Re: Reject of the Race - Saudi Arabia 2024

[Har1MAS1415]

1. Alpine, simple as.

2. The Christian Horner scandal

DHM: Everyone except Max!

[Londoner]

1. Sauber. Slow, poor pitstops, tedious name, questionable existence.

2. Daniel Ricciardo. Just what is the point of him being in an F1 seat in the Year of Our Lord 2024?

Honourable mention to Lance Stroll

[FalconCapelli]

Kevin Magnussen.

[rachel1990]

1 Lance Stroll. No-one else did that. Only you. And nobody was even surprised.

2. Sauber. K-mag had a 20 second penalty. And he finished ahead of both cars!!! Slow pit stops and mistakes all weekend.

Hm K-Mag. Great driving to get Haas a point (for Nico) but he still got 20 second worth of penalties!!!!

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

I’m on board with Lance throwing it into the wall.

[tBone]

Stroll is a slamdunk ROTR.
Magnussen's penalty plethora was funny, but he compensated by helping Hass score a point.

[Ciaran]

1. We Have Twitch At Home Sauber for yet another botched pitstop.
2. Lance Stroll.

DHM for Liberty for continuing to lick Bonesaw's boots.

[Loadsamoney]

1. Lance Stroll- You do it to yourself, you do.

No, I’m in the fecking wall
Lance Stroll, 2024

2. Sauber- HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH

3. Daniel Riccardo- I beg of you stop doing these things to us

Honourable mention to Magnussen because ehhhhh he’s in limbo.

[IceG]

Stroll - unforced error in the same place as practice.

Sauber looked dire.

Alpine looked weak.

Ricciardo looked poor.

[dj_vicious]

1. Kevin Magnussen: Really isn't worthy of an F1 seat anymore. Double 10 second penalties. He's a nuisance at this point. Maybe Ferrari will loan Ollie Bearman to Haas to see get experience.

2. Daniel Ricciardo: I want him to do well, but he just doesn't have it anymore. He has his moments like Mexico '23 or Monza '21, but the world champion prospects he once brought seem like a distant memory now.

[Meatwad]

Sauber: A horrible pit stop is one thing, doing it in two races in a row is another. Last two finishers – I fear their season will be an awful one, as they've usually fallen back from a great start and now they don't even have that.

[RAK]

1) Lance Stroll: That was all on him. Unforced mistake.

2) Sauber: Dismal pace with pathetic results.

[Har1MAS1415]

Everyone except Red Bull. Perez got a penalty and they still scored a 1-2!

[mario]

Well, there are a few here:
1. Stroll - a costly mistake from him there.
2. Sauber - one botched pit stop was bad enough, but two was particularly painful.
3. Ricciardo - at a loss to explain his performance in qualifying, and seemingly not much better in race trim either.

HM: Magnussen - a rather wild performance, although his extremely fierce defending did have the benefit of ensuring that Hulkenberg could score a point for the team.

You could also perhaps nominate the time penalties that Magnussen received, as although a total of 20 seconds of time penalties sounds dramatic, it actually didn't really cost him that much. Because he was not lapped, whereas everyone from 13th down had been lapped, Magnussen ended up being classified in 12th place - i.e. despite the heavy time penalties, he couldn't be dropped behind those who had been lapped (i.e. only Albon gained slightly from the penalties).

[Spectoremg]

F1. The alleged pinnacle of motorsport that still has K Mag and Danny Ric on the grid.

[Batty]

Sauber - Uhhh that was something

Stroll - Binned it.

[Forti]

Sauber & Stroll.
DHMs to Magnussen and the cameras filming McLaren for turning their cars red.

[Har1MAS1415]

Everyone except Red Bull. Perez got a penalty and they still scored a 1-2!

If I had to name someone or something specific then:

1) Mercedes - This is Lewis Hamilton's worst start to a season since 2009!

2) FIA Transponders - This "not detecting jump starts" business is getting ridiculous. It's happened three times since 2019 now. No offence to Norris.

DHM: Sauber, becoming Audi for 2026 can't come sooner, based on their current form.

[James1978]

Gotta be Stroll for me. Just not good enough and he's wasting a decent seat.

I was thinking K-Mag but being tactical to get them team a point compensates.

Yeah Danny Ric was rubbish too actually. To think he's a candidate for a Red Bull seat next year on that!!

Also "all but Red Bull" again. Yes Max is undoubtedly a great driver but if Checo can get 2nd even with a 5s penalty and a safety car it's definitely the car. Also the gulf between the top 5 teams and the bottom 5 teams is going to hard to bridge too so the bottom 5 will have to rely on unreliability or accidents for points.

[Wallio]

Lando Norris - As someone who drag raced for years, bathplug off. We flinch and the red light comes on, you got a gimme son.

More serious nominations:

Lance Stroll - As DC said, you're not a rookie anymore.

VARBZ - Something something Red Bull clone, something something domination.

Kick Peter Sauber - Did Audi bring new wheelnuts?

McLaren- Bragged about a low drag wing in practice and had the dog slowest car in a straight line all weekend.

[Alextrax52]

Stake Kick Team Sauber (or whatever the hell their called): Looks like they’re just going through the motions until Audi takes over, only noticed them this weekend when Zhou crashed in practice

Lance Stroll: I’m not Naomi Schiff’s biggest fan but she’s right when she says there’s 1 or 2 drivers who’ve held onto a seat comfortably for far too long, Mr Stroll is definitely one of those drivers

HM’s

Ricciardo: This guy came back because he’s eyeing up the Red Bull seat right? Seeing him spin in front of Perez (The man he wants to replace) was pretty poetic in that regard

Magnussen: Yes he drove like a lion to help his teammate but his driving etiquette was…questionable to say the least

Everyone bar Red Bull: You know the others just aren’t up to scratch when Perez can overcome a SC and 5s penalty and still comfortably finish 2nd

[IceG]

Seems that Ricciardo's poor race may have been down to the pit crew being useless:

www.grandprix.com.au/fan-zone/news/ricc ... un-to-16th

so perhaps we can give him a break?

[mario]

Well, it would seem that some recent comments Perez has made have put him into contention for an award.

Firstly, when getting the penalty for the unsafe release, Perez's response was, rather than accept that there had been a mistake, to instead complain that the circuits should make the pit lane wider instead and to moan that the safety car period compromised his strategy.

More recently, though, he's now admitted that he could clearly see that his pit crew had the red warning light on, but he then proceeded to ignore all of the warnings from his team to not pull out of the pit box because he decided that he couldn't see anyone coming and "Sometimes the team can be a little bit slower than you in the car.". https://www.racefans.net/2024/03/12/per ... as-coming/

It's one thing if he'd mistakenly thought he was going to be released and pulled out, but it's another to admit to deliberately ignoring a clear instruction not to pull out and to then moan about it leading to a penalty. He is, frankly, acting like a complete tit there.

[noiceinmydrink]

I'm gonna nominate Perez simply because Mario called him a tit in a rare and wonderful moment of venom.

[Jarvis]

It would be a tie between Alpine and Sauber. In terms of drivers, it would be Daniel Ricciardo.

[mario]

I'm gonna nominate Perez simply because Mario called him a tit in a rare and wonderful moment of venom.

I'll admit it was unusual, but Perez's attitude was really disappointing because it showed a real contempt for everyone around him.

It's especially bad when the onboard footage from his car indicates that, in addition to the warning lights on the gantry, Red Bull had an additional mechanic also holding up a warning signal to Perez instructing him to stay in his pit box - with that mechanic then having to step out of the way to avoid Perez's car as he drove off.

There's no excuse for that attitude, and it flies in the face of the entire purpose of having that warning system there in the first place - especially since, despite what Perez says, the mechanics working on the car would have obscured his vision and he wouldn't have been able to see anyone coming down the fast lane in the pits.

[noiceinmydrink]

Pop off Queen!

I like Checo but he seems to have a real penchant for outrageous incidents like these - it marred his time in McLaren hugely and he's had some truly awful races over the years (2023 notwithstanding). He's that mould of a driver where there are days like Sakir 2020 where you think "Jesus, can anyone beat Checo? Surely this guy is The Man" and then there's days where he's absolutely hapless like no driver could get lower. I was re-watching Australia 2015 (don't ask me why) where he had a complete mess of a race finishing ahead of only Button in that dreadful McLaren and I thought "Oh yeah, he's always been like this to a certain extent".

You're right though, that pit lane incident was just utterly needless and his mindset doesn't help one iota.

[Rob Dylan]

Reject of the Race is open for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix! Vote via the poll at the top of this thread - you have 48 hours to do so.