Page 2 of 4

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 07:40
by Shadaza
Ben Purse wrote:Sergio Perez. How do you not finish in the points in a Mclaren with no car problems?

because the car is Shite? he was less than 1 second away from passing Grosjean who is in the vastly superior Lotus!

Red Bull's race pace deserves a mention, it was atrocious!

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 07:52
by QuickYoda41
McLaren and Maldonado already mentioned, I have to go with race marshals and their blue flags waived basically for everyone.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 08:13
by pi314159
Lots of contenders here:

Pirelli - These supersofts are rubbish, face it.
McLaren - Simply too slow.
Caterham - No visible progress since mid-2011.
Williams - especially Maldonado

I think Williams and McLaren should share the award, for moving backwards over the winter.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 08:15
by TomWazzleshaw
My nominations:

Pastor Maldonado - Decided to try arriving at turn 1 backwards, with predictable results. And he didn't even do a good enough job to bring out the Safety Car in the process.
Sauber - Hulkenberg's car crapped itself before the start and Gutierrez did literally nothing on his way to a lapped 13th place

But my reject of the race is:

McLaren F1 - If they were only slightly worried before, they must be in panic mode now as both cars were nearly a lap down by race end. They'll be lucky to be anywhere near the podium at the rate they're going.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 08:36
by mario
East Londoner wrote:Where to start here?

Force India's Strategist - Brought Sutil in far too early for his final stop, costing him 5th,

The Reverend Maldolan - Picking up where he left 2012. :lol:

Pirelli - Clearly those super softs were made out of cheese.

But ROTR has to go to:

McLaren - Absolutely nowhere in the race. A grand total of two points.

I'd have to agree with your nomination of McLaren, as they were somewhat lucky to get those two points too - Grosjean spent a large chunk of the final stint right behind Button and finished barely a second behind him. Equally, although Perez was equally close to Grosjean - just 0.6s behind - Vergne nearly passed Perez too, as he finished just 0.5s behind Perez, so to a certain extent it looks like Button was backing those three drivers up into each other as the car simply wasn't fast enough. Whitmarsh has been persistently talking up the development potential of this car, but it's no good talking up the development potential when you're lucky to finish on the lead lap and scrape into the top 10.

To be fair to the Force India strategists, I can see why they thought that it was worth sending Sutil out on the super soft tyres for his final stint - in the opening stages of the race, the super soft tyres were able to last for a reasonable stretch of time (the Mercedes pair managed to get 13-14 laps out of their tyres on a fairly heavy fuel load), so it might not have seemed unreasonable to expect that, on lower fuel and with a rubbered in track, the tyres might have lasted for 15 laps. It's a shame that the tyres faded so quickly though, because it undercut what had been up until then had been a very impressive drive - still, it's a promising sign for Sutil (and one that should give Di Resta plenty to think about).

As a secondary nomination, I'd have to agree with the poor flag marshalling - why were the marshals persistently trying to blue flag Sutil when he was racing for position? Given that the drivers would have been relying more heavily than before on the marshals because of the persistent problems with the FIA's telemetry systems (which deserves an honorary mention for ROTR), that was rather poor form by the marshals for giving misleading information to the drivers.

Honourable mentions should also go out to the Williams duo - Maldonado ended up in the gravel trap, but despite a trouble free race Bottas was a very distant 14th and going nowhere fast. Sauber, too, deserve a mention - Hulkenberg didn't even start the race because of his car breaking down, whilst Gutierrez's pace was fairly dismal.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 09:46
by WaffleCat
Still think Race Control should get a mention,but my top pick has changed to...

...SuperSoft Tyres.Made out of tracing paper,those things.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 10:00
by pasta_maldonado
My nomination? McLaren-Mercedes. Absolutely godawful. So bad that I even caught Button frowning at one point....

Still, watch as Jenoch go totally left field and announce that the official ROTR is a duck that fell over in the rain yesterday :lol:

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 10:06
by girry
Pastor Maldonado...sandtraps oh why are they almost extinct from anywhere else

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 10:16
by andrew2209
Caterham-Slower than Marussia, despite getting the 10th place money from 2012, and for some of their (lack of) letting the leaders go by.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 11:13
by Yannick
Is there a possibility that the Reverend MacDonald and my pre-season championship hope Czeko Perez share the award this time around?

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 11:27
by Nuppiz
Race organisation as a whole - first the telemetry problems, then the shall-we-or-shall-we-not qualifying, and finally waving blue flags to cars that were on the same lap.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 12:09
by johnnyCarwash
ROTR for me was
Mclaren poor race and a diabolical Q2 decision

Honourable mentions:
Race control telemetry failure, messy qualifying and inappropriate blue flags

Maldonado makes rookies look like veterans

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 12:26
by Vassago
Maldonado's reckless style is old news and should be ignored.

McLaren win this hands down. From the fastest car in the last Grand Prix of 2012 to midpacker status in just 4,5 months! That takes some doing! 8-)

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 13:18
by DemocalypseNow
Tough one, there are quite a few strong candidates;

Williams - Propping up the back of the grid along with Marussia and Caterham. Abysmal performance once again from such an experienced team. The year ahead does not look positive at all.

Caterham - obliterated by Jules Bianchi, despite them having more prize money. A crap team with crap drivers. If any team doesn't deserve a place in F1, it's these guys. Utterly, utterly useless.

Race Control - non-functioning telemetry and giving everyone that isn't a Ferrari or Red Bull blue flags when on the same lap racing for position. The cancelled qualifying was understandable, the rest was not.

But the lot who really took the cake this weekend...

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
What the hell was that? In qualifying, their strategy was absolutely awful, they screwed Perez with the dry tyres call, almost did the same thing to Button in the same session, and had the speed of a midfield team in the race. Perez was one of the easiest targets on the circuit for people to overtake, he was just so helpless out there. Williams may have been awful today, but they haven't been great for years now - whereas McLaren, coming off the back of a competitive season in 2012, have fallen very far since. It might be time to roll out the McLaren MP4-27B...

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 13:46
by X61
Williams - Look to be back to their 2011 form, hopefully it's just a one off.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 14:07
by James1978
For drivers which haven't been said yet, I'll say Mark Webber (seriously learn how to start!!) and Grosjean (where on earth were you? Your teammate won the race!!).

It's certainly unlike Grosjean to be anonymous.

But overall it's just gotta be McLaren. Like 2004 and 2009, their base at which to start is so low it's unture.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 14:12
by Aerospeed
Has to be McLaren, their race was just awful. Hope Perez's career doesn't go down the shitter because of this...

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 14:37
by Divina_Galica
James1978 wrote:For drivers which haven't been said yet, I'll say Mark Webber (seriously learn how to start!!)


Can't believe you're the first to say Webber.

Most of the other nominations have excuses in the equipment they are using, eg Race-control (right descision in retrospect)/Caterham (bad car)/McLaren (maybe the 2013 car is the same as the 2012 Ferrari)/Sutil's tyres (maybe the mediums would have gone off in another couple of laps as well if he had delayed going onto super-softs) etc, but this one was fully down to the driver. In a top, top car, home event, new season and he goes backwards off the grid yet again.

I assumed that when Helmut Marko was critical of him it was actually a smart piece of psychology, (after all we don't really have any idea as to what the drivers are really like behind the smiley faces and PR stuff, and how they are motivated) but looks like I was just plain wrong....

DG

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 14:46
by Divina_Galica
...also can't believe that no-one has said Sauber.

At least all the other teams got their two cars onto the grid. How disappointed must the Hulk be, especially seeing two FI's in the points??

DG

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 14:51
by SeedStriker
Since McLaren is the easy way (way too troubled pre-season), i'll go with Pastor Maldonado, because he was all publicocrap all weekend only to be the one to bring back the retro kitty littter.

Dishonorable mentions to Pirelli's Supersofts for the one-lap wonder and then, rubbish and Catherham, or I should say Clatterham?

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 14:54
by Ataxia
Divina_Galica wrote:...also can't believe that no-one has said Sauber.

At least all the other teams got their two cars onto the grid. How disappointed must the Hulk be, especially seeing two FI's in the points??

DG


You can't really blame them too much; it was a technical issue that reared its head at an inopportune moment. Gutierrez was pretty anonymous, but if Hulkenberg had a working car he probably would have managed a 7th/8th place finish.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 14:56
by Ferrim
I've got to stick to my early decision of Charlie Whiting. Not even starting qualifying at 17:00 was farcical any way I look at it (of course suspending it later because of the lack of light was the correct call, but they shouldn't have been forced to do it in the first place).

Still, McLaren and Williams have done great efforts to take the prize, and Webber's start was rejectful as well (and for the umpteenth time). But I can't agree with super-soft tyres as a nomination: they were supposed to last very little and give the top teams some headaches. It was a bit extreme, probably, but you can't always get it right, and the conditions didn't help at all, as it was colder and rainer than expected during the whole weekend. In more normal circumnstances the super-softs would have hold their own for more than 10 laps and everyone would have pitted just twice, a far cry from the four, five and six stops that some drivers were reporting during pre-season testing. Also, by default I prefer tyres that last too little to tyres that last too much.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 15:08
by went
3- Mark: Learn to start a car already!
2- Williams: The rookie did a terrible job, as usual, and Bottas didn't screw it up too badly but he was nowhere near anywhere. Disappointing.
1- McLaren: What in the name of hell was that. First swapping a useless set of supersofts for another useless set of supersofts on qualy. Then a pathetic race being nowhere. Two points when, last year, it was pole and win. Absolutely dreadful, they have a lot of catch-up left to do if they want this season to go anywhere.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 15:30
by DemocalypseNow
Webber had an ECU failure which meant he had no KERS at the start. No wonder he fell back. I don't think he deserves ROTR because a component on his car failed...

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 15:40
by rachel1990
It has to be Williams for me. Awful pace and almost got beaten by Marussia.

Mclaren come second for me for being awful and being beaten by both Force India's

And what the hell happened to Romain Grosjean? If this continues for the rest of the season and Jules Bianchi keeps going well, Jules may be going up the grid sooner rather than later.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 15:59
by DonTirri
There really is but one option: Mclaren.

I mean seriously. Letting Hammy go was a huge mistake. Also, the car is shite.

But on a personal note: Everyone saying "Lolvettelwinslol" Before/during/After the race/qually. So quick to judge. So bitter. And so wrong ;)

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 16:00
by CarlosFerreira
For me it's Reverend Maldonado. Yes, the car looked difficult, but Maldonado looked amateurish all weekend. Williams messed up the tyre situation in Q1, but Bottas beat him - which led to him complaining about the team and the car to all and sunder. Never got close to Bottas in the race, and then had a first off in Turn 1 as Alonso was coming out of the pits. Was he distracted or something? Then there was the actual crash. Pathetic.

Shadaza wrote:Pirreli's Super Soft Tire.

I think it may be made of banana peels.


Yeah, they deserve a nomination. Total, utter bananas. There is no tyre management here: they come apart in a few laps regardless of what you do, and then you change to Mediums. Total farce.

Also, Sauber for the Hulkenberg situation - when was the last time we had a DNS?

Finally, Grosjean. He still looks spooked, and was nowhere most of the time. I genuinely think he's faster than Raikkonen, but he didn't show it today. Let's hope a steady race has done something to get him back in a good place.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 16:32
by Aerospeed
CarlosFerreira wrote:Also, Sauber for the Hulkenberg situation - when was the last time we had a DNS?


Wasn't it Petrov at Silverstone last year? I think he had engine troubles on the formation lap.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 16:32
by Salamander
DonTirri wrote:But on a personal note: Everyone saying "Lolvettelwinslol" Before/during/After the race/qually. So quick to judge. So bitter. And so wrong ;)


Hey, if it means Vettel doesn't win, I'll happily take that. ;) And I believe it's actually spelled VETTELWINSLOL. [/nitpick] ;)

But honestly, McLaren were simply crap. No other word for it.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 16:35
by Londoner
JeremyMcClean wrote:
CarlosFerreira wrote:Also, Sauber for the Hulkenberg situation - when was the last time we had a DNS?


Wasn't it Petrov at Silverstone last year? I think he had engine troubles on the formation lap.


It was a bit more than engine troubles. The Renault engine decided to detonate...on the outlap to the bloody grid! :lol:

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 16:36
by Dan B
Lots of nominations for this one:
3) Williams: Bottas was anonymous, and just what is Maldonado doing? I don't know if something broke on the car or if that yellow line he crossed was that slick, but that was embarrassing. 1 step forward, 2 steps back for this team it seems. Let's hope Malaysia is better.

2) This is a tough one for me but I'm going to say Mark Webber. His starts are becoming more and more dangerous, and I think it's high time the FIA came in and said something. I seriously don't buy the story of the ECU failing; that to me sounds like David Coulthard's blunder in Adelaide 1995 and then blaming it on the pit limiter (or something). Second to seventh is laughable, and was trounced by Vettel during the race.

But the winner for me is:
McLaren. They're slow all around, and were shown up by both Mercedes and Force India. Button could only manage 9th, and Perez didn't finish in the points. Botched tire calls in Qualifying, and hopeless in race; is this seriously McLaren or a team masquerading as them?

Honorable mentions:
Race Control: Not for delaying qualifying; that was a smart move with cars going off every direction. Rather, this is for the terrible use of blue flags. Did I seriously see a blue flag waved at Vettel when he was racing for position? Oh, and not having working telemetry and DRS control is inexcusable in this sport.

Caterham: So we went from having a team with competent drivers (Kovalainen, Trulli, Petrov) and decent speed (granted, not enough for the points but it was genuine) to a team that is now HRT with money? Which is sad because Charles Pic does have talent but it's being wasted on him, just like Kovalainen, Trulli, and Petrov before him.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 17:47
by AndreaModa
I'd personally say everyone shitting their pants at the thought of qualifying being delayed a bit.

But from the race, you'd have to say McLaren must be up there, though Jenson drove quite well in my view to at least salvage a few points and Perez was unlucky to not quite steal 10th off Grosjean at the end.

Williams, although not reported on as much, are in a similar situation to McLaren. Very poor pace and searching for answers. The fact Maldonado threw it in the gravel just confirmed he wasn't paying attention and had had enough for the day. Caterham look like they could have a bit of a tough year, I'd argue that without Chilton having to stop for a long while early on to fix his front wing, he may well have finished in front of Pic as the difference between the two by the end of the race was about 30 seconds which is roughly the time for an extended pit stop. VDG needs some time to settle in it seems, and he's quite far off the pace of Pic. It will be interesting to see what sort of improvement in the car there'll be when they bring that big upgrade package to Barcelona and whether they can get back ahead of Marussia. There were quite a few retirements today, and we know that those sort of races don't happen very often, so it's going to be crucial for both teams to try and maximise those opportunities, and today it went Marussia's way.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 18:27
by DOSBoot
This is a tough one, but I choose:

1. F1 Rejects Forum Users: Several of them constantly complaining about how race control screwed everything up, as well as eveyone perdicting that Vettel was going to cakewalk the race. Quit acting so childish okay!

2. Pirelli: The Super-Softs are useless. Get rid of them.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 18:34
by James1978
Yeah, I feel a bit bad about moaning about qualifying now. The drainage must have been pretty similar to Adelaide and look what happened in 1991. :(

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 19:15
by Londoner
To be fair, most of the moaning (including mine) I guess was down to it being the first qualifying of the season after 5 months, and it was all spur of the moment posting. Sorry people. :(

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 19:27
by Peter
McLaren - Presumably costing themselves a fast car to make Button more comfortable. Whopping total of 2 points, nothing like the 40 points they netted here a year ago.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 19:55
by DidNotQualify
Well, my earlier nomination of Caterham after Q1 wasn't too far off in the end - Bianchi comprehensively outclassed both of them and they appear to have fallen back quite a long way from where they were in Brazil.

But there is surely no looking past McLaren for this prestigious award - which they haven't won for 10 years. It's early days yet, of course, but their current situation has overtones of 2004 - a fast car at the end of the previous season squandered as they try to go too radical and end up miles off the pace, despite very few rule changes. At least the current car doesn't grenade itself every five minutes.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 21:05
by Barbazza
I expected McLaren to be rubbish. So on that basis I'll say Maldonado - on a day when all the rookies at least finished, he was the only one spinning out like a rookie.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 21:32
by Nessafox
I think Bruce McLaren is turning in his grave right now. The thing is that McLaren doesn't seem to know why they are so slow (unlike Caterham,who just didn't develop enough), However Williams has the same problems as McLaren, but also have the problem that is Maldonado's consistency level.

Re: Your Reject of the Race - Australia

Posted: 17 Mar 2013, 22:06
by shinji
At least last year McLaren had a good car, and they sabotaged themselves with poor strategy calls and mistakes. This year they have both a lack of professionalism (slick tyres in Q2 debacle) and a terrible car. Poor Sergio should have stayed at Sauber, he was safe there.

McLaren miss Dennis' clinical precision more every year, and on that rather broad basis they'd be my ROTR.