call to drive on Saturday morning. Unreal.

All the Haas, McLaren, and Aston Martin nominations are also well-put. Especially Haas: it seems like something is going on there, doesn't it...

Dishobourable mention to Heineken: it's revolting and you all know it.

The award to Heineken 0.0%: the only thing worse than regular Heineken.

1. Haas. What did they think they were doing? At this rate Drive to Survive won't even have to manufacture drama, all they'll have to do is point the cameras at Schumacher and Mazepin.

2. Bottas. You were ordered to not compete the fastest lap. You were ordered to hold station. Yes, it's one of the sport's biggest public secrets he's on the way out, but will Alfa or Williams really want a driver that disobeys direct instructions from the team management? Might they not look towards somebody like de Vries and think "actually, maybe we want that guy instead (he would be cheaper too)"?

HaasRead above comments.

Dishounorable mentions: Williams' fall back to reality, McLarens total lack of pace, Gio's luck, Perez not exactly doing himself any favours, and Vettel's inability to get any consistency in his form.

Mercedes just rolled the dice, they weren't going to beat Max. They tried something and it didn't work. Simple as that. Bottas was put on softs and was going to light up sectors. Even Toto didn't complain about it after the race. AM had terrible qualifying and you can't easily pass on this track. The red flags ruined Stroll and the Q1 queue ruined Seb, so AM doesn't deserve a nomination as a team. Haas is a mess but seems more than a single weekend because we had stuff earlier this season too.

My noms are:

1. Williams - They had the pace to reach Q3 and settle for some points. But Russell threw a perfectly good lap in qualifying by crashing. Latifi did the same like 5 minutes later. Then Russell gets a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Latifi has no pace in the race and then Russell has to retire.

2. Sebastian Vettel - Spin. The only incident we had in the race. Hilarious.

dinizintheoven wrote:Dishobourable mention to Heineken: it's revolting and you all know it.

The award to Heineken 0.0%: the only thing worse than regular Heineken.

Regarding Heineken and the love of odd recipients of RotR, here's one.

* The King of the Netherlands is watching the podium ceremony from the outside while a person from Heineken awards the trophy for the winner.

I know that Heineken is the title sponsor of the race but based on how presentations are usually arranged, the role of sponsor representative is to award the trophy for winning constructor.

Only caught highlights of the last few laps, but something stood out that I'm surprised no one has mentioned.

Formula 1.5 I'm against BoP, handicapping, etc. (Call it what you like) But when you have everyone except the top 3 a lap down, there's a problem.

Pacific Edge wrote:Only caught highlights of the last few laps, but something stood out that I'm surprised no one has mentioned.

Formula 1.5 I'm against BoP, handicapping, etc. (Call it what you like) But when you have everyone except the top 3 a lap down, there's a problem.

Agree. At least when we had a similar situation in 2018, Ferrari and BOTH Red Bulls were at least in the lead battle rather than the 3 cars we had now!

Perez - You have literally ONE job. And the last two weeks you look like a bloody amateur. Reddit trolls giving you DOTD aside, a frankly embarrassing weekend, especially with RBR trying so hard to hang on to Albon.

Checo to me is the new Fisichella (Baku notwithstanding) - great in a midfield car but poor in a top one.

Actually could nominate Driver of the Day for Reject of the Race - him getting it makes a mockery of it if you ask me. Even starting from the back, the top 2 teams have that much of an advantage over the rest he should have been 4th, not 8th.

I picked the four most popular options among the nominations. It was close, but these were the overall top four voted for candidates. As usual, you have 48 hours to vote

Find out whose sorry tale of woe at Zandvoort scooped them ROTR this time around!