Yup, time to write a essay or two. Someone else can do TL;DR for me.
Driver's Reject Almost-PodiumI cannot make a good case for anyone to take third here, like it or not.
2nd - Sebastian VettelUnderstanding that this doesn't come from Riccardo convincingly having the upper hand on his veteran team-mate is a start. However, Riccardo's pace throughout the year does help to paint the picture for Vettel. Being the Four-Time Reigning and Defending Champion does leave a heavy burden on one's shoulders, and it showed at Monaco. The difference between what happened then and what went down this year, ignoring the Renault Engine naturally, was down to the RB Chassis. Vettel knew how to extract the most out of the Red Bull Cars back then, and it showed with the amount of throttle he had on corner-mid literally everywhere. It was why it was so easy for him to build a gap early and cruise for the rest of the race while everyone else was too busy spinning their wheels. But now the jokes on Vettel, the amount of rear grip that he had in spades the years before went away. Evolution is a mystery, it's all the change that no one sees. For 2014, a line in the sand was drawn for the driver who had arguably some of the highest expectations on him; He is the Four Time Reigning and Defending Champion after all, but he failed to adapt. So he perished.
1st - Kimi RaikkonenReally, he should have stayed home. As much as there could, probably, be made a case that he also couldn't adapt to the car, he just ended up acting like a Honey Badger for the duration of the year. It was no doubt a stigma that he had ever since he walked out on Lotus at the end of 2013 before returning "home" to the Scuderia. It's not that he's in a rut or anything, it's rather that his 2014 is like watching a Wrestling Match on Monday Night Raw: the two wrestlers could put on a match which tears down the house, but they don't have to. There is no motivation to considering how deep in this routine they are, and they won't get paid more for going above and beyond the call of duty. So every Monday Night you'll see the same matches with the same Wrestlers even if there might be a gimmick or two added. One does not simply drive on Auto-Pilot for Ferrari, even if the FIAT Group were causing Ferrari to implode at the seams.
Team's Reject Podium3rd - SauberBefore I get complained at for having Sauber too low here hear me out. What did
you seriously expect from them this year? There are reasons why I don't show my face here often. And when it comes to ROTY and Reject Ranking, the Expectation for the driver and teams plays a huge roll in how they are ranked come the end of the year. We know that Sauber haven't been flush with cash for a while, and they aren't able to fully utilise the resources that BMW left behind, although some are already heading to obsolescence. So what do they do? They hire two drivers who bring cash and design what would end up being the most conservative chassis of all the "established" teams. This will be the only time I mention Sutil and Gutierrez, because I actually sympathise with them after their performance this year. Sure they were there for the money they brought, but they were still shackled with a terrible car. They tried their damndest to try and get a good performance out of the car, but more often than not were mired with crashes and general tomfoolery because they were trying too hard to overcompensate. I don't blame them. It just happened that they are the scapegoat you all chose for them, when the real problem was everything else with the team.
2nd - LotusIt really has been a while since I can say a F1 team had a "ambitious but rubbish" season. Sure their 2013 was a hail mary long bomb to the end zone that slipped through the Wide-Receiver's fingers, but they laid down the foundation for potential success in the future. But 2014 spat them out the other side as soon as they showed off their new machine. It was asymmetrical, had the worst diffuser design probably in F1 history, a dubious Power-Unit, never was able to be setup consistently, and upgrades that probably did more harm than good. The one time the car's asymmetry could have did them a favor at Monza, they didn't roll with it. General incompetence that was fun to follow, and was even more fun to watch Wizzie lose his mind with this car. But General Incompetence it was nonetheless.
1st - CaterhamAfter being the new team that showed the most promise despite having the latest start of the lot, death by Shannon Group could have proven to be merciful after what was a culmination of why Tony Fernandez doesn't know how to run a sports team. Investing Millions of Dollars Millions of Dollars Millions of Dollars into a intellectual property doesn't mean you'll get the baby you wanted nine months later. When this was the year that Caterham was, according to themselves at least, finally join the ranks of the established team. Instead, they ended being worse off than Marussia more often that not. After leaving the Winter Tests with the best understanding of the Renault Power, whatever they learned actually didn't follow into the races and they were playing catch-up ever since. And then the new "investments" showed up, and then they went into Administration, and then they went to crowdfunding. They somehow lived through 2014, but at what cost. Everyone involved, bar the drivers, leave 2014 with egg on their faces in a campaign that would make G-Tech Systems envious. (That's a Wipeout Fusion reference)
Overall Reject Podium3rd - Team PrincipalsSuppose the figurehead of your team feels like his time would be better spent constantly posturing, what do you think is going to happen to the sport they are involved in. Personal accords, vendettas, and general egotism among the likes of Toto Wolff and Christian Horner left the rest of the F1 Teams with a sour taste in their mouths going forward and after none of them felt like standing up against a crisis that has been 5 years in the making, F1 didn't thrive this year, it endured. Although 1st place in the Overall Reject Podium didn't help F1's cause either. Tony Fernandez murdered his own team, Mattiacci trying to quietly do his job wasn't going to cut the mustard especially with a moronic IPO looming for FIAT, Monisha refused to become a bitch team to either Ferrari or Mercedes, and Horner and Wolff refused to solve a problem that should have been dealt with a year and a half ago. I wonder what would have happened if they all actually tried to do their job to the best of their abilities....
2nd - FerrariExceptionalism has been ingrained in Ferrari ever since The Schu first joined them in the 90s. They are never the victim, right? If two of the most iconic and influential names they've had in recent times are bailing out, it must be for good reason. Were Ferrari really in crisis? Not really. Marchionne ousted Montezemolo as a part of his master plan to essentially desensitise the Brand more than it already has and to attempt to make more money. Alonso left because Mattiacci was forced to right a ship even though he had no idea what to right, and arguably, no idea what he was doing. So these aren't why Ferrari are here. The lot of them were all left walking around in circles after a past-intention to have a new engine formula to compensate for not being able to build a good car since 2008. This was going to be their way to be relevant at the pointy end of the field; having a power unit properly integrated with a chassis much like Mercedes was. However, they chose to focus on the Aerodynamics of the car and compromising the performance of the engine. It meant that their 2014 was essentially over as it started. Ferrari are not above making boneheaded mistakes like this, they made their own mistakes and rather than owning up to it, left themselves with a large mountain to climb to recover what was lost.
1st - Formula One Management and Jean TodtDenizens of the official F1Rejects IRC should know these diatribes from Regular Car Reviews too well, because I've tried to grind it into the brains as we watch many of our favorite Sporting Governing Bodies burn at the hand of their own general incompetence.
RegularCarReviews wrote: When business majors talk about organizational inertia, they're not just talking about a companies resistance to change; but about an entire principle that supports, detrimentally outdated business practices. Because what is organizational inertia but an embracing of stagnation, fellating the past while letting the future wither and die on a vine. Look at Netflix; they rule the world right now because they've shown a willingness adapt to the needs and demands of their users. Physcial Media going by the wayside? "Here Here Here have some streaming options." Recession in effect? "Ohhh hay, have access to our entire library for 7.99 a month."
Look we're not trying to shill for Netflix here but there remains a simple guiding principle for business that want to survive in a changing cultural environment. Give your users what they actually want. Not just what you think they want, or what you yourself want, because that's a zero-sum game.
TRACK DAY, BRO!
Just go and read what TommyKL had to say.
or why Vergne is there! All opinion at the end of the day I guess
