ROTCSF(ATR)

[DemocalypseNow]

The polar opposite of this thread - nominate the worst driver of the championship so far.

Coincidentally my nomination is also the exact opposite of my IIDOTCSF(ATR)...
Michael Schumacher

What an arse. Go home you old geezer.

[Enforcer]

I predicted that before I opened the thread.

As I said at the start of the season, I consider his comeback fundementally non-reject worthy, since he has nothing left to prove and only people (like you ) seeking to detract from him. The man himself though, well to say he hasn't exactly been stellar this season would be an understatement.

[shinji]

Schumacher. Underperforming.

Yamamoto. Disgrace to Nipponytastic drivers everywhere.

[Yannick]

Oh, it's acronym competition time again!

Enlisting the best of the worst is f1rejects' purpose, enlisting the worst of the best is every tabloid's purpose.

[Phoenix]

Nominating Michael Schumacher is too easy, so I'll nominate Vitantonio Liuzzi. He started the season in good shape, but after the 3rd race of the season or so he faded badly and is being beaten by Sutil on a regular basis. Mark my words: he won't be in Force India for next season.

[TomPryce]

Looking at overall performances over the season, it would be easy to nominate Schumacher, so I shall not. I would not vote for any one of the rookies either, because they are all performing well.

For me, the reject of the championship thus far is Pedro De La Rosa.

"But he's an older driver, so would unerperform!" - no excuse, look at Barrichello's performances this year, and every year.
"But he's not driven for such a long time!" - We tried to excuse Schumacher, why excuse de la Rosa?
"He's got so much experience, through his seasons testing for McLaren!" - maybe so, but he's still performing overall much worse than his younger team mate.

I am hoping, very much, that de la Rosa can up his game. I think he's a nice enough guy but, at 39, I just don't see Sauber keeping him around in a race seat for much longer. His role as tester, much like Badoer was at Ferrari, is much more useful... even if that experience can only be taken advantage of in the off season.

[CarlosFerreira]

On a basis of results against expectations, Mercedes deserves the gong among the teams. As for the drivers, judged against the pre-Bahrain hype, it's clearly The Schu, followed closely by The Hulk.

Colin Kolles is my pet peeve, so he gets a mention here as well, for kicking out one of the coolest guys in the paddock. Mind you, Mallya is trying to take that away from him...

[watka]

Four letters:

USF1

[FullMetalJack]

It has to be Schumacher, it's a obvious choice. Liuzzi has also been underperforming since Malaysia, with the exception of Canada. Hulkenberg wasnt brilliant at the start of the season but to be fair to him, he has improved in the last couple of races.

[thehemogoblin]

Gotta go with Schumacher. Way to go, old man.

[DemocalypseNow]

Jenson Button is a double ROTY...and a world champion.

Why should Schumacher be ineligible then? He sucks without a lightning fast car under him, end of. He's can't race anyone properly, only shove them out the way (ok, so that's one and the same in touring cars, but this is F1 after all...). His driving is downright dangerous and he's been disgracefully slow at times.

Now, while Yamamoto has been sucky, he's not been dismally slow compared to Senna. There have easily been times where Schumacher was 1s a lap slower than Rosberg...and USF1 may have been no-shows but Schumacher hasn't had the good grace to eventually admit defeat and go home.

[Aerospeed]

I'm assuming the acronym means "Reject of the century so far (At this rate)?

[shinji]

I'm assuming the acronym means "Reject of the century so far (At this rate)?

Reject of the Championship.

[mario]

Four letters:

USF1

Considering that they never attempted to race, doesn't that strictly speaking make them ineligible for the F1 Rejects website? After all, the rules state that you have to have attempted to race more than once, which USF1 never did - and if we were to admit USF1, we could also include companies like Prodrive for their abortive effort in 2008.
For what it is worth, I agree with those who nominate Liuzzi, because unlike Sutil, he doesn't seem to have the same level of maturity and speed. We saw that at the beginning of the year, he wasted a number of chances to score points post Malaysia, and had a number of accidents - China being the worst, because he tried to wriggle out of what was quite clearly a driver error, having already screwed up badly in qualifying. Since then, he has been less error prone, but also off the pace of Sutil, and has failed to be either consistent enough or fast enough on occasion - which is why I suspect Liuzzi must be looking ever more nervously over his shoulder at Di Resta.
Mercedes in general have been pretty poor as well - ok, thanks to the takeover by Diamler, the team is running with a slight surplus, and is already under the RRA levels, so should be in better stead for 2011 - but at the cost of pain today for uncertain benefits tomorrow. Even so, with the restricted resources they have, they don't seem to have used them well - Renault have passed them on pace, and probably soon on points, and that is a team on a smaller budget, much more internal disruption last year and generally fewer resources. Even Sauber and Williams are catching up, or passing them, which frankly should not be happening. Starting on the 2011 car might give them an advantage - however, whether they will be able to reap it in 2011 is another matter.

Schumacher is a bit more difficult - in terms of racecraft, he has been disappointing, because he has struggled to remain ahead at times (in China, where he spent most of the race going backwards after overheating his inters, or in Australia where he allowed Glock past him during one lap), been far too aggressive at others (Hungary), and not always been that sharp when it came to passing others. OK, that is the area which is likely to waken first, but even so, he has been caught napping a few too many times, and called out on others - and the team bosses are going to expect results soon enough.
As for his pace, in terms of consistency, he is there - reviewing the lap times from earlier races, he can put in one solid lap after another. Even so, he just can't quite find those final few tenths that Rosberg can - especially since Brawn has suggested that the car was, unsurprisingly, designed more around Button's more neutral to slightly understeery style, because they didn't expect Button to jump ship for 2010.

Overall, though, out of those nominees, it is Liuzzi who I say takes the award - because out of all of them, you sense that he is the one who has the most unused potential, especially based on what he showed at the start of the season. Points may be hard - but he should have been able to at least finish ahead of Sutil on merit since Malaysia every now and then, which he has struggled to do.

[Aerospeed]

So far
3. The new layout for Bahrain, which was later reverted back to the original layout for obvious reasons
2. Michael Schumacher (for being nowhere close to what he did from 2000-2006)
1. Pretty much the three new teams! (For scoring no points whatsoever thus far)

[DemocalypseNow]

Maybe Dallara is worth a shout...they built a howler of a car.

[patrick]

Why should Schumacher be ineligible then? He sucks without a lightning fast car under him, end of.

I'm in no way a schu fanboy but I don't agree with that, after all, wasn't the 1996 Ferrari a complete dog and yet he won 3 times. I feel that people just think he is a magician when it's obvious you can't deliver after three years out of the sport - especially when the sport has changed so much.

but for me the worst driver is probably di grassi, he's just been anonymous all season even with a really crap car (glock has had his moments messing with the lotuses)

in terms of being rubbish all year though i would have to go with merc, they probably don't have the budget honda had when they developed the bgp001 but really you'd expect a bit more than giving up half way to make schu's fave racer for 2011.

[DemocalypseNow]

Why should Schumacher be ineligible then? He sucks without a lightning fast car under him, end of.

I'm in no way a schu fanboy but I don't agree with that, after all, wasn't the 1996 Ferrari a complete dog and yet he won 3 times. I feel that people just think he is a magician when it's obvious you can't deliver after three years out of the sport - especially when the sport has changed so much.

Alright, so early in his career he had some good drives. But many drivers have had blinding pace and have never gone on to achieve anything great. But then again, Montoya could be even faster, and he was never a champion. The difference is Schumacher was given some extra help along the way...both from his own team and Ferrari International Assistance, as it was known back then.

If he was ten years older, we may have been saying "Schumacher? Yeah, Ralf is really on it this year, no wonder he's the greatest F1 driver ever."

[Phoenix]

Why should Schumacher be ineligible then? He sucks without a lightning fast car under him, end of.

I'm in no way a schu fanboy but I don't agree with that, after all, wasn't the 1996 Ferrari a complete dog and yet he won 3 times. I feel that people just think he is a magician when it's obvious you can't deliver after three years out of the sport - especially when the sport has changed so much.

Alright, so early in his career he had some good drives. But many drivers have had blinding pace and have never gone on to achieve anything great. But then again, Montoya could be even faster, and he was never a champion. The difference is Schumacher was given some extra help along the way...both from his own team and Ferrari International Assistance, as it was known back then.

If he was ten years older, we may have been saying "Schumacher? Yeah, Ralf is really on it this year, no wonder he's the greatest F1 driver ever."

Schumacher wasn't only given extra help; he knew how to build a solid team around him, which, combined with his talent, made him an enormously successful pilot. He had the lucky chance of being promoted to a good team after only his maiden race, and he made the most of it, culminating in 1994, where clearly the Benetton/Schumacher combination was dominant, especially after Senna's demise. Going by this, JV also had extra help, especially when he had the chance of building an actual team around him to assault the category (BAR). He failed miserably because he didn't have the kind of skills required to work with his team properly, which are very important.
So, Schumacher is struggling, but really, I refrained a bit to mention him in this thread because the car wasn't good, he's having troubles dealing with the new rules after three years out (his own fault largely, I must say) and he's already 41, so he may have already lost it. When he was at his best, he was usually a peerless driver who was only let down by occasional bad days and the excessive urge for success. I'm not a Schumacher fanboy, mind you.
And Ralf being at one point the greatest ever? Oh, the irony...

[Salamander]

Four letters:

USF1

I don't think 1 is a letter...

[thehemogoblin]

Four letters:

USF1

I don't think 1 is a letter...

You can't slip anything by the Welsh.

[watka]

Four characters:

USF1

I don't think 1 is a letter...

You can't slip anything by the Welsh.

Better?

[Faustus]

I think it has be Schumacher. He's basically having the worst possible season that he can have, where is not that slow but not that quick either.
If he was fast and won races, people would be saying that it was to be expected because he won 7 world championships and that the rest of the drivers are clearly not as good as him, etc.
If he was incredibly slow, again people would have excused him, because he's not as young as the other drivers and he's not used to the cars' performance, etc.
As it is, he is in the worst possible situation, where occasionally he is fast, especially in free practice, but the pace is not quite there in qualifying and in races.

[FullMetalJack]

Yamamoto - For keeping the legend that is Karun Chandhok out of the Hispania car.

[Captain Hammer]

HWNSNBM. That is all.

[James1978]

Very tempted to say Vettel for this actually given the standard of machinery at his disposal and the number of blunders he's made!

[jackanderton]

Difficult one to judge because of the varied expectation levels. Especially with Schumacher as some of us including me predicted more or less what we've seen, whereas some believed he would thrash his teammate or return to winning races. Other people predicted he would fail in a much bigger way.

I think the candidates are:


Michael Schumacher
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Pedro De La Rosa
Seb Vettel
Jarno Trulli
Nico Hulkenburg

..and I've emboldened the ones that are in my opinion the most deserving of the title.

Fringes: Petrov/Glock/Massa/Alonso