Your Reject of the Year 2012

[pi314159]

As suggested in the old thread, I opened a new one for 2012:

At the moments, my candidates are:

Overall:
1.Mercedes: Started the season with a race-winning car and are suck in the lower midfield now.
2.Caterham: That chassis must be just as bad as HRT's. They are only a bit faster than Marussia, who run the Cosworth engine and don't have KERS. And all that after they again talked about scoring points. Disappointing...
3.Romain Grosjean: Just too many crashes... ,but we shouldn't forget that he was close to scoring Lotus' first race win in Valencia.

Drivers:
1.Romain Grosjean: see above
2.Felipe Massa: Terrible first half of the season
3.Narain Karthikeyan: Almost never close to de la Rosa

Teams:
1. Mercedes
2. Caterham
3. Toro Rosso

Other things:
1. Gearbox penalties
-. DRS: still ridiculous, like a power-up in some arcade race game. I can't really get used to it

[girry]

Ouch, nothing really sticks out of the mass. Will be very very hard to pick anything here ...

... also, I wouldn't even consider Narain. I mean, what did we expect? He's not had that many crashes, he's not been that far from Pedro and even occasionally beats him....that's rather decent imo.

[Shadaza]

It is hard to pick really Mercedes are terrible now but they achieved a win and a should have 1-2 at Monaco.

I would go for Caterham, promising much delivering little and looking set to end up in the unwanted 11th.

But actually there is one team that deserve it above all others: McLaren!

They should have steam rolled this year but poor reliability and wonky form (especially from Button mid season!) I count at least 3 Hamilton victories thrown away, Spain for fuel, Singapore and UAE for reliability. Many other points thrown away.
It looks like McLaren will finish third in the championship when really they should be number 1! To top it off, McLaren lose Hamilton whilst they are at it.

[James1978]

Of the teams it's between Merc, McLaren, Caterham and Toro Rosso.

Really hard to decide between the drivers as they've all had strong patches really, even though the back 3 teams tend to get unnoticed. I mean there's no way you could nominate someone like Maldonado for THAT win despite everything else he's done.....

[dinizintheoven]

I am leaving my verdict until the season is absolutely finito. You never know what might happen in these last two races... and what happens there may affect my choice.

[TheBigJ]

This is so hard, so many contenders....

Overall:
1.McLaren : had the best car by about a second at the start of the season, but team unprofessionalism and both drivers being inconsistent mean they are nowhere with 2 races left. Add to the fact they haven't won a constructors for a good ten years or more now AND they've managed to alienate Ramilton (who is the second best pound for pound driver after Teflonso IMHO) AND they continue to look like imbeciles making rookie mistakes. They deserve the ROTY title IMO, but I doubt they'll get it.
2. Caterham : dire performances all round really. Started the season wishing to finally score a point, maybe beat the Torro Rossos (who have been dismally slow) regularly. Ending it hoping they'll manage to get lucky and score a 12th place to beat Marussia. They were the great hope of all the new teams, now they've just confirmed themselves as rejects.
3. Team owners : Take your pick...unbelievable pricks (Horner), criminals (Mallya, Bahar), disinterested billionaires (Fernandes, Sauber), useless (Haug-Brawn, Domenicali), out of their depth (Whitmarsh) and yet have no character whatsoever. Bring back Colin Kolles and Ron Dennis. There, I said it.

Drivers:
1. Karthikeyan : This man is a waste of an F1 drive and has been since he entered one. He should be made honouray reject.
2. Grosjean : He's keeping the mechanics busy, that's for sure.
3. Bruno Da Silva: After these performances, I don't see how he adopted the Senna brand on merit....

Teams:
1. Caterham
2. Torro Rosso
3. Mercedes

[LellaLombardi]

ROTY: Mercedes, without a shadow of a doubt. The win should not be allowed to flatter the number of DNF's, and generally awful pace. The fact that Sauber are on course to beat them in the constructors championship, on a fraction of the budget, says it all really

It's harder to pick a driver as no-one has been consistently weak all year however there are a few dishonourable mentions:

Massa - in spite of some stronger performances recently, I still don't think he deserves the Ferrari drive. Everyone knows he's there because Alonso wants a nice compliant team mate, not because he's actually quick.

Grosjean - has had his good moments, but has really not done enough to prove he deserved his second chance in F1

Webber - it's a good thing he got his 2013 contract sorted early on before Red Bull could duck out of it because he's been barely average for most of the year

[Londoner]

ROTY just has to go to Mercedes GP. They've gone from having one of the fastest cars on the grid to scrapping with the lower midfield, and I honestly don't know how. They've racked up 11 DNFs (that includes Schumacher parking up with a few laps to go in India), the worst reliability rate in the entire field, even worse than HRT. Rosberg pole position and win in China looks even more of a fluke than Maldonado's win for Williams in Barcelona, on the basis that I don't remember the W03 even looking remotely like it might challenge consistantly up front since then, whilst Maldonado should have had podiums in Valencia, Spa, Singapore and Abu Dhabi, and still does well up front. True, there was another podium for Rosberg in Monaco, and Schumacher's burn from the stern in Valencia, but that's a pitiful return. Sauber actually have more podiums, are 12 points behind Mercedes, and have done this on a fraction of Mercedes' budget. I can't see Mercedes scoring any more points this season. Dear me.

Drivers-wise, there's a good case to be made to nominate Webber, Button, Massa, Schumacher, Perez, Kobayashi, Maldonado, Senna, GRSJN, Vergne, Glock, Ricciardo and Karthikeyan. But I think it has to be a double-whammy for Mercedes. Hence, Michael Schumacher is my driver ROTY. "Bad Luck Schumacher" just sums up his season, a tangled jungle of reliability issues, stupid crashes, amateur hi-jinks, yet very occasional flashes of his prior brilliance. Aside from his Q3 lap in Monte Carlo, and the second half of the Valencia race, it's just been embarrassing. Raikkonen came back to F1 after 2 years out. It took him but a month to reach the podium again. It's taken Schumi three YEARS to finish on the podium during his comeback. His accidents in Barcelona and Singapore was ridiculous, and the less said about Hungary, the better...

So, my ROTY podium

1. Mercedes GP
2. Michael "Bad Luck" Schumacher
3. Gearbox penalties.

[Dj_bereta]

Teams:

3 - Caterham: Lost to Marussia your 10th position and no progress.

2 - Scuderia Toro Rosso: Spend most of time only in the front of 3 new teams and Ricciardo and Vergne did some rookies mistakes as well. Also, I think its a error dump Alguersuari.

1 - Mercedes GP: Started the year with third best car of the grid and now are fighting with Toro Rossoses. Michael Schumacher is nowhere and Rosberg don't luck much competitive. 4 races in-a-row outside of the points...

Drives:

3 - Jenson Button: Stunning start of the season and a stunning race in Spa are the only good memories for Jenson in this year. A mix between good and bad results hurted your title chances. He started in front of Lewis, but soon was in the dust of him. Also, your crashes with Karthikeyan and Kovalainen are laughable.

2 - Mark Webber: Mark, you can't do a good start or your Redbull lanch system is broken? He lost a lot of points because your bad starts. Good start of the year but bad 2nd half.

1 - Michael Schumacher: Retires.

Others:

3 - Monaco Grand Prix: I don't see why F-1 keeps racing there. The track is dangerous and there's no overtake opportunities. Just throw the "tradition" in the garbage and dumps this track of the calendar.

2 - Indian Grand Prix: BY FAR, the most boring race of the year. Hermann Tilke, go home!

1 - Stewards: just go home!

Overall:

3 - Webber
2 - Schumacher
1 - Mercedes GP

[Aerospeed]

Caterham, in my opinion, is long overdue for this award - I never quite got how they kept over-hyping their team. They had three seasons, had TV funding for two of them and had Kovalainen, Trulli and Petrov to race for them. At the very least, they should have scored a few points by now, but they're not even close. Or maybe it's the Kovalainen factor striking again, and Petrov's just having a rubbish year? I wonder...

Though, looking at the previous posts, Mercedes definitely deserves to be on the Reject podium. A shoo-in for at least second, at the very least. That leaves Clownjean and Maldonado'h to contend for third... hmm....

[Samster]

I'm not going to consider Caterham because though they still haven't scored and are behind Marussia on count-back, on average they have been around 1.5 seconds closer to the leader than the previous season, pity everyone ahead got quicker too otherwise if they'd had this pace last season they would be firmly amongst Williams and Sauber.

Think Mercedes earn ROTY for me though, just how do you go from winning at Shanghai to consistent non-scorers by the end of the season? That's Toyota level of mediocrity.

Teams
1. Mercedes
The new Toyota had they not actually won something.

2. Torro Rosso
Hopelessly mediocre.

3. McLaren
Should be at least be locked in battle with Red Bull instead of all the way back in 3rd.

Drivers is a less obvious choice, there's been no true stand out rejects. I guess the closest would be Massa, even with his recent OK results they still aren't a patch on what Alonso can do.

Drivers
1. Felipe Massa
How does he keep getting hired by Ferrari?

2. Michael Schumacher
Yes he probably should have won at Monaco but it was his own fault he got that grid penalty. His return as been exactly as I feared it would, mediocre when not horribly sloppy. I'm not sorry to see him retire again, let someone new have a go and forget this second career ever happened.

3. Jean-Eric Vergne
Makes Jos Verstappen look like a good qualifier. Is only ahead of Ricciardo in points by virtue of a few lucky 8th places. Consistently slower and more accident prone. Should have kept Jaime and given JEV another season in WSR.

[takagi_for_the_win]

Teams
Caterham- So this was the year you were meant to start scoring points hey?
Mercedes- Brilliant start to the season, AWFUL end.
Toro Rosso- Bland

Drivers
Michael Schumacher- Bad luck more than anything. Still, you know what they say; "Winners make their own luck"
Heikki Kovaleinen- Poor, even Petrov has closed the gap to him.
Felipe Massa- For THAT start to the season

Other
Indian GP- A snoozefest of epic proportions
Indian stewards- Benny Hill-esque
Gearbox penalties- Don't like them at all

[mario]

Mercedes GP sweeps the award this year fairly easily - like last year, they were capable of turning out a moderately competitive car at the start of the season but have failed to develop it at anything like the rate of their rivals, seeing them steadily slump back down the grid as the year went on. Add to that the chronic reliability problems they had in the early season - when the car was at its most competitive - and even allowing for the fact that it doesn't have quite the same level of resources as the top teams, the fact that they are at risk of being beaten by Sauber, despite the fact that Sauber probably has only 75% of the budget Mercedes has, speaks volumes.
That said, McLaren have run Mercedes close at times in terms of incompetence - considering that they did have a performance advantage at the beginning of the year, they have managed to throw that away with a combination of unreliability and poor set up management. Were it not for unreliability, McLaren could easily have at least one driver challenging for the WDC this year (Hamilton has lost out on two very strong chances for victories due to reliability), whilst Button's slump in form as he struggled with his set ups earlier in the year was painful to watch (and cost him any chance of challenging for the title too). Add to that the blunders in the pit lane that cost them dearly - botched wheel changes and poor strategic calls - and even though they are now much sharper, it is too little, too late.

[Ferrarist]

The reject of the year can only be Mercedes. Three years of racing, countless of Euros flushed into this project, a seven-times world champion on board...and one lousy victory, which the other guy scored. Hell, this was a season where even Pastor friggin Maldonado in an even more friggin Williams won a race! That's at least an achievement, for a team which really had to fight hard over the last years, and for a guy who has a reputation of being a crashkid. But you expect more from a company called Mercedes-Benz! Especially since Mercedes normally tends to outspend its opponents, until everyone has left the series.
Another good candidate would be McLaren, for providing a good example of "how to NOT become a championship contender, in spite of a good car." If they didn't keep shooting themselves in the foot, Button may be a championship contender, while Hamilton might have stayed with McLaren. As McLaren will probably managed to build another good car for 2013, they should really improve their consistency.

[Wallio]

My podium so far...

3rd: Catheram - Spend millions on upgrades and go backwards. If they don't get 10th back, and end up losing all that travel money, they'll be hurtin next year.

2nd: Mercedes GP - What the bathplug happened? They won a race, but will (probably) finish 6th in the WCC! As Bill O'rielly memes "You can't explain that."

1st Bruno Senna - His teammate won a race, and he's done what? I can't think of anything expect try to kill Massa at Singapore. A shame to the name, and more proof that Williams needs money.

[Captain Hammer]

A dishonourable mention goes to ... Tony Fernandes, who once again talked Caterham up all season, only for them to lose tenth place to Marussia.

In third place, we have ... Mercedes, who never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

In second place is ... the McLaren pit crew, for throwing away so many points at the start of the season that Lewis Hamilton would still be in championship contention, even with his mechanical failures.

And the winner of the Reject of the Year is ... Bruno Senna, for consistently failing to make any impact on Formula 1.

[Yannick]

Having already written a posting about this topic on the old thread, I'd like to copy it over here, so it's not lost.

Now as the 2012 season is coming to a close, who or what entity's campaign for this website's prestigious year-ending award has been the most impressive?

Is it Felipe Massa who has been oft-maligned due to not performing even close to his teammate Fernando Alonso for almost the whole season?

Is it Dany Bahar for his part in sinking Lotus Cars by throwing around too much money the company didn't have, after which he was fired and the brand's IndyCars were black-flagged for being too slow whilst the F1 team who bears the company's name but apart from that is of no relation to Colin Chapman's outfit, has won its first race of the season long after Bahar parked his own car?

Is it Dr Helmut Marko whose concept of a junior team with Scuderia Toro Rosso just seems to produce more and more backmarker drivers instead of new talents to drive Red Bull Racing's winning cars?

Is it Pastor Maldonado whose over-aggressive driving and voluntary crashes with his favourite opponents have cost his team many, many points in the constructor's championship? His win at Barcelona will probably spare him of the honours, but then again, maybe not.

Is it the Man Without Vowels, RMN GRSJN, whose start crashes are now legendary and who despite having received the rare punishment of a one race ban for them from the FIA, has not stopped from being involved in those, when he has a race winning car underneath him?

Is it Team Caterham who after not closing the gap towards the midfield have now fallen back behind the former Virgin Manor in the constructors championship whereupon their owner Tony Fernandez has given up his role as team boss? Apparently, they have been the only one of the "new teams" (of yesteryear) which has not improved in performance this season.

Or is it Bernie Ecclestone, Mr. F1 himself, for all his wheel-dealing with the Gribkowsky affair? But shouldn't we wait on the outcome of that? He might campaign for ROTD (D standing for decade) with this one.

Or is it a former 7-time champion whose campaign this year has been somewhat below expectations? Has the only reason for him to return to the sport been to finally win this site's prestigious year-ending award, too? One he never thought he could have won before?

Or is there an inanimate object who deserves winning the award?

Jamie and Enoch will decide, and we are patiently awaiting the Xmas holidays for the Awards Show on the podcast.

Looking back at this with some time having passed since I have written it, the first thing I notice is that I don't enlist Mercedes GP, which seems to be everyone else's favourite for the award. Why is it not my winning candidate and does not even get mentioned? Because I live in Germany? (Conspiracy Theorists Stand Up Theme Music playing)

Most certainly not. Instead, my personal expectations of Mercedes GP's prospects for the 2012 season were never as out of proportion as those of the management of this team itself: My expectation for the team was for it to remain in the midfield just like last year. After all, this is the former BAR we are talking about. The team from Brackley can come up with the odd well-performing car once in a while (David Richards' final BAR car with which the team still lost to Ferrari in the constructors, the black Honda with which Jenson Button won his first GP, the amazing Brawn-GP car of which reportedly only 2 chassis were ever produced but which took them 2 seasons to come up with and the staff of themselves AND that of SuperAguri), but most of the time, they just have trouble with their wind tunnel and their cars do not perform well.

So my expectation for the team was never that high to begin with, and their race victory at the Chinese GP certainly exceeded my expectation. Was I happy for them? Well, yes, who wouldn't be happy about a win by the former Brawn GP. Should they have scored some more notable results with this year's car? Yes, definitely during the first quarter of the season.
Is it a surprise they could not catch up in the development race and /or went in wrong directions with their car? No, most certainly not.

Hence, if I actually thought much about this team, they might have had a campaign for the award, but as Mercedes GP have basically run out of good ideas like they did in their Honda GP days due to seemingly having lost interest in creative, unexpected solutions after they had a big budget again, having been bought by Mercedes. After Brawn GP was sold, the team basically went back to being the "next Ligier". It looks like something needs changing about the way the personnel at Brackley is being motivated. Corporate culture seemingly does not help them with that. We have seen this happen with this team before (and both Nick Fry and Shuhei Nakamoto took a beating for it). Maybe now, it's Norbert Haug's turn. But what did they do? They hired Niki Lauda. That's odd given his track record at Jaguar. Maybe they should have hired Tony Purnell instead?

Anyhow, they got their win, just as Williams got one. So they reached above their target for this observer. Thus, they don't get the award.

If that's also the case with their drivers will be seen when Enoch and Jamie finally reveal the F1 Rejects Podium.

[Gerudo Dragon]

Teams
1. Mercedes - Haven't scored a point since Singapore.
2. Toro Rosso - Been nowhere.
3. McLaren - "To finish first, you must first finish."

Drivers
1. Schumacher - Only "good" moments was 3rd in Valencia and pole in Monaco which was ruined by one of his many stupid incidents the race before.
2. Webber - Remember when he was a title contender?
3. Perez - Crap ever since he was announced for McLaren.

Other
1. Indian Grand Prix - *Yawn*
2. Gearbox penalties - What's the point?
3. Korean GP Marshalls

Overall
1. Schumacher
2. Mercedes
3. Indian Grand Prix

[girry]

oookay.... let's see about it.

Teams:

2. Mercedes GP - Clear ROTY. Except for that win, which they long looked for and finally got....that's why just P2.
3. Caterham - would have been vice-ROTY if not for the last race and Petrov.
Therefore....
1. Toro Rosso - Bad management and decisions...anonymous......still boring. My ROTY award therefore goes to the third-worst team of the season.

Honorary mentions to the obvious candidates at McLaren and Marussia.

Drivers:

1. Romain Grosjean - here's one man who instead clinched his ROTY award in the last race. He showed us he is a damned quick driver - that's exactly why being first driver ever who deserves comparison to the legendary Andrea de Cesaris is the most ROTY worthy thing this season; and he can count himself very very very lucky for getting 'a third chance' next season.
2. Heikki Kovalainen - may be harsh for him, but he finally seemed to lose his motivation this season --> started to lose vs Petrov --> team turned around on him. Became anonymous and lost his seat. Most underperforming of the bottom 6 drivers.
3. Bruno Senna - You weren't expected to shine through the whole year. But you were expected to at least give us flashes....oh, you didn't. Pastor did instead. Consistently clumsy, slow.

Honorary mentions to the downhill-going guys named Checo Pérez, Paul di Resta, Nico Rosberg, Pedro de la Rosa and Mark Webber - doing a Massa is more respectable imo than let yourself have such a slump in form.
Other mentions go to Kamui Kobayashi - still quick, but accidents that were so very rare for him before came in this season in numbers too many. Jenson Button - at least managed to correct his downhill slide in time. JEV and Ricciardo - didn't really capitalize on the few opportunities. And finally Pastor Maldonado - threw away so many chances.

[Aerospeed]

I know this won't be a ROTY nomination (MERCEDESWINSLOL) but where the bathplug can I get the season review DVD?

[Ed24]

Teams;

3. HRT
2. Caterham
1. Mercedes

Drivers;

3. Karthikeyan - Continued all year to get in the way
2. Senna - Had a couple of excellent weekends but far too many where he did absolutely nothing
ROTY. Grosjean - What a wasted opportunity considering his speed... Maybe the 2nd Enstone seat is cursed - look at Piquet Jr, Petrov and now Grosjean! Total damage bill for those three?

[DOSBoot]

ROTY:
1. Mercedes
2. Senna
3. Shumacher

Teams:
1. Mercedes
2. Caterham
3. HRT

Drivers:
1. Senna
2. Shumacher
3. Pic

[Salamander]

Drivers:
3. Pic

What. Did you not see him in Brazil?

[Benetton]

1. Mercedes GP - Started the year being in the thick of the title fight but after Monaco everything went slowly downhill from there. They actually finished the season with the worst car excluding Caterham, Marussia and HRT.

2. Heikki Kovalainen - As a Finn this really pains me to write. Heikki started the year decently, having the edge of Petrov. But come the latter part of the season and Vitaly started to out-qualify Heikki on regular basis. Also, in the hour of need for Caterham, Vitaly was there and Heikki wasn't. Kovalainen has also shown stubborness in interviews during the latter part of the season. Comments like, "I won't get any sponsors" shows much. Meanwhile, Kobayashi is fighting for sponsors while having had a better season and still being in the same situation as Heikki.

3. Paul di Resta - Apart from his drives in Bahrain, Monaco and Singapore I can't remember him doing anything special. He had the edge of Hulkenberg at the beginning of the season but his form seemed only to decline after the first set of fly aways (with the exception of aforementioned Singapore GP). Hulkenberg completely dominated Paul by the end of the season and I even nominated him many times to be the DBTMOTR. Plus, he seems to have a strained relationship with his engineers and the team in general. His personality seems to be that of a douche, read from various sources.

HM

Indian Grand Prix - While never say never as we saw with Valencia this year, I highly doubt we can ever have a decent dry race on this track.

Sergio Perez' season after the Italian GP. He scored 1 pt after signing for McLaren. His mind was not there at all.

Romain Grosjean - He did enough to not get in the top three. However, I really question his driving. His Suzuka incident with Webber was the Reject moment of the year for me. He also showed that when it starts to rain, he has no ability more or less. His driving style is not usual, as Brundle has pointed out on numerous occasions.

[CarlosFerreira]

A part of me wants to give this to Eric Boulier. Every other week he'd be out there, pushing the journalists to write how Lotus is going to win races and the championship, while Lopez is doing his best to find a suck... investor to take over.

But Grosnado deserve this. Between them, they brought the driving standards down a notch. They both deserve it - and they deserve being there next year to prove me wrong.

[James1978]

Drivers:

1. Di Resta
2. Webber
3. Senna

Teams:

1. Merc
2. Mclaren
3. Caterham (HOW lucky were they to keep 10th?)

[DOSBoot]

Drivers:
3. Pic

What. Did you not see him in Brazil?

Yes, but where was he for the rest of the season?

[TheBigJ]

This is so hard, so many contenders....

Overall:
1.McLaren : had the best car by about a second at the start of the season, but team unprofessionalism and both drivers being inconsistent mean they are nowhere with 2 races left. Add to the fact they haven't won a constructors for a good ten years or more now AND they've managed to alienate Ramilton (who is the second best pound for pound driver after Teflonso IMHO) AND they continue to look like imbeciles making rookie mistakes. They deserve the ROTY title IMO, but I doubt they'll get it.
2. Caterham : dire performances all round really. Started the season wishing to finally score a point, maybe beat the Torro Rossos (who have been dismally slow) regularly. Ending it hoping they'll manage to get lucky and score a 12th place to beat Marussia. They were the great hope of all the new teams, now they've just confirmed themselves as rejects.
3. Team owners : Take your pick...unbelievable pricks (Horner), criminals (Mallya, Bahar), disinterested billionaires (Fernandes, Sauber), useless (Haug-Brawn, Domenicali), out of their depth (Whitmarsh) and yet have no character whatsoever. Bring back Colin Kolles and Ron Dennis. There, I said it.

Drivers:
1. Karthikeyan : This man is a waste of an F1 drive and has been since he entered one. He should be made honouray reject.
2. Grosjean : He's keeping the mechanics busy, that's for sure.
3. Bruno Da Silva: After these performances, I don't see how he adopted the Senna brand on merit....

Teams:
1. Caterham
2. Torro Rosso
3. Mercedes

Right after the past two races, I feel I may have been harsh, so here goes for a revised version...


Overall:
1.Mercedes : dismal pace at the end of the season, and if it wasn't for the Sauber collapse they would've been 6th in the constructors, just not good enough. Drivers were hardly sparkling too...
2. Senna: What a failure. Mediocre pace and little race acumen. Several accidents, and generally clueless in a decent Williams car.
3. Torro Rosso : Nowhere near the required pace to evaluate these so called future superstars (Vettel no.2s). Where have 2008 Torro Rosso gone.

Drivers:
1. Senna: Takes the top prize. Just not F1 standard. Shame.
2. Grosjean : He's keeping the mechanics busy, that's for sure.
3. Karthikeyan : Deletraz-esque performances on occasions. At least he annoyed Vettel in the process...

Teams:
1. Mercedes
2. Torro Rosso
3. McLaren

[nigellamansell]

My ROTY goes to whoever in Williams thought it was a good idea to get rid of Rubens...he would have scored a boatload of points in this car.

[Dj_bereta]

After the end of the season, I'm forced to update my ROTR:

3 - Paul Di Resta: He was completely off pace in the 2nd half of the championship and was completely destroyed by the hulk. He whined because he didnt get a better seat, but looking your recent result, he was lucky to be in FI.

2 - Mark Webber: Almost the same case of Di Resta. He had a good first half of the season, with 2 victories, but since Silvestone, downhill. Bad starts, some crashes and mistakes hurted Mark's run for the championship. He needs to up the game, like Massa did.

1 - Mercedes GP: Nothing more to say.

[Cynon]

Drivers:

1. Michael Schumacher -- Oh my. He was embarrassing. At least everyone knew Karthikeyan was going to be a disaster before the season started. Grosjean's crashes and mistakes made sense to me because he is relatively inexperienced, but Schumacher really should have known better than to make half the stupid errors he made... besides, the only thing missing for Schumi is being the first multiple-world-champion to have gotten Reject of the Year!

2. Narain Karthikeyan -- The guy was all over the place sometimes... he's a shoe-in for the Reject Podium, because even though no sane person expected him to be good, he was still pretty crap. See you in IndyCar ... probably at the back, too!

3. Kovalainen -- Petrov handed his ass to him when it mattered, despite the team's apparent love affair with him. He wasn't the driver Caterham needed. Please get out of F1 and don't come back.

Missed the cut:
RMN GRJN -- Since he's not Japanese, he's not liked for some reason. He is clearly fast and when he wasn't crashing he was putting up some big results... reminds me a bit like Paul Tracy only not as willing to fight people who approach him and not ridiculously faster than everyone else. He's got the speed, but not the discipline for top-level single seaters.
Mark Webber -- Mark, there's a good reason why you are Vettel's #2 driver...
Paul di Resta -- You might be Dario Franchitti's cousin, but it's clear that you're NOT anywhere near as good as Dario is.

Teams:

1. Mercedes -- This is the same pack of piddling fools who ran that craptastic Honda team in 2007 and 2008 and who nearly cost Button his title despite having a car that had twice the development time of anyone else. Is it a surprise that they blew it again? Frankly, no, but they shouldn't be in Caterham territory unless Caterham suddenly gains 2 seconds.

2. Toro Rosso -- This really should be a GP2 team. I hate their livery, it reminds me of ... ... the less pleasant parts of female life. Let's say that much.

3. McLaren --
Now this is a story all about how
My car exploded with a POW!
And even though F1 Points go back to ten
I'll tell you about a terrible season for McLaren!

Yes, that is to the tune of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

[Priceless]

ROTY will be a tough one, as has been said before nothing really stood out in terms of rejectfulness... but anyway here goes.

Drivers:
3rd: Bruno Senna - Had some bright moments, but his performances were a bit erratic and he tended to be demolished by Maldonado on qualifying, making his races always an uphill struggle. I'd still keep him over Bottas, but the kind of performance he showed this year definitely doesn't help his cause.
2nd: Heikki Kovalainen - Had a sharp decline in form from some point in the season on. I for one had high expectations of him after where he was taking Caterham, only to have them turn into frustration.
1st: Romain Grosjean - The most erratic performance on the grid. Many, many crashes on the 1st lap - and giraurd's comparison is spot on, Grrrjnnn is the "Andrea de Crasharis of modern-day F1".

Dishonorable mentions, in no particular order:
Mark Webber - A very definite #2, and for reasons he showed on track. Massa and Button recovered from their slumps in performance, he didn't - he's got his contract for next year, but definitely must up his game.
Paul di Resta - Thrashed by The Hülk in the later part of the season. The best example was this last race, where we had Paul trundling around while Hülkenberg was leading the race, right there with the McLarens.
Nico Rosberg - Disappeared after that win in the beginning of the season.
Michael Schumacher - Shown flashes of his former brilliance but wasn't good overall, having some moments that would be expected of a rookie but were absolutely embarrassing for a 7-time World Champion.
Pastor Maldonado - Williams could possibly have been 5th or 6th in the WCC with the points opportunities he threw away. At least it looks like he has learned the lesson. Not nominating him because no one would dare to after that win.

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Teams:
3rd: Toro Rosso - Didn't quite have the performance to be the place for nurturing the talents of future superstars, like in 2008 when Vettel (who is now triple World Champion) won a race for them.
2nd: Caterham F1 - With their getting Renault engines, KERS and Red Bull gearboxes I thought they had the package that would finally enable them to fight with the midfield, but my expectations were frustrated. I think it was the same for many people here.
1st: Mercedes AMG - More like "Mercedes OMG!" I'd say. Had a horrid second part of this season, contributing to the further embarrassment of Michael Schumacher and for the complete anonymity of Nico Rosberg. Let's just hope bringing Lewis Hamilton in turns the fortunes of the team for the better, and that they can develop a competitive car. Apart from Rosberg's win early on, this year was one to forget.

[Ide]

I'm not sure this is completely fair in other people's opinions - but here I go anyway.

I would posture that one candidate for ROTY is... "The Talent of the Future"

This is looking at the younger guys who've come into F1 in the past couple of seasons. For a start, there haven't been that many. And this season hasn't particularly convinced me that there is anyone ready to take over the mantle quite yet.

Hulkenberg - probably the best performing lesser experienced driver over this season. However, he was still fairly anonymous at the start of the season, and he's still making too many mistakes. He's still safe, though.

di Resta - Wow, hasn't his stock taken a hit this season? I can't think of one stellar drive he's had this year. He seems to still get himself caught up in silly little incidents (not Grosjean/Maldonado standard, mind you) and as a result he's really fallen off the radar.

Perez - Don't get me wrong, he has talent. But again, more often than not, he's getting himself into situations which he's struggling to get out of. If the season ended after Monza, I wouldn't be discussing him. If the season was from Singapore onwards, he'd be a contender for ROTY outright! Still, maybe he'll mature at McLaren.

Kobayashi - as much as it pains me to say it, even as my favourite driver on the current grid... he just hasn't upped his game. Kamui has had some bad luck this season, and since he has an extra season over the others mentioned in this list, his edge in maturity is definitely obvious. But he just needs to put in a drive that really gets you to sit up and take notice. Suzuka was part of the way there, and hopefully he gets another chance to prove himself.

Maldonado - Again, he's got the speed - but the attitude is still a problem. He'll never be a top driver as long as he's pulling stunts like he did on Perez at Monaco. On the flip side, lately he's calmed down - but seems to have lost the speed that goes with it.

Senna - Qualifying is really a bugbear of his. Everytime he looked like he'd finally got it sorted, he'd then lose Q1 pace in Q2. And that affected his races. Bruno's a nice guy, and he seems more level-headed than some of the others - but he just hasn't got the speed.

Gggrrsssjjjnnn - He's been discussed to death already. Just calm down, Romain!

JEV and Ricciardo - Sufferers of di Resta disease. The car hasn't been as quick as some of the others in the midfield... but bar Dan's 6th place on the grid in Bahrain - nothing to make you go "Wow!"

(Pic - Though he seems to have a measure of Glock, I can't really place him with the Marussia being as slow as it is. I also don't know how demotivated Timo is, but that shouldn't reflect on Charles. He's exempt from this.)

The talent below F1 - Bottas is a capable driver, but I can't see him making much of an impression next year. Gutierrez? Well, we'll have to wait and see. But it seems to me that the talent pool has really dried up as of late. GP2 and FR3.5 seem to be filled with drivers on second or third chances. Just where is this going to leave us for the future of the sport?

Maybe, just maybe, my views on young talent has been altered in the past few seasons with Hamilton and Vettel coming in and making a splash straight away. But I'm yet to be convinced any of these guys are the real deal.

[Salamander]

The talent below F1 - Bottas is a capable driver, but I can't see him making much of an impression next year. Gutierrez? Well, we'll have to wait and see. But it seems to me that the talent pool has really dried up as of late. GP2 and FR3.5 seem to be filled with drivers on second or third chances. Just where is this going to leave us for the future of the sport?

There's still Antonio Felix da Costa and Robin Frijns. And Robert Wickens, if anyone will bother to give him a chance.

[pi314159]

The talent below F1 - Bottas is a capable driver, but I can't see him making much of an impression next year. Gutierrez? Well, we'll have to wait and see. But it seems to me that the talent pool has really dried up as of late. GP2 and FR3.5 seem to be filled with drivers on second or third chances. Just where is this going to leave us for the future of the sport?

There's still Antonio Felix da Costa and Robin Frijns. And Robert Wickens, if anyone will bother to give him a chance.

Yes, da Costa and Frijns are the most promising talents at the moment. Poor Wickens ended up driving in DTM, and I can only think of two drivers who made the step into F1 from DTM (di Resta and Albers)

[Ide]

The talent below F1 - Bottas is a capable driver, but I can't see him making much of an impression next year. Gutierrez? Well, we'll have to wait and see. But it seems to me that the talent pool has really dried up as of late. GP2 and FR3.5 seem to be filled with drivers on second or third chances. Just where is this going to leave us for the future of the sport?

There's still Antonio Felix da Costa and Robin Frijns. And Robert Wickens, if anyone will bother to give him a chance.

Yes, da Costa and Frijns are the most promising talents at the moment. Poor Wickens ended up driving in DTM, and I can only think of two drivers who made the step into F1 from DTM (di Resta and Albers)

I haven't really seen much of da Costa though he seems very quick from what I can gather.

Frijns is an interesting one - now he's got the Sauber test drive I think he might work his way into F1. I was worried that the clash with Bianchi was going to harm his reputation but I think Bianchi was just having a good moan.

I didn't say there was no talent in the lower formulae - but I can't see a lot moving through at the moment

[Aerospeed]

Well, that 11th place might have demoted Caterham's ROTY for being rubbish... I dunno, stay tuned

I might put them in second anyways. Three years, and Brazil 2012 was the closest they ever got to scoring a point.

[TomWazzleshaw]

There's still Antonio Felix da Costa and Robin Frijns. And Robert Wickens, if anyone will bother to give him a chance.

Yes, da Costa and Frijns are the most promising talents at the moment. Poor Wickens ended up driving in DTM, and I can only think of two drivers who made the step into F1 from DTM (di Resta and Albers)

I haven't really seen much of da Costa though he seems very quick from what I can gather.

Frijns is an interesting one - now he's got the Sauber test drive I think he might work his way into F1. I was worried that the clash with Bianchi was going to harm his reputation but I think Bianchi was just having a good moan.

I didn't say there was no talent in the lower formulae - but I can't see a lot moving through at the moment

Da Costa jumped into an FR3.5 car after about three rounds and proceeded to make the entire field look silly (which include one Jules Bianchi who Ferrari rate far higher than he deserves to be). Hell, if there one more round in this year's championship, da Costa would have beaten the lot of them to the title.

[Ferrarist]

Poor Wickens ended up driving in DTM, and I can only think of two drivers who made the step into F1 from DTM (di Resta and Albers)

Biggest injustice ever! And one more reason to think of Doktor Marko as a tosser. Remember, Red Ox Urine threw Wickens out of their junior programme, just because he got 2nd place in Formula Two! Too bad the Helmut Marko hate thread wasn't received pretty well...

[TomWazzleshaw]

Poor Wickens ended up driving in DTM, and I can only think of two drivers who made the step into F1 from DTM (di Resta and Albers)

Biggest injustice ever! And one more reason to think of Doktor Marko as a tosser. Remember, Red Ox Urine threw Wickens out of their junior programme, just because he got 2nd place in Formula Two! Too bad the Helmut Marko hate thread wasn't received pretty well...

Ah yes, Robby Wickens. It's an absolute travesty that he hasn't been at least seriously considered for an F1 drive if not given one at some point as it's clear the kid's got what it takes to make it. Hell, he was busy making most of the A1 GP field look silly at the age of 18 and absolutely made a mockery of pretty much anything the mayor of Hinchtown ever achieved for A1 Team Canada. Speaking of A1 GP, Filipe Albuquerque is another name that sticks out in my mind of someone who has been shafted by the system and is now stuck in the career hellhole that is DTM.