Reject of the Race - Abby Dhaby 2015

[Miguel98]

Post your nominations!

[tommykl]

Sauber - slow all race long, spent the entire time getting passed, outpaced by Jenson Button...

Lewis Hamilton - yes, he came second, but blew a chance at the win making the decision to stay out even though there was no way it was ever going to work.

And my ROTR nomination:
Max Verstappen - got out-Maxed by Carlos Sainz, spent most his race failing to pass and whinging into the radio when anyone had the audactity to defend his position. Finished off with ignoring blue flags.

[good_Ralf]

The race - Again, a pretty mediocre event, I get the feeling we'll be seeing more of this in 2016 and 2017 regarding the effects of the new regs.
So once again Mercedes and Ferrari were completely outchallenged, we had meaningless overtaking and just one retirement. Plus Mercedes did nothing interesting despite there being no pressure, even if they let Lewis chose his tyres for the final stint this time. And of course, this was on what is arguably F1's worst circuit to boot.

Max Verstappen - The marginally disappointing Q2 elimination was just the start. Despite more impressive moves, his pace was poor compared to Sainz, he made a major mistake that enforced an extra stop, he was lapped by the leaders when Sainz wasn't and finally suffered a penalty for ignoring blue flags.
This was the kind of mistake-laden race we tend to expect from a typical rookie driver, not Max. I hope he doesn't drive like this thoughout next year, because it's possible he will, at this rate,

Williams - On a track where they were easily the 2nd fastest team last year, here they were lodged in the midfield, and yet again they made a crucial error in the pits with Bottas. I kind of hope they have a massive form slump for '16, Williams deserve it, they are showing absolutely no signs of moving forward.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

Williams and Verstappen are my nominations for reasons already stated by the gentleman above.

[Ataxia]

This was the kind of mistake-laden race we tend to expect from a typical rookie driver, not Max. I hope he doesn't drive like this thoughout next year, because it's possible he will, at this rate,

Wow, way to jump to conclusions. First off, yeah, I agree that Verstappen didn't have a particularly great day, and probably warrants a few ROTR nominations. However, your statement is incredibly melodramatic. Everyone has an off-day, that's life. You cannot expect a performance 100% of the time; sure it's surprising that Verstappen's had a day like today (I don't entirely think the Button incident was completely his fault, I think it's six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other) but the blue flags are pretty slam dunk.

But you're completely jumping the gun:

"I hope he doesn't drive like this thoughout next year, because it's possible he will, at this rate"

On what basis? Of the race today? You're using one event as a basis for an extrapolation of future results? Come on. He's had a fantastic end to the season, and this is just one blot in the copybook. "At this rate" would suggest he's been throwing it away for the last few races...don't entirely think he's been doing that.

[Salamander]

Williams. They finished 2nd and 3rd here last year, and didn't even look close to finishing in the top 6 today.

[Miguel98]

Sauber - No where all weekend long. Remind how they were 3rd after Melbourne?
Fernando Alonso - That was.. Not Alonso. That was something else.
The 44's - THEY WE'RE bathplug EVERYWHERE.

But the award must go to...
Williams - Perfect summary of what Williams we're this year.

[Dj_bereta]

Brazilian main commentator Galvão Bueno: People here know Galvão Bueno says a lot of BS during the race coverage, but saying "Bernie Ecclestone is always right. The 83 years old man is one step ahead of everyone" is another level. Its pretty clear Bernie is one of the main responsible of F1 crisis. Remember: COTA is menaced because the huge price to host a Grand Prix. German Grand Prix was cancelled in this year, also.

Williams: Looks like 2016 is going to be a tough year for the team. The middle field times is back.

But my ROTR is:

Fernando Alonso: The first corner crash was totally his fault, since he squeezed Nasr and then smashed Maldonado, ending his race. He also wanted to withdraw from the race just because he was miles behind the next car. A forgettable end to a forgettable year.

[WeirdKerr]

Williams pit stop.... what the bathplug!!!!

[mario]

Lewis Hamilton - yes, he came second, but blew a chance at the win making the decision to stay out even though there was no way it was ever going to work.

I thought that I heard him say over the radio "How long do you guys want me to keep this up?", suggesting that it was the engineers on the pit wall who instructed him to stay out.

It played out as a bit of a strange strategy - the only sense in running that long was to use the super soft tyre for the final stint, but it is as if Mercedes don't want to put their drivers onto different compounds for a final stint. Yes, they claimed that Hamilton chose the soft tyre, but I am not entirely convinced - they said the same about Rosberg in the Hungarian GP when the radio chatter there seemed to suggest that he wanted the super soft tyre.

As others have said, Williams disappointed heavily this weekend - lacklustre in qualifying, poor pace in the race (Massa almost lost 8th place to Grosjean on the final lap) and clumsy mistakes in the pit lane that they shouldn't have made. I know they have fairly limited resources compared to their rivals, but the way they've tailed off this season is a bit worrying.

However, I am inclined to say that Alonso, and the way that McLaren have behaved around him this weekend, takes the award. We had the weird situation where Ron Dennis was effectively briefing against Alonso in the press by making comments about a sabbatical, followed by contradictory messages in the press about whether he would or wouldn't have a sabbatical, all of which was capped off with an uncharacteristically silly first corner mistake and that peculiar threat to retire the car, only to then finish the race anyway.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

Brazilian main commentator Galvão Bueno: People here know Galvão Bueno says a lot of BS during the race coverage, but saying "Bernie Ecclestone is always right. The 83 years old man is one step ahead of everyone" is another level. Its pretty clear Bernie is one of the main responsible of F1 crisis. Remember: COTA is menaced because the huge price to host a Grand Prix. German Grand Prix was cancelled in this year...

Yeah, what utter nonsense. Bernie's 85, not 83!

[Fetzie]

It played out as a bit of a strange strategy - the only sense in running that long was to use the super soft tyre for the final stint, but it is as if Mercedes don't want to put their drivers onto different compounds for a final stint. Yes, they claimed that Hamilton chose the soft tyre, but I am not entirely convinced - they said the same about Rosberg in the Hungarian GP when the radio chatter there seemed to suggest that he wanted the super soft tyre.

Yeah, if you pit with 13 laps to go, there is absolutely no reason to go for the prime tyre. I do not believe that Lewis chose to use a tyre that is 1 second a lap slower, when he needed to pick up at least 2 seconds per lap to have time to set up an overtake. If he had the option tyre, Lewis would have caught up with a few laps to go.

So I'll nominate Toto Wolff for his refusal to once again give us a race at the end.

Honourable mention for Williams, for that unsafe release and for general pootling around in the middle of the pack.

[AxelP800]

Williams pitwall: "Okay we'll keep you updated with the gap of cars pitting."

Williams lightman: "Yeah, yeah, leave me alone, I know what I'm doing! Green go go Valtteri!"

Whammo

WL: "...................."

WP: "Ehmm, we want you to explain."

Bottas: "F*cking idiot. What a f*cking idiot! (towards the WL, Montoya 200x style)"

ROTR to whoever switched the light to green

[Salamander]

It played out as a bit of a strange strategy - the only sense in running that long was to use the super soft tyre for the final stint, but it is as if Mercedes don't want to put their drivers onto different compounds for a final stint. Yes, they claimed that Hamilton chose the soft tyre, but I am not entirely convinced - they said the same about Rosberg in the Hungarian GP when the radio chatter there seemed to suggest that he wanted the super soft tyre.

Yeah, if you pit with 13 laps to go, there is absolutely no reason to go for the prime tyre. I do not believe that Lewis chose to use a tyre that is 1 second a lap slower, when he needed to pick up at least 2 seconds per lap to have time to set up an overtake. If he had the option tyre, Lewis would have caught up with a few laps to go.

So I'll nominate Toto Wolff for his refusal to once again give us a race at the end.

Honourable mention for Williams, for that unsafe release and for general pootling around in the middle of the pack.

Wolff mentioned post race that the best set of options that Hamilton had remaining had like 8 or 9 laps on them.

[Spectoremg]

Sauber - Lived up to pre-season predictions - nowhere.
Williams - Nowhere.

HM - Hamilton's last stint tyre allocation.

[Zergon]

I have to give this one to Williams. Disappointing weekend all around and of course, that pit lane error.

[IceG]

Driver skill and mechanical reliability!

There were only two crashes; one during the start (and i thought Alonso was harshly treated) and one due to pit crew error. I think there was one (or maybe two) short yellow flag periods.

There was not one mechanical failure at the end of a season when many components must have been near end of life.

This just shows that the cars and drivers are not being pushed to their limits - and that is what is wrong with the formula now.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

This just shows that the cars and drivers are not being pushed to their limits - and that is what is wrong with the formula now.

Yeah, it's not like preserving the car has ever been an important aspect of motor racing

[Rob Dylan]

Max Verstappen - that was too far, young man! Time out!

Honourable mention to the dominant three-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who for an invincible superhuman, had a very VERY mediocre weekend.

[Peteroli34]

Williams- Apart from the unsave release did they actually do anything in this Grand Prix

Sauber - beaten by a Mclaren what more can i say

[DemocalypseNow]

Finding it hard to look past Williams today. Unsafe release cost Bottas a tilt at 4th in the WDC, and the sister car fared little better.

[mario]

It played out as a bit of a strange strategy - the only sense in running that long was to use the super soft tyre for the final stint, but it is as if Mercedes don't want to put their drivers onto different compounds for a final stint. Yes, they claimed that Hamilton chose the soft tyre, but I am not entirely convinced - they said the same about Rosberg in the Hungarian GP when the radio chatter there seemed to suggest that he wanted the super soft tyre.

Yeah, if you pit with 13 laps to go, there is absolutely no reason to go for the prime tyre. I do not believe that Lewis chose to use a tyre that is 1 second a lap slower, when he needed to pick up at least 2 seconds per lap to have time to set up an overtake. If he had the option tyre, Lewis would have caught up with a few laps to go.

So I'll nominate Toto Wolff for his refusal to once again give us a race at the end.

Honourable mention for Williams, for that unsafe release and for general pootling around in the middle of the pack.

Wolff mentioned post race that the best set of options that Hamilton had remaining had like 8 or 9 laps on them.

It is true that the tyres might not have lasted for the length of the stint, though most of the other drivers who used super soft tyres in that stint seem to have been able to run between 11-15 laps on them.

It just seems like a very strange way to have run that final stint - I can't see what benefit there was on leaving him out when he was losing so much time, to the point where it was beginning to expose Hamilton to Raikkonen as well (Raikkonen's pace at that point in time was quite similar to Rosberg, so he was gaining on Hamilton at around a second a lap and had closed to 4 seconds away from him after Hamilton's pit stop).

If you are looking at the strategies, the most conservative option would have been to call Hamilton in shortly after Rosberg's stop at a time when he could have easily stopped and made it back out a long way ahead of Raikkonen. Alternatively, if you wanted to allow Hamilton to try something a bit riskier, then you would have switched him to the super soft tyres and allowed him to attack - if his tyres dropped off in the final laps, then he should at least have been able to build enough of a gap over Raikkonen at the start of the stint to manage it.

Either way might have worked, but going for an option that was a halfway house just looks like a sub optimal solution - it was a situation that didn't seek to either take advantage of the greater longevity of the soft tyres or to take advantage of the pace advantage given by the super soft tyres.

Finding it hard to look past Williams today. Unsafe release cost Bottas a tilt at 4th in the WDC, and the sister car fared little better.

Even without the unsafe release, I just can't see how Bottas could have beaten Kimi - neither Williams driver had any real answer to Ferrari's raw pace in that race, and it looked like neither driver really had that much confidence in the car to begin with (it was picked up in the commentary that Bottas was having to brake much earlier than his rivals and, as has been the case in a number of recent races, was suffering from rear traction issues).

Driver skill and mechanical reliability!

There were only two crashes; one during the start (and i thought Alonso was harshly treated) and one due to pit crew error. I think there was one (or maybe two) short yellow flag periods.

There was not one mechanical failure at the end of a season when many components must have been near end of life.

This just shows that the cars and drivers are not being pushed to their limits - and that is what is wrong with the formula now.

It's not entirely unique though - after all, we had races in 2005 and 2011 where there were not even a single retirement (and in 2005 we saw the entire field finish the Italian GP when Monza is considered to be one of the hardest races on engine components).

I wouldn't say it is reflective of drivers not pushing as much of it being reflective of the fact that the grid spread itself out relatively rapidly after the opening laps - when you are, say, 10s clear of your nearest rival and under no real pressure, you're unlikely to make a mistake and crash as a result.

[Aguaman]

Williams pit stop.... what the bathplug!!!!

This and only this. It was so out of the blue and reject worthy. Plus Button didn't affected which made it funnier.

[More_Blue_Flags]

Williams. Williams dropping the ball in the pits or with a poor tactical call has proven to be a pretty safe ROTR bet this year, and this weekend was no exception.

[CoopsII]

Just Williams.

[UncreativeUsername37]

Verstappen tried by generally having a useless race and then ignoring blue flags, but Williams were slow and made a release so unsafe it actually resulted in damage. Basically the same thing, generally being pretty bad with one really bad moment, but a bit worse.

[DanielPT]

I will also go with Williams in what was a poor weekend all around compounded by that pit-stop mistake. For a second nomination I will go with something I didn't see mentioned but thought deserving. When Hamilton gained on Rosberg and was getting incredibly close, even if we all knew Mercedes would prevent a fight, it was a thing worth showing on TV. It didn't. The TV director is then the nomination.

[DemocalypseNow]

Finding it hard to look past Williams today. Unsafe release cost Bottas a tilt at 4th in the WDC, and the sister car fared little better.

Even without the unsafe release, I just can't see how Bottas could have beaten Kimi - neither Williams driver had any real answer to Ferrari's raw pace in that race, and it looked like neither driver really had that much confidence in the car to begin with (it was picked up in the commentary that Bottas was having to brake much earlier than his rivals and, as has been the case in a number of recent races, was suffering from rear traction issues).

Hence the use of the phrase "a tilt at" - realistically they weren't even in the same postcode at peak performance this weekend, but Williams weren't even able to put up something resembling a valiant effort against the odds. Even if the car wasn't quite there, that unsafe release was an emphatic own goal.

[DOSBoot]

1. Williams: Threw away a potentially good result this weekend.

2. Verstappen: Was trying a bit to hard.

Dishonorable Mentions:

Sauber: Very slow.