Reject of the Race - USA 2023

[Londoner]

Post your choices for ROTR!

[RAK]

1) Daniel Ricciardo: Pinned to the back while his teammate scored a point.

2) Charles Leclerc: I'm not going to fault him for failing to pick up yet another win from a pole position when Verstappen has proven the Red Bull's race pace, but falling behind his teammate into the middle of the points-scoring positions is a bit ignominous.

Dishonourable Mentions: Haas, Alfa Romeo

[Enforcer]

Leclerc / Leclerc's strategist: Not sure who's fault it was, but that was miserable.

[Ducktanian]

One Stop Strategies - This is pretty much a catch all for Ferrari's straight 1-stop strategy that just didn't work combined with Ricciardo and Lewis staying out too long and losing a ton of time, almost as if they wanted to try a 1-stop but couldn't make the tyres last.

Leclerc - :leclerc: (EDIT: being disqualified is just the icing on the cake really)

[rachel1990]

1. Anyone who tried a 1 stop. Yeah that didn't work did it. Just slow and the idea probably robbed HRH of a win

2. The Sprint. God that was just painful to watch. At least the actual race was so much better.

Hm Daniel Ricciardo. Cannot believe he might actually replace Perez next season. Really doesn't deserve it.

[dr-baker]

Hm Daniel Ricciardo. Cannot believe he might actually replace Perez next season. Really doesn't deserve it.

Lawson has been the best driver in that Alpha Tauri this year. No prior F1 racing experience, and was a mid-season replacement (usually a major disadvantage) yet is the only one of the three in that particular car to have scored any points at all. And he had done the fewest races of the lot...

[IceG]

(1) Checo whining on and trying to get Russell penalised

(2) The Aston Martin upgrade package - what has really happened there?

[dj_vicious]

Is it possible that we had a relatively eventful race but no reject? Feel free to send the flaming papayas if I'm out of line here, but I didn't see any truly rejectful performances today. I agree with all the above nominations, but I can't think of any of my own, and I don't feel strongly enough to piggyback of all of yours. Perhaps Leclerc's one stop strategy was the most rejectctful thing of the race, but even still it is just a gamble that didn't pay off.

So, if the rules allow, I nominate NO ONE for ROTR this time around.

[Wallio]

To be fair to Danny Ric, there is video of the Alpha Tauri crew removing chunks of Stroll's car post contact during a pit stop.

I would nominate Stroll if he actually did go to the grid despite having a pit lane start (how does one forget something like that?) Or Aston Martin in general. Like Lando said, it seems every upgrade has made them worse.

[Batty]

Lewis and Charles and their teams - Disqualification for the plank.

This means that Lewis loses a lot of ground to Checo for P2 and now Charles has been passed by Norris in the standings and is only 8 points behind Russell.

[Bleu]

I will nominate those booing fans during the podium ceremony.

[sswishbone]

1) Stewards - really poor consistency on infringements for track limits all weekend. Potentially green lighted a "take whatever line you want at turn one approach." Does no one remember Alonso's deliberate off-track at Sochi?

2) Martin Brundle - for doubling down on his pathetic comments about driver complaints at Qatar

[dr-baker]

Is it possible that we had a relatively eventful race but no reject? Feel free to send the flaming papayas if I'm out of line here, but I didn't see any truly rejectful performances today. I agree with all the above nominations, but I can't think of any of my own, and I don't feel strongly enough to piggyback of all of yours. Perhaps Leclerc's one stop strategy was the most rejectctful thing of the race, but even still it is just a gamble that didn't pay off.

So, if the rules allow, I nominate NO ONE for ROTR this time around.

I was thinking this until the double DSQs for plank wear.

And the podium booing was uncalled for.

[Hermann95]

Has to be Lewis and Charles for getting DSQed due to blank wear.

[Meatwad]

Plank wear: Also got Leclerc disqualified, but Hamilton's case is particularly frustrating. One of the closest challenges Verstappen has had this year (even if it was after screwing up qualifying and having car problems), only for the car to turn out illegal. At least Max managed to stay ahead on track, another round of VERSTAPPENWINSLOL due to disqualifications of all things would have been especially awful in this season.

[Alextrax52]

For once ROTR is actually tougher to pick than IIDOTR

1: The Sprint race: This format only looks half decent when it’s either raining or it’s a short track like Austria or Brazil. Whose idea was it to pick a track like Austin for a Sprint race? It was dull, tedious and a perfect reminder that it’s a complete waste of time. Not to mention it took all jeopardy out of Sunday predictions because we knew which cars were fastest. Either make the Sprint a reverse grid or just bin it altogether

2: Aston Martin upgrades: Each one seems to make Aston go slower resulting in the nadir that was both cars getting knocked out in Q1 this weekend. Alonso could genuinely fade to 6th or 7th in the championship and that seems unthinkable given he looked nailed on for 3rd at the start of the year.

HM: Mercedes and Ferrari: Questionable strategy choices ended up being the least of their problems. At least Mercedes ditched the one stopper but Ferrari being Ferrari chose to keep Leclerc on it. And then of course both teams lose a car to disqualification afterwards.

[James1978]

The two planks but it also begs the question of how many others may have been illegal too but weren't checked?

HM to anyone nominating the two drivers - it was out of their control even if they may have profited from performance.

[mario]

The two planks but it also begs the question of how many others may have been illegal too but weren't checked?

HM to anyone nominating the two drivers - it was out of their control even if they may have profited from performance.

According to the FIA's records "A physical floor and a plank wear inspection was carried out on car numbers 01, 16, 44 and 04" - i.e. only Norris, Verstappen, Leclerc and Hamilton had their cars inspected for floor wear.

Because the FIA never checked the floor of the other cars, it therefore means that we don't actually know whether any of the thirteen other cars that finished had a legal floor or not.

[Rob Dylan]

A couple of sparsely chosen candidates for this award - I tried to go with the general feeling that I got from the responses, and went with that. You all have 48 hours to get voting for your Reject of the Race candidate

[Londoner]

Another day, another set of GPR Awards