Grand Prix Rejects

Many things have changed in F1 over the years. Rules have come and gone, technologies have been developed only to become obsolete, but there are a few intrinsic elements that have disapeared almost unnoticed. Here, we can celebrate those things and ask ourselves "what do we miss about F1"?

Nominate an element of F1 that is no longer part of daily F1 life, post a picture and give a brief description. As always, satire is welcomed.

I'll get the ball rolling:

Laurel wreaths



What ever happened to laurel wreaths as part of the podium ceremony? The laurel wreath has been a traditional symbol of victory since ancient greece and I'd love to see drivers given an over-sized horse shoe of greenery as they step out of their cars, especially after clinching the world title.

It was obviously dangerous and today's cars probably made it impossible, but I miss those old days where you took a ride on top of someone else car when you stopped at the track side without fuel or with car problems (today you need at least a lap, I think, for FIA scrutiny). It was fun to watch. They waved and greeted people and these days you show the finger, a fist or start opening and closing your hand and almost race to the pits. Meh...

EDIT: That is Nelson Piquet giving a ride to Keke Rosberg

Being able to do this after winning a race:



Damon Hill, Silverstone, 1994

Murray Walker. Enough said.

The sparks that came out of back of the cars during the 1980's, and early 1990's. Sure, you still see it sometimes in Singapore, but it's nowhere near where it used to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Od1UX0JKV4

Prequalifying and qualifying. It didn't matter if you were a World Championship contender, fail to shine and you might even be sitting the race out whilst one of our reject teams on a stellar run can get themselves onto the grid in your place

Fire from the exhausts. It was more prominent during the turbo era, but you could see this as late as late 90s. The image is of Mark Blundell with Tyrrell in 1994 (from minrdi's blog).

Aside from Murray Walker, as previously mentioned, I missed the sound of V12's engines particularly the 1995 Ferrari.

I take it missing Reject teams & drivers (i.e. the likes of Claudio Langes & Andrea Moda... trying & failing to qualify for a GP) is a given.

What i miss in the formula 1:
40 F1 teams in 1 season at monaco
Pre-Pre qualifying
Pre-qualifying
practice engines
Qualifying Engines
1200HP
V10's and V12's
Paul Stoddart
Crazy races with great crazy fights on the track
Stupid accidents (See Inoue)

But what i mis the most. F1 DRIVERS THAT GOT CHARISM AND DON'T MIND TO OPEN THEIR MOUTH TO ECCLESTONED ETC (Like Irvine, Villeneue Verstappen etc)

Engines grenading themselves spectacularly....
it may sound odd but in spring i miss the san marino gp often you would see the grassy bits with a lot of daisies.... a sure sign of summer coming
and i miss the yas of the 30 min highlights of F3 and touring cars shown when there was no GP......

WeirdKerr wrote:...and i miss the yas of the 30 min highlights of F3 and touring cars shown when there was no GP......

I don't know what a 'yas' is, but you know there is now 6 - 7 hours of coverage of the BTCC live each weekend it's on, on ITV4?

f1-gast wrote:What i miss in the formula 1:
40 F1 teams in 1 season at monaco
Pre-Pre qualifying
Pre-qualifying
practice engines
Qualifying Engines
1200HP
V10's and V12's
Paul Stoddart
Crazy races with great crazy fights on the track
Stupid accidents (See Inoue)

But what i mis the most. F1 DRIVERS THAT GOT CHARISM AND DON'T MIND TO OPEN THEIR MOUTH TO ECCLESTONED ETC (Like Irvine, Villeneue Verstappen etc)

I think you meant 40 cars instead of 40 teams (now THAT would have been the real deal ). And I don't know what pre-prequalifying is.

80 cars, that's a lot of DNQs in one race.

DOSBoot wrote:80 cars, that's a lot of DNQs in one race.

And DNPQs

Corner names.There used to be something about the evocative names of a corner,be they commemorating a famous driver or some feature of the local countryside or just some bizarre name. The sweeps of Eau Rouge or Blanchimont,the Mistral straight or the Parabolica conjure up majestic visions. Turn 8 just doesn't have the same ring about it-particularly when every track has one.

MyHamsterRacedAnOnyx wrote:Corner names.There used to be something about the evocative names of a corner,be they commemorating a famous driver or some feature of the local countryside or just some bizarre name. The sweeps of Eau Rouge or Blanchimont,the Mistral straight or the Parabolica conjure up majestic visions. Turn 8 just doesn't have the same ring about it-particularly when every track has one.

We could always name Istambul's turn 12 Vettel, or Shangahi's last corner Hamilton

Loads to miss of F1. M best eras of F1 were the 50's-92. Why? More freedom to engineer your F1 car and the teams could try different things out. Also the engines. 2.4L V8's? BORING!!! and thye were no cheap to develop. V8 V10 V12s the old 1200BHP turbo cars, thats f1.

But what I miss alot is James Hunt. He is what F1 should be like. A man with class and a personality.

6 WHEELS!!!!!!!!

6 WHEELS!!!!!!!!

I miss the era of different engine concepts. Either the choice between turbo or naturally aspirated engine in the 80's, or the choice between V8s, V10s, V12s or W12s in the era of 3,5l engines.

WeirdKerr wrote:Engines grenading themselves spectacularly...

I would say I also miss engines grenading themselves spectacularly (whatever Sir Jackie might have to say on the matter after the 1997 season), but it's more than that - it's unreliablity in general, which creates unpredictability. Only the other day I saw Richard Hammond driving a 2005 Renault on Top Gear (or, at least, he was trying to drive it, and making Jean-Denis Délétraz look legendary in the process. "What is Hammond doing?") - and described the car as fragile, highly strung, built to such impossible tolerances that everything needs to be warmed up before it would start - anything could go wrong at any minute. And yet, by 2005, unreliability had already dropped to a level where the points had to go down to 8th place, otherwise Ferrari, McLaren and Renault would hog them all and there might be one or two points for one or two other teams over the course of the season. Cars blowing up left, right and centre were no longer seen. And now, with points down to 10th, accuse that of being Mickey Mouse all you like but it has to be done to ensure that more than four or five teams get on the scoresheet this year.

We're never going to see the likes of the 1991 San Mariono Grand Prix ever again; JJ Lehto on the podium for Scuderia Italia, and both the Lotus cars in fifth and sixth - Mika Häkkinen before he was famous, and bona fide reject Julian Bailey. Imagine, if you will, a race in 2010 where either Heikki Kovalainen or Jarno Trulli takes one of the Lotus seats, Fairuz Fauzy gets the other, and the hopelessly-off-the-pace T127s (which were as far behind the leaders as the 102B was in 1991), and the two drivers end up fifth and sixth. It couldn't happen! The best that car could manage was a fluky 12th, which was only allowed to happen by five cars not making it to the end of the first lap.

Never mind Pirelli's fragile tyres, fragile cars would jazz things up a bit the way it always used to be.

F1 is all about development, and these days ou can't develop the engines or the chassies that much now. Remember BRM engine? V16 Love the sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMPDCNyQxE and he V12 Ferrari: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-rNiswUhQ4&feature=related

Miss those sounds so much

The previous two dont really need explaining, however this next one might:


The Surge from the Startline, to Tosa, at the start of a San Marino GP. Nothing looked more glorious than a fleet of F1 cars at high speed before they spread their wares during the race. I know that due to 2 severe accidents, about 19 consecutive rule changes relating to the events that happened in 1994 to the present day will preclude this from ever happening anywhere ever again.

The surge from the new startline at Silverstone should be pretty good though - fairly long run to the right handed sweeper and then the blast down to the hairpin. Obviously won't be the same, but should be still pretty good!

ADx_Wales wrote:The Surge from the Startline, to Tosa, at the start of a San Marino GP. Nothing looked more glorious than a fleet of F1 cars at high speed before they spread their wares during the race. I know that due to 2 severe accidents, about 19 consecutive rule changes relating to the events that happened in 1994 to the present day will preclude this from ever happening anywhere ever again.

In my opinion it could happen again if Imola was renewed with a little bit of brain. That is, eliminating Villeneuve chicane (because is not longer needed, as there´s a huge runoff) and turning Tamburello into one corner again, but one slow corner in the style of A1-Ring first corner, thus creating a high speed approach to Tossa, which has never been specially dangerous by itself.

How about when you could bring in an innovation to the car and NOT have to worry about it being immediately banned???

A huge selection of engines.
Minardi, Jordan and Arrows.
Jos Verstappen.
HWNSNBM.
Rainy races that weren't stopped just after a few drops like nowadays, vide 1996 Monaco GP and Panis' win.
Ah, while we're at it - Olivier Panis. So bad his injury in Canada '97 made quite a mess in his later career.
Simplicity. Will they ever gonna stop making Formula One more dependent on the car, and focus more on drivers' skills?
Equality. In the 1990s - although teams had various amounts of money and different development - the rivalry seemed to be more equal than now. Yeah, champions also could dominate the whole season, but they weren't like indestructible tanks that don't retire and keep going. Just check how many retirements JV had in 1997 and how many of them Vettel had in 2010.
Fantastic reject moments, like Minardi scoring a point, or having an intense battle with a front-runner/midfielder.

Those were the days

Jos Verstappen, he's 39, younger than Schumi and PDLR. Give Massa the boot, Jos the Boss in.

SSSSUUUPPPAHH AGURI!
Takuma Sato at his peak.
Mika Hakkinen vs Michael Schumacher
My local 2002 coverage. Clearly the best ever (not very good, though...)

redbulljack14 wrote:Jos Verstappen, he's 39, younger than Schumi and PDLR. Give Massa the boot, Jos the Boss in.

Well, Nigel Mansell is only several years older, he's only what, 57?

cretoxyrhina wrote:SSSSUUUPPPAHH AGURI!
Takuma Sato at his peak.
Mika Hakkinen vs Michael Schumacher
My local 2002 coverage. Clearly the best ever (not very good, though...)

redbulljack14 wrote:Jos Verstappen, he's 39, younger than Schumi and PDLR. Give Massa the boot, Jos the Boss in.

Well, Nigel Mansell is only several years older, he's only what, 57?

It's also worth noting that even Nigel Mansell has hinted that Schumacher should retire - which is surely the point when you realise something is going badly wrong...

JeremyMcClean wrote:How about when you could bring in an innovation to the car and NOT have to worry about it being immediately banned???

We've had that for a long time though. Think about the designs that have been banned - the Tyrrell run, Matra designed MS80 that used structural fuel tanks (i.e. akin to aviation fuel tanks), which was allowed for 1969 only (the rules changed to rubber fuel tanks in 1970), the banning of six wheel cars after the Williams FW08B showed up in testing, X-wings, as used on the Tyrrell 025 - the list goes on and on.

mario wrote:

JeremyMcClean wrote:How about when you could bring in an innovation to the car and NOT have to worry about it being immediately banned???

We've had that for a long time though. Think about the designs that have been banned - the Tyrrell run, Matra designed MS80 that used structural fuel tanks (i.e. akin to aviation fuel tanks), which was allowed for 1969 only (the rules changed to rubber fuel tanks in 1970), the banning of six wheel cars after the Williams FW08B showed up in testing, X-wings, as used on the Tyrrell 025 - the list goes on and on.

I suppose that barring wings themselves and stuff like automatic gearboxes, almost everything that's been invented in F1 has been banned. Every so often the rules are just reset so people start again with tighter restrictions. It's just in this era with more restrictions than ever (which is inevitable over time) the innovations are for all sorts of complicated things like double diffusers, blown floors, the f-duct, etc.

I miss the days when drivers got out of the car, got drunk, then got involved in a good 'old fashion punch up...oh wait we still have that

ibsey wrote:I miss the days when drivers got out of the car, got drunk, then got involved in a good 'old fashion punch up...oh wait we still have that

Didn't the Schumacher brothers and Olivier Panis trash a hotel room or something like that at the 2003 Japanese GP?

I think I can sum this up with a few pictures...

Wizzie wrote:

ibsey wrote:I miss the days when drivers got out of the car, got drunk, then got involved in a good 'old fashion punch up...oh wait we still have that

Didn't the Schumacher brothers and Olivier Panis trash a hotel room or something like that at the 2003 Japanese GP?

I certainly remember seeing a photo of the Schumi brothers being very drunk on an esposide of Top Gear once (Ralf was in his Toyota gear). If thats what you mean.

Also there is video footage of M Schumi making a right prat out of himself whislt drunk on a Karaoke machine after the 1996 Japanese GP, which was convientiently shown on a Damon Hill documentary (the name of which escapes me now).

Then you have Nick Heidfeld miserable attempt at dancing & Vettel's singing over the radio yesterday. What is it with German F1 drivers?

Are they rehearsing to go on Pop Idol or something.

I'll definitely go for unreliability/races of attrition. I did enjoy seeing races with a single-figure number of finishers (which started with a full field, not USA 2005).

I remember there were three in a row in 1996 (Monaco, Spain, Canada - even though only Canada was dry), and even as recently as Australia 2008 there were only a few finishers, much of which was off-season rustiness.

Now there seems to be 20 or more finishers in nearly every race!

Grid sizes larger than 26 cars.

It's also worth noting that even Nigel Mansell has hinted that Schumacher should retire - which is surely the point when you realise something is going badly wrong...

Has Mansell ever announced his retirement... lol appart from the time at the british gp in 1990.....

i miss in random order:

minardi
alboreto
engine exploding
loose regulamentation that allowed technical exploits
big grid
10 and 12 cylinders engines
the times the cars had manual gear
the time cars were HEAVY

If there's one thing I miss are the drivers.
Today I have the suspect drivers spend as much time preparing what to say and do in front of cameras and microphones as they spend training. Given the fact even a single misinterpreted phrase is enough to land you into troubles with FOTA, FIA, the sponsors etc I really cannot blame them.
I miss drivers who were more than a name and a face: Senna, Prost, Patrese, Arnoux, Alboreto... I even miss Piquet's antics and Mansell's inflated ego.
They made the show all the more enjoyable.